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Abstract:The essay first reviews the grammatical cases in English and Chinese, and focus on the nominative case in Chinese. Then it studies Chinese language as Topic-construction. On the basis of the above research, the essay studies the nominative case assigned to Topic-marked NPs in Modern Chinese according to Jie Xu’s theory.
Key words:Nominative case Topic-mark Chinese NPs
1 The Grammatical Cases
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause, such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. Usually a language is said to "have cases" only if nouns change their form (nouns declension) to reflect their case. Others indicate cases in different ways. Cases are related to, but distinct from, thematic roles such as agent and patient; while certain cases in each language tend to correspond to certain thematic roles, cases are a syntactic notion whereas thematic roles are a semantic one.
1.1 Cases in Chinese
Chinese is always a morphologic-analysis language. This feature is more obvious in ancient Chinese. The morphologic-analysis language refers to the language whose grammatical relation is expressed by functional words and word order. There are no morphologic changes in Modern Chinese, but other case marks still exist. Some scholars believe that Chinese has such five case marks as word order, proposition, verb, noun and reflected suffix.
Xu Yulong relates studies by Starosta in his book: (1) Word order is the case mark for nominative case and accusative case in Chinese. (2) Proposition is the orientational case mark which can be analyzed by place, orientation and objectives. (3) The verbs which involve orientation are also a case mark. (4) Nouns[ place] are also a kind of case mark in Chinese, because they are controlled by Chinese verbs or prefix. (5) Inflection changes are a case mark. In Chinese, they are used in place words, expressing a special place case. According to the above analysis, we find that Chinese is a typical morphologic-analysis language. To analyze the case mark of Chinese, word order and prefix can be understood as a means of expression.
In Chinese, the nominative case or topic does not have dominant case mark. When the nominative case and accusative case conceal, word order and the semantic category of verbs and nouns are the important evidence to judge give-take relationship. Besides, the semantic analysis of text structure is necessary. In a word, Chinese has its own special case system.
1.2 Nominative Case in Modern Chinese
The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. The nominative case is the usual, natural form (more technically, the least marked) of certain parts of speech, such as nouns, adjectives, pronouns and less frequently numerals and participles, and sometimes does not indicate any special relationship with other parts of speech. Therefore, in some languages the nominative case is unmarked, that is, the form or stem, with no inflection; alternatively, it may said to be marked by a zero morpheme. Moreover, in most languages with a nominative case, the nominative form is the lemma; that is, it is the one used to cite a word, to list it as a dictionary entry, etc. The term "nominative case" is most properly used in the discussion of nominative-accusative languages, such as Latin, Greek, and most modern Western European languages. In active-stative languages there is a case sometimes called nominative which is the most marked case, and is used for the subject of a transitive verb or a voluntary subject of an intransitive verb, but not for an involuntary subject of an intransitive verb; since such languages are a relatively new field of study, there is no standard name for this case.
According to the works "Sentence Head and Sentence Structure" by Jie Xu, it should be a UG-defined property that I, as a functional X0 category, plays the two important roles of heading a maximal syntactic category and of assigning Nominative Case to a subject NP, no matter whether a particular language has morphological inflections or not. Different types of languages differ minimally with respect to I in that in some languages [predicators] alone constitutes I, while others obligatorily require [predicators][tense] and [agr] to be included in their I. This difference in I is represented by Chinese and English. The I with the Chinese value will be calledIC’, and I with English valueIe’.
Comrie(1989: 127) points out that case mark does not have direct relation with grammar and functions to distinguish agent and recepient. In Chinese, the nominative case is assigned to the subject(usually NPs) by IC and the accusative case to the object.Eg.Daxiang [IC [IP bizi chang]]. "Daxiang" is the subject which is assigned nominative case by IC.
2 Topic Construction
Since the works of Li and Thompson(1976,19810, it has been widely that one typology can be established on the basis of whether the "topic" or the "subject" is prominent in a given language, namely the so called " Topic-/ Subject- prominent Language Typology". According to the theory, Chinese is categorized as a Topic-prominent or Discourse-oriented language in contrast with Subject- prominent or Sentence- oriented languages like English. So, the topic mark is very important in Chinese.
According to the research by Wang Jianguo, there are seven topic marks in Chinese. He cites the seven topic marks by usage frequency: (a) parenthesis, pronoun, noun→(b) notional preposition→(c)relevant elements→(d)functional preposition, predication→(e)modal particle→(f) punctuation→(g) word order. He claims that there should be no full time topic marks in both Chinese and English languages and that the use of the marks should be studied from the perspective of possibility and reality. It is found that among the Chinese or English topic marks, there are differences in frequency of use and that between the marks of the corresponding categories of the two languages exist resemblances in frequency of use from the perspective of possibility but differences from the perspective of reality.
The "topic-prominent" properties are listed here: a. A topic NP in addition to a subject NP; b. Surface coding ofTopic’(i.e., aTopic mark’);c. Null subjects; d.Topic chains’(or null topics).
3 The Case of Topic-marked NPs in Modern Chinese
According to Jie Xu’s works, "Topic-Constructions" are simply a type of "Multiple Nominative Constructions". The NPs with a topic mark are assigned some kind of special case other than nominative. He argues that the topic mark is not a case mark in the first place.
Though the topic mark is not a case mark itself, it may override or erase the case mark. So the Topic-marked NPs are in fact assigned nominative case which distinguishes themselves from typical nominative-marked NPs. There is some evidence in Jie Xu’s works: (a) Some finite sentences have just a topic-marked NP and some other non-nominative NPs, so we can only imagine the nominative case discharged to the Topic-marked NP. (b) Because Topic-marked NPs are assigned Nominative case but not other cases, so that Topic marks can alternate with Nominative marks.
