1. Nature of the Study

The purpose of this study is to uncover some basic, underlying, cognition-based functional principles of word order in Mandarin Chinese by investigating certain specific syntactic phenomena. These are: sentential starting points , the so-called "pseudo passive" sentences, presentative sentences, paratactic construction, and inverted sentences. This study is on two related aspects, namely, the relationship between word order patterns and their conditioning principles in Chinese, and the interplay among conditioning principles in the shaping process of these patterns.

2. Theoretical Background

There are two fundamentally different approaches to the analysis of linguistic structures, linguistic universals, as well as linguistic variations. One is the formalist approach, which focuses on the formal structures of human language. The other is the functional approach, which focuses on the functions of linguistic structures in human communication.

It holds that the fundamental function of language is human communication, and that grammatical structures are derived from the interactions among human's general cognitive categories and processes. These structures are constrained by the human conceptualization of physical reality in conjunction with general cognitive abilities of human beings, such as perceptual categories, memory capacity, and processing strategies. Thus, grammar, as Tai (to appear: 9) puts it, "can be viewed as a complex mapping function from humans' conceptualization of the multiple-dimensional physical world to the one-dimensional linearity of human speech." It is different from the formalist view that grammar is an arbitrary, autonomous, self-contained formal system for humans to interpret and communicate about the world. It maintains that language is a means to human communication, and linguistic structure reflects its role as such a means, "rather than an instantiation of an abstract set of mental representations" (Biq, Tai, and Thompson, to appear: 1).

Unlike the current formalist approaches, which seek grammar-internal formal explanations for linguistic phenomena, the functional approach seeks the necessary link between language forms and functions, and system-external, functional explanations. As Biq, Tai and Thompson (To appear: 2) put it, "genuine explanations lie in both the structures of the real world, as conceptualized by the language user, and the linearity of human speech." In other words, such functional explanations are sought in terms of human's perceptual and cognitive structures, processing strategies, and conversational principles between speakers and hearers.

This cognition-based functional approach recognizes both linguistic universality and disparity. Language universality is established on the basis of common needs of human communication, and the general constraints on linguistic structures by human conceptions about the real world shaped via the interaction between the common biological and neuro-physical structures of the human body and the physical world. Language disparity is associated with different conceptualization of the same reality from different perspectives in different cultures. Despite the fact that human biological make- up, cognitive abilities, and the general features of our physical world are the same, peoples around the world have different socio-cultural traditions, and different experiences in their interactions with the world. Those social variants may lead to different perspectives from which they approach the same physical reality, and may have significant impact upon their conceptualized world and hence their linguistic structures, though what degree such impact has is still not that clear.

Chomsky's generative grammar, the dominant formalist theory, views that linguistic universals are manifestations of human's innate language-specific faculty, which is modularized and independent of other cognitive systems. This language-specific faculty is characterized by Chomsky in his Universal Grammar. This Universal Grammar consists of inborn sets of principles and parameters. Language complexities, both universals and variations, are the results of different interactions between parameters and principles of that grammar.

The cognition-based functional viewpoint about linguistic universality and disparity lends us a different approach towards linguistic universals in terms of invariants of human biological make-up and common features of the physical world. The spirit of Tai's cognition-based functionalism can be illustrated in the following three areas: space, categorization, and iconicity.

Space is one of the most important cognitive domains underlying human languages. Following Anderson (1971), Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976) and others, Tai (1989a, 1993) treats spatial expressions as more basic conceptually and grammatically, than non-spatial expressions. At the same time, he points out that though languages generally follow certain universal functional principles, differences can be found as a result of different strategies in conceptualizing spatial relationships. Examples can be given from both Chinese and English.

(1) 书在箱子里头 。

(2) The book is in the box

In both (1) and (2), the relationship between "the book" and "the box" can be viewed as that between a focal object and a referent object, with the focal object reduced into a geometric point and the referent object construed as a three-dimensional geometric enclosure. However, the Chinese expression differs from the English one in that the Chinese expression uses the verb zai 'to exist, to be located' to indicate the existence of an object in a location and then pin down its specific location with litou 'inside,' while the English one utilizes the preposition in to indicate the spatial relationship between focal object and reference object. It appears that while Chinese adopts a more transparent, analytical, two step strategy in conceptualizing the spatial relationships between the focal and reference object, English adopts a one step strategy by lexicalizing the same spatial relationship in the form of spatial propositions ("in," "on" "at",

etc.).

