Panel 32: Language and Thinking: The Fundamental Logic Behind Chinese Verb Resultative Complements

Full Title: Language and Thinking: The Fundamental Logic Behind Chinese Verb Resultative Complements and Modality 

Chair: Jincheng Liu, University of Notre Dame

Does language reflect diverse modes of thought? This panel addresses this question by examining three distinct grammatical phenomena in Chinese. The first presentation delves into the concept of adjacent thinking and iconicity manifested in linguistic structures, specifically through the analysis of Chinese Verb Resultative Complements. While both Chinese and English employ the sequential principle of iconicity to convey causality, English causality expressions often prioritize the outcome, whereas their Chinese equivalents adhere to the proximity principle of iconicity. The second presentation explores the grammatical encoding of realis and irrealis in Chinese. Unlike English, which utilizes tense to mark realis, Chinese lacks tense and instead employs aspects to convey temporal meanings at the grammatical level. This study takes a communicative approach to analyze realis and irrealis in Chinese, proposing a hierarchical system for their classification. The third presentation centers on three pairs of commonly used synonymous adverbs in Chinese, aiming to elucidate the subtle distinctions between them and unveil the subjective cognition underlying these particles. Overall, these three pairs of adverbs expose variances in the beliefs and viewpoints of native Chinese speakers.

Panelists

Yongping Zhu, University of Notre Dame, “Do People Think Differently When They Speak Different Languages? A Discussion of the Structure of Chinese Verb Resultative Complements”

Verb resultative complements are a widely used linguistic form in Chinese, but not in English. This presentation intends to explore the similarity of adjacent thinking and iconicity reflected in language structure, as well as the similarities and differences in expressing causality between Chinese and English. Firstly, this presentation traces previous research to demonstrate the universality of adjacent thinking and its reflection in language structure. Secondly, this presentation points out two kinds of "iconicity" in the formation of resultative complements in
Chinese language structure. The first is the "sequential principle of iconicity," that is, the order of language structure reflects the order of objective events in the real world, such as Zhangsan zai tushuguan kanshu ‘John is reading in the library’. The second is the "proximity principle of iconicity," that is, putting closely related causal factors together, such as xie-cuo zi ‘writing the wrong character’. English, on the other hand, exhibits both similarities and differences in expressing causality compared to Chinese. The similarity lies in English also adopting the "sequential principle of iconicity," as seen in sentences with resultative complements like “John wrote one character wrong,” which reflects the sequence of events, i.e., writing characters and then making a mistake. The difference lies in English's "focus on the outcome," whereas Chinese follows the "sequential principle." For example, Zhangsan ting-dong le laoshi de hua ‘John understood what the teacher said’, where the English equivalent "John understood what the teacher said (by listening)" emphasizes the outcome "understood" by placing the focus before the cause "listening." 

Jincheng Liu, University of Notre Dame, “Realis and Irrealis Modalities in Chinese”

Realis and irrealis in Chinese have garnered extensive attention in recent years (e.g., Wang 2007; Zhang and Yan 2010, 2011; Wang 2012; Wang 2023, among others). However, the categorization of the two modalities in Chinese has not been well understood. This paper adopts a communicative approach to epistemic modalities by Givón (1995) and asserts that realis is a strong assertion of a proposition to be true while irrealis is a weak assertion of a proposition to be possible. It is hypothesized that the grammatical markings for Chinese realis consist of a hierarchical system, which uses the realis negator mei and the irrealis negator bu as criteria. The first layer in the system includes the perfective -le and the experiential -guo, which are only negated by the realis negator mei. The second layer consists of the imperfective -zhe, whose negation forms, if applicable, are usually with the realis negator mei and sometimes with both negators. The third layer comprises the sentence final particle le expressing a currently related state, as it is sometimes compatible with mei and sometimes with bu. The fourth layer is the progressive zai, which can be negated by both negators. The construction [Subject + degree adverb+ adj.] uses adjectives as predicates. Such a construction is also atypical realis as it can be negated by both negators. Similarly, the Chinese irrealis also include typical and atypical members. Modal adverbs can create an irrealis scope over the proposition in which they are lodged. But some modal adverbs, such as xiang ‘want’, neng ‘be able to’, gan ‘dare’, can be negated by both negators. Declarative sentences with such modal adverbs are considered atypical irrealis assertions.

Ying Lu, Beijing Union University, “The Interplay and Constraints between Speaker Beliefs and Discursive Evidence—Evidence from Three Sets of Modal Adverbs”

Modal adverbs, as representatives of the subjectivity of the discourse subject, have a close relationship with the speaker’s subjectivity. This study focuses on three pairs of frequently used synonymous adverbs, xianran ‘apparently’ vs. guoran ‘as expected’, queshi ‘indeed’ vs. juedui ‘absolutely’, fenming ‘clearly’ vs. mingming ‘obviously’, to explore the nuanced differences between them, uncovering the subjective cognition behind these particles. In general, these three pairs of adverbs reveal differences in speaker beliefs and positions; specifically, one group reflects the speaker’s intent to emphasize consistency between subjective beliefs and expectations, underscoring that the occurrence of facts aligns with expectations and that held beliefs are rational. Another group illustrates the speaker emphasizing the incontrovertible evidence of facts, making conclusions and evaluations reasonable. Thus, the psychology behind language use transcends the rules and usages of language itself and serves as evidence and clues to our embodied cognition of the world.