Key words:Nominative case Topic-mark Chinese NPs
1 The Grammatical Cases
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause, such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. Usually a language is said to "have cases" only if nouns change their form (nouns declension) to reflect their case. Others indicate cases in different ways. Cases are related to, but distinct from, thematic roles such as agent and patient; while certain cases in each language tend to correspond to certain thematic roles, cases are a syntactic notion whereas thematic roles are a semantic one.
1.1 Cases in Chinese
Chinese is always a morphologic-analysis language. This feature is more obvious in ancient Chinese. The morphologic-analysis language refers to the language whose grammatical relation is expressed by functional words and word order. There are no morphologic changes in Modern Chinese, but other case marks still exist. Some scholars believe that Chinese has such five case marks as word order, proposition, verb, noun and reflected suffix.
Xu Yulong relates studies by Starosta in his book: (1) Word order is the case mark for nominative case and accusative case in Chinese. (2) Proposition is the orientational case mark which can be analyzed by place, orientation and objectives. (3) The verbs which involve orientation are also a case mark. (4) Nouns[ place] are also a kind of case mark in Chinese, because they are controlled by Chinese verbs or prefix. (5) Inflection changes are a case mark. In Chinese, they are used in place words, expressing a special place case. According to the above analysis, we find that Chinese is a typical morphologic-analysis language. To analyze the case mark of Chinese, word order and prefix can be understood as a means of expression.
In Chinese, the nominative case or topic does not have dominant case mark. When the nominative case and accusative case conceal, word order and the semantic category of verbs and nouns are the important evidence to judge give-take relationship. Besides, the semantic analysis of text structure is necessary. In a word, Chinese has its own special case system.
1.2 Nominative Case in Modern Chinese
The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. The nominative case is the usual, natural form (more technically, the least marked) of certain parts of speech, such as nouns, adjectives, pronouns and less frequently numerals and participles, and sometimes does not indicate any special relationship with other parts of speech. Therefore, in some languages the nominative case is unmarked, that is, the form or stem, with no inflection; alternatively, it may said to be marked by a zero morpheme. Moreover, in most languages with a nominative case, the nominative form is the lemma; that is, it is the one used to cite a word, to list it as a dictionary entry, etc. The term "nominative case" is most properly used in the discussion of nominative-accusative languages, such as Latin, Greek, and most modern Western European languages. In active-stative languages there is a case sometimes called nominative which is the most marked case, and is used for the subject of a transitive verb or a voluntary subject of an intransitive verb, but not for an involuntary subject of an intransitive verb; since such languages are a relatively new field of study, there is no standard name for this case.
According to the works "Sentence Head and Sentence Structure" by Jie Xu, it should be a UG-defined property that I, as a functional X0 category, plays the two important roles of heading a maximal syntactic category and of assigning Nominative Case to a subject NP, no matter whether a particular language has morphological inflections or not. Different types of languages differ minimally with respect to I in that in some languages [predicators] alone constitutes I, while others obligatorily require [predicators][tense] and [agr] to be included in their I. This difference in I is represented by Chinese and English. The I with the Chinese value will be calledIC’, and I with English valueIe’.
Comrie(1989: 127) points out that case mark does not have direct relation with grammar and functions to distinguish agent and recepient. In Chinese, the nominative case is assigned to the subject(usually NPs) by IC and the accusative case to the object.Eg.Daxiang [IC [IP bizi chang]]. "Daxiang" is the subject which is assigned nominative case by IC.
2 Topic Construction
Since the works of Li and Thompson(1976,19810, it has been widely that one typology can be established on the basis of whether the "topic" or the "subject" is prominent in a given language, namely the so called " Topic-/ Subject- prominent Language Typology". According to the theory, Chinese is categorized as a Topic-prominent or Discourse-oriented language in contrast with Subject- prominent or Sentence- oriented languages like English. So, the topic mark is very important in Chinese.
According to the research by Wang Jianguo, there are seven topic marks in Chinese. He cites the seven topic marks by usage frequency: (a) parenthesis, pronoun, noun→(b) notional preposition→(c)relevant elements→(d)functional preposition, predication→(e)modal particle→(f) punctuation→(g) word order. He claims that there should be no full time topic marks in both Chinese and English languages and that the use of the marks should be studied from the perspective of possibility and reality. It is found that among the Chinese or English topic marks, there are differences in frequency of use and that between the marks of the corresponding categories of the two languages exist resemblances in frequency of use from the perspective of possibility but differences from the perspective of reality.
The "topic-prominent" properties are listed here: a. A topic NP in addition to a subject NP; b. Surface coding ofTopic’(i.e., aTopic mark’);c. Null subjects; d.Topic chains’(or null topics).
3 The Case of Topic-marked NPs in Modern Chinese
According to Jie Xu’s works, "Topic-Constructions" are simply a type of "Multiple Nominative Constructions". The NPs with a topic mark are assigned some kind of special case other than nominative. He argues that the topic mark is not a case mark in the first place.
Though the topic mark is not a case mark itself, it may override or erase the case mark. So the Topic-marked NPs are in fact assigned nominative case which distinguishes themselves from typical nominative-marked NPs. There is some evidence in Jie Xu’s works: (a) Some finite sentences have just a topic-marked NP and some other non-nominative NPs, so we can only imagine the nominative case discharged to the Topic-marked NP. (b) Because Topic-marked NPs are assigned Nominative case but not other cases, so that Topic marks can alternate with Nominative marks.