Another set of examples can be given from the spatial expressions regarding the Whole-Part relationship. Chinese word order tends to follow the Whole-Before-Part order as illustrated in the following examples:

(3a) 五个苹果烂了三个。

(3b) 五个苹果三个烂了。

(4a) 五个苹果我吃了三个。

(4b) 我五个苹果吃了三个。

(4c) 五个苹果被我吃了三个。

Examples (3)-(4) show that in many Chinese syntactic patterns, the Whole-Before-Part relationship always holds as a constant. Violation of this order will result in ungrammaticality.

Another important aspect of human cognition is categorization. Tai adopts a different approach from the traditional one, which classifies a category on the basis of a set of discrete properties serving as necessary and sufficient criterial conditions to define that category. Tai's approach follows the "prototype theory" which holds that human categorization can be achieved through association with the prototype(s). In other words, members of a category associate with each other in terms of "family resemblance." In addition, Tai holds the view that human categorization results from the interaction between the human body and its physical environment in different socio-cultural contexts. Thus, human experience and imagination play a crucial role. One good example can be furnished from the study of Chinese classifier tiao (Tai and Wang 1990). It shows that the semantic content of tiao is cognition-based. It is used by native speakers to classify long-shaped objects but not different types of nouns. Thus, as for melons such as huangguo 'cucumber,' kugua 'bitter melon,' and xigua 'water melon,' only those with long-shape are classified with tiao. Those melons which are not long-shaped such as xigua 'water melon' cannot be classified with tiao. However, because legal articles and news items have been written vertically on the page in traditional Chinese culture, the classifier tiao is metaphorically extended to categorize abstract entities such as falyu 'legal article' and xinwen 'news item.' Thus, the apparent arbitariness of the categorization involving the classifier tiao can be understood through human imagination in the Chinese cultural context.

Tai holds the view that the simplest as well as one of the most economical ways for linguistic structures to reflect humans' conceptualized world is through iconicity. Thus, iconicity plays a crucial role in a cognition-based functional grammar. Tai shows that Chinese syntactic patterns demonstrate a more transparent relationship between the conceptualized world and linguistic structure. For example, Tai (1985) points out that Chinese word order demonstrate parallel relations with the temporal sequence of events and temporal scope of conceptualized states in the conceptual world.

The Principle of Temporal Sequence orders the linguistic structure in such a way that the order of linguistic elements follow the order of the temporal order of states that they represent. For example:

(5) 他坐车到这里。

(6) 他到这里坐车。

In (5), "riding in a car" precedes "arriving here." Sentence (6) indicates the reversed situation. With respect to the meaning of each sentence, one cannot change their respective word order.

The Principle of Temporal Scope patterns linguistic elements in such a way that a constituent with smaller temporal range follows one with larger range. For example:

(7a) 他昨天走了。

(7b) 昨天他走了。

(7c) *他走了昨天。

As illustrated by (7), Chinese time adverbs and adverbial clauses must precede the verb. Since the temporal range of the action denoted by the verb is within the temporal range denoted by the time adverb, the verb therefore is within the temporal scope of the time adverb and by PTSC is placed after the time adverb (Tai 1985: 61). PTSC is a principle which can be derived from a basic temporal-spatial relationship, the Container-Before- Contained order. This relationship can be exemplified by the following presentative sentence.

(8) 屋里坐着一个人。

Sentence (8) follows strictly the Container-Before-Contained schema by placing the container, wu li 'room inside' before the contained, yi ge ren 'a person.' In the later chapters of this dissertation, I will show that this conceptual schema is one of the most important conceptual principles responsible for the word order of Chinese sentences.

The pervasive iconic patterns as demonstrated in expressions of spatial relationships, categorization as well as patterns of word order shows that Chinese grammar is to a great extent, iconicity-motivated, and conceptual-based in that general conceptual principles such as temporal sequence and Container-Before-Contained constitute important structural principles in the language.

From a perspective of a researcher and language teacher of Chinese, this cognition-based functional approach facilitates a better position to tackle some unique phenomena demonstrated in the teaching of the Chinese language. For example, given the same physical reality, such as "many books in the library," the preferred responses from English speaking people and Chinese speaking people in their verbal descriptions are different, though alternative patterns are available in both languages. In English, we have two patterns corresponding to this situation:

(8) There are many books in the library.

(9) The library has many books.

In Chinese, we have these two:

(10) 有很多书在图书馆。

(11) 图书馆里有很多书。

In English, the preferred pattern is (8), while in Chinese, that is (11). But why is this the case? How should we explain this phenomena to our students of Chinese with regard to the different preference? It will be clear in the later parts of this dissertation that the preference of (11) over (10) is due to the fact that Whole-Before-Part is one of the most preferred general strategies in Chinese word order.

