Abstract
Grammatical notions like that of ‘subject’ are widely used in second language teaching. However, while the grammatical subject is generally regarded as easily identifiable in the Indo-European languages of Europe, as e.g. English, French or Italian, and is a key element in determining word order, the application of this notion to Chinese has given rise to endless controversies. On the other hand, pragmatic-discourse considerations such as topichood, world knowledge, and context, and semantic notions such as agency, causation, and the roles of participants in the described event, appear to be more significant in Chinese as factors determining word order and interpretation of utterances. In this paper, we first provide an overview of the main differences concerning subjecthood, topichood and word order in English, Italian and Chinese, highlighting their impact on learner varieties of Chinese. We then summarise the state-of-the-art of research on subject and topic, with a focus on Chinese. Lastly, we discuss the implications of these theoretical issues for Chinese as a Second/Foreign Language teaching: to this end, we propose a critical overview of how the issue of topichood and subjecthood are treated in a sample of recent English-language, Italian-language and Chinese-language coursebooks and reference materials, and propose some recommendations for instructors.
摘要
像 “主语” 这样的句法概念在第二语言教学中广泛使用。句法主语在英语、法语、意大利语等印欧语言中是一种容易识别且影响词序的关键要素，而这一概念在汉语句法中的应用引起了无休止的争论。另一方面，汉语语法中，语篇因素——如话题、世界知识、语境和语义概念（如施事和使動,以及谓词所描述的事件或状态中参与者的角色）是决定词序与解释句意的主要因素。本文首先概述英语、意大利语和中文在主语、话题和词序方面的主要差异，并突出其对汉语学习者语言变体的影响。其次，我们总结专注于中文有关主语的最新研究。最后，我们讨论这些理论问题对汉语作为第二语言/外语教学的内涵：为此，我们论述我们在最近的英语、意大利语和中文教材以及参考资料中如何处理话题、主语进行的分析，并向教师提出一些建议。
Note
Simplified Chinese characters and the Pinyin romanisation system have been used throughout the article. The glosses follow the general guidelines of the Leipzig Glossing Rules. Additional glosses include: bei = Chinese bèi passive marker; cos = ‘change of state’; exh = exhortative; sfp = ‘sentence final particle’; sp = ‘structural particle’. List of abbreviations: C. = Chinese; E. = English; I. = Italian. In this paper, we use the term ‘Chinese’ to refer to Pŭtōnghuà, the standard language of the PRC. Chinese examples that are not quoted from the literature are drawn from corpora, such as the PKU corpus of Modern and Classical Chinese, Peking University, or the BCC BLCU corpus, Beijing Language and Culture University.
About the authors
Anna Morbiato is assistant professor of Chinese at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Research Affiliate at the School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Sydney. She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Sydney and in Asian and African studies from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her research interests include information and event structure, word order and the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface, and the acquisition of Chinese as a foreign language.
Giorgio Francesco Arcodia is associate professor of Chinese at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He authored various articles in journals and edited volumes on Sinitic languages. He obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 2008 from the University of Pavia, with a thesis on derivation in Mandarin Chinese. His research focuses on derivation, compounding, Chinese dialectology, and the typology of Sinitic languages.
Bianca Basciano obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 2010 from the University of Verona with a thesis entitled “Verbal compounding and causativity in Mandarin Chinese”. She is currently assistant professor of Chinese at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her research focuses on Chinese morphosyntax, especially compounding, resultatives, causative constructions and reduplication.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 5th International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language Research (Hong Kong, 15–16 June, 2018). The authors would like to thank the participants in the discussion, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for their insightful comments. For academic purposes, Anna Morbiato is responsible for sections 1, 2, 2.1, 3, 3.1 and 3.2; Giorgio F. Arcodia is responsible for sections 2.2, 4 and 4.1; Bianca Basciano is responsible for sections 4.2, 4.3, 5 and 6.
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