Since both languages allow both patterns, the difference seems not to be a matter of absoluteness, but a matter of the preferred perspective to look at the same situation. From a pedagogical perspective, the cognition-based functional approach will better our position in dealing with problems as such in the teaching of the target language in its own terms. As it will be shown in this study, the illustrated Chinese preference is due to the impact of some predominant conceptual structure in Chinese, and can be accounted for by the cognition-based functional approach, which provides us with a different angle to approach universals across languages as well as features unique to individual languages. A linguistic study with this approach will contribute an explanatory means to the ever demanding requirements in the teaching of the Chinese language to help both teachers and students better teach and grasp the target language in terms of the conceptual system of Chinese language.

It is from this pedagogical perspective that I would focus on the word order phenomena which are unique to Chinese, but which can be explained in terms of universal functional principles.

3. A Functional Tradition

The above functional viewpoint reflects the continuation of the functional heritage that can first be traced back to the central tenet of the Prague School tradition, and then to the further development of the functional movement in the field of general linguistics in the past decades. This viewpoint roots itself in the central spirit of Prague School approach, which views language as consisting of two important aspects, the structural (systematic) and the functional aspects, as highlighted in the "Theses" (Danes 1987). That is, on the one hand, language is systematically structured in terms of rules, and on the other hand, the structure of language is only the means to the communicative ends. This viewpoint about language is shared and reiterated by Sgall. Sgall (1987) regards language as a functioning system adapted to its communicative role.

As for linguistic universals, Mathesius (1936) considers them thinkable only against the background of the common needs of communication and expression. Such common needs, as Danes& (1987: 10) points out, "should most probably be sought for in the underlying cognitive (gnoseological) content units and structures, as well as in some anthropological invariants and social communicative conditions." Nevertheless, recognizing the unavoidable impact of socio-cultural diversities on human cognitive contents and structures, Danes& further argues, "To be sure, the universality of the mentioned facts is not absolutely universal, culture-independent; in certain cases they are different." Therefore, the probe of linguistic disparities is not only justified, but also necessary in its contribution to the understanding of human languages. Thus, this functional tradition does not merely look at language in terms of its general communicative purpose, but views it as a system necessarily associated with general human cognition in terms of both universality and diversity.

In the field of Chinese linguistics, there is also a strong functional tradition as documented in Biq, Tai, and Thompson (to appear). The tremendous contributions and efforts of the past half century in the functional tradition have laid a solid foundation for the analysis of Chinese grammar. They have provided systematic and valuable descriptions, leading to an overall understanding of the grammatical structure of the Chinese language. At the same time, they have laid a solid theoretical ground for a functional approach to the study of Chinese grammar in its own terms.

Within this long tradition, two new functional approaches to Chinese grammar have recently been developed. They are the cognition-based functional approach and the discourse-oriented functional approach. These approaches as a whole can be viewed as a strong reaction to the structualist-formalist orientation in Chinese linguistics following the Saussure-Bloomfield-Chomsky tradition in the field of general linguistics. Despite different variations within this formalist trend, it is characteristic of the trend as a whole to maintain that grammar is an arbitrary, autonomous, and self-contained formal system of rules.

However, more and more researchers in general linguistics such as Givon (1979, 1984), Haiman (1980, 1983, 1985a, b), Hopper & Thompson (1984), Hopper (1987, 1991), Langacker (1987), Lakoff (1987), and in Chinese linguistics, such as Tai (1985, 1989a, 1993) have come to realize that language system is closely associated with human cognition; it is regulated by conventionalized conceptual structure obtained via the interaction between the human race and the physical world; and it is bound to its fundamental communicative function. The grammatical system of language is an ever-emerging process motivated by the needs of human communication. Hence the purpose of linguistic study is to investigate the relationship between language system and human conceptual structure of the real world in terms of the fundamental communicative function of language.

It is in the spirit of this functional viewpoint of language that Tai (1989a) brings forth his theory of a cognition-based functional grammar of Chinese. Tai (1989a: 187) states that such an approach "allows the grammar of Chinese to be analyzed independent of grammatical categorization based on European languages, so that an understanding of the structural principles of Chinese in terms of some basic human cognitive abilities in conjunction with general principles of communication can be achieved."

The significance of Tai's effort can be interpreted as two-fold. One is its challenge to the current formalist trend in Chinese linguistics, and the other is its "wake-up call" effect for the return to the original cognition-based functional spirit in Prague School functionalism within the functional movement itself.

Many practitioners in the field of functional linguistics have shifted from the cognition-based functional orientation. This shift is reflected in two aspects. The first is the sole focus on the "function of language units" within the system itself at the expense of the relationship between communicative function and language system, which is at the core of Prague School functionalism. The second one is the disassociation of language system from human cognition. The first one leads to a simplistic emphasis on the study of system-internal functions of structural units within a language system, without touching upon the important shaping force exerted by the link between that system and its fundamental function of communication demanded by the human society. The second one leads to an overall neglect of the regulating impact of human cognitive structure on the formation of language system. The lack of explanatory value resulting from such a shift can be easily detected in works from the late seventies to the present time by Chinese functional structuralists, especially those by Lu (1993) and Zhu (1980, 1982, 1985) despite their highly appreciated descriptive value to the understanding of the grammatical structure of Chinese.

Fortunately, many researchers in the functional movement in Chinese linguistics realize that a mere description of functions of system-internal units does not provide satisfactory answers to the question why the Chinese grammatical system is what it is. It cannot offer adequate analyses of many linguistic phenomena stemming from the unique socio-cultural environment, and those phenomena associated with a broad range of extra- linguistic factors in the communicative contexts. This academic awakening in conjunction with the frustration about the failure of formalist approaches in the analyses of basic facts of the Chinese language has given rise to newly thriving efforts in functional orientation. These efforts are reflected in recent linguistic works covering a wide range of interests and concerns. For example, there are Biq's (1984/1987. 1988a, 1988b, 1989a, 1989b) contribution to the study of Chinese pragmatics, Chappel and Thompson's (1993) works on the particle de in terms of iconicity in Chinese, Chan (1980) on aspect markers, Chen (1983) on the ba construction, Chen (1984, 1987a) and Y. Huang (1994) on zero anaphora, Chen (1986, 1987b) on referentiality, Chu's (1987a, 1987b, 1988) works dealing with the interplay among syntax, semantics and pragmatics in Chinese, Chu and Chang's (1987) discussion of the particle le in terms of discourse function, Chui's (1994) analysis of the information structure in discourse, Y. Huang (1991) on pragmatics, LaPolla's (1989, 1990, 1992) original opinions on relational structures in Chinese in terms of information structure, Miracle (1991) on discourse markers in Chinese, a series of works by various authors in Tai and Hsueh (1989), Tai and Hu (1991) on inverted sentences in Beijing conversational discourse with the approach of conversation analysis, Tao (1993) on discourse and grammatical units by investigating of natural speech, Tsao's (1987, 1988, 1989) works covering a wide range of phenomena in Chinese syntax with a topic-comment approach, Zubin and Li (1986) on anaphora and word order, just to list a few.

Despite different perspectives and the specific approaches these studies take, they share a common goal. That is to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the language system of Chinese in terms of the relationship between linguistic forms and their communicative functions within Chinese socio-cultural environment. It is from this cognition-based functional ground that the current study will launch its investigation of the listed subjects to fill in the current gap in the study of Chinese word order, which is an important part of the Chinese grammatical system.

4. The Study of Chinese Word Order

Due to the lack of inflectional morphology, word order plays an extremely important role in Chinese grammar with its marking function in the relational structure of Chinese. For a long time, great efforts have been spent on uncovering the governing principles of word order in Mandarin Chinese. Early in the 1950's, Chinese grammarians started a heated debate about the grammatical meanings of "subject" and "object" with respect to the order of Chinese syntactic patterns (Lyu 1956). In the United States, word order of Chinese has also been extensively discussed in terms of either Greenberg's typological universals (Tai 1973, Li and Thompson 1974 a, b, S-F Huang 1978, Light 1979, Cheung 1979, Mei 1980, Chu 1984, Sun and Givon 1985), or in terms of phrase structure principles of Universal Grammar and their parameterization in Chinese (Huang 1982, 1987; Li 1990).

The discussion in the fifties has not come up with any conclusions, due to the exclusive focus upon system-internal functions, and the general confusion about the relationship between grammatical functions and semantic functions. That is, they either equate syntactic functions, subject and object with semantic functions agent and patient, or totally disregard the mapping relationship between the two. The latter researches in the seventies and in the past two decades share two common features. The first one is, instead of finding out the essence of Chinese word order in relation to its functions and its underlying principles within and without the system, these studies are aimed at proofs for certain hypothetical linguistic universals for their respective theoretical frameworks. The second one is the generally shared assumption that language is an autonomous self-contained system. This theoretical basis has been specially strengthened by the introduction of the Generative Transformational Grammar, and later the Government and Binding Theory into the field of Chinese linguistics. On such a theoretical ground, the scope of study is confined to the language-internal system itself. The motivating factors for the formation of Chinese word order patterns are seldom touched upon, though very often these factors are crucial in the analysis of Chinese word order. Thus, due to the lack of functional and psychological evidence to support the descriptive adequacy of the results other than the hypotheses the researches postulate, very often what such studies can offer is only stipulation.

5. A Cognition-Based Functional Viewpoint about Word Order

Functionalists like Mathesius (1942; 1975) and Firbas (1992) hold that word order is a system governed by the mutual relations of word order principles, including grammatical principles, functional sentence perspective (FSP) principle, emphasis and sentence rhythm principles. Explained by Firbas (1992: 118), grammatical principles include both the principle of grammatical function and the principle of coherence of members. The FSP principle arranges sentence elements in a Theme-Transition-Rheme sequence in terms of information flow. The principle of emphasis orders the words in a way that strikes the recipients as more or less out of the ordinary. That is, it is a pragmatically motivated principle from the producer's perspective. The principle of sentence rhythm determines the stress patterns in spoken language. However, they basically view different linguistic levels, namely grammatical, functional and prosodic levels as unrelated, self-contained, autonomous domains and at the same time they fully recognize the importance of the impact of their interplay on the determination of word order to fulfill specific communicative purposes. Referring to Jellinek (1913-14), Firbas also recognizes the iconic relations between word order and the natural order of the phenomena in nature, although he has not pointed this out as explicitly, and as in a broad sense, as Langacker (1987) and Tai (1989) that language system itself is a symbolization of the conceptualized real world. However, Firbas (1992: 139) does bring forth an important view in dealing with word order phenomena in general:

... language does not invariably follow the orders of the extra-linguistic reality. It is not a slave to this reality. Owing to an interplay of means, controlled by the immediate communicative concern and purpose of the speaker, language is capable of approaching the extra-linguistic reality from different angles and viewing it in different perspectives.

In the current study, I will follow the view shared by Langacker and Tai that language is a symbolization of the conventionalized conceptual world. At the same time I accept Firbas' insight that language is not a direct reflection of the real word, but corresponds at an abstract level to "the language user's experience of the extra-linguistic reality" (Firbas, 1992: 139) and conditioned by the language user's communicative purpose. In light of the above viewpoints, I hold that various word order phenomena are due to the result of competition and co-operation among conceptional principles, grammatical principles and functional principles. The principle of sentence rhythm also plays an important role in word order. It may interplay with other principles, such as conceptual principles in the determination of word order patterns. One example can be given from Wang's (1989) observation. Wang (1989: 188) points out the order in "to put on socks and shoes" is iconic, in the sense that the syntactic order corresponds to the temporal order, i.e., socks before the shoes. But the phrase "to put on shoes and stockings" is not. In this latter case, the iconic order has lost its competition against the phonological preference for monosyllables to precede disyllables in English, as in bread and butter, gas and electric, etc. This is a good example to illustrate possible sources of apparent arbitrariness which arise from the competition between two equally motivated principles. On the other hand, however, as observed by Jakobson (1971: 350), "temporal order of speech events tends to mirror the order of narrated events in time or in rank." Thus, a sequence such as "the President and the Dean" is more usual than the reversed order, since the word order here reflects the ranking of official status. In this case, even though the preference in English is to put a monosyllables before disyllables, the order of "the Presesident and the Dean" is more natural. So far, however, what role the principle of rhythm plays in the determination of word order in Chinese is not clear. Besides, without an extensive investigation of data elicited from natural speech, it will be inappropriate for me to offer any comment on this aspect of the language in this dissertation.

I hold that language is a symbolization of conventionalized conceptions about the real world. On the one hand, there is an iconic relationship between the linguistic reality and the extra-linguistic reality reflected in the organization of the grammatical structure of language, and on the other hand, such a relationship should not be viewed as a direct one-to-one correspondence between the two, but as a relationship established via the conventionalized conceptions about the extra-linguistic reality formed in different social- cultural contexts. The latter viewpoint implies that first, language cannot be a totally autonomous, arbitrary, symbolic system as current mainstream linguistic theory suggests. Second, it differs from Jackendoff's (1987) view that different levels of language organization, including syntactic, and semantic/conceptual levels are autonomous and independent, and only linked via sets of arbitrary correspondence rules. My opinion is that grammatical structure reflects the conceptual structure at an abstract level and is regulated by the conceptual structure, rather than an autonomous independent system. Third, it also implies that instead of being universal in every respect, the conceptual structure is to certain extent socio-culturally unique.

As pointed out earlier, however, at the surface, there does not need to be a one-to- one correspondence between the conceptual structure and the grammatical structure of a language. That is because, once crystallized, the grammatical structure develops along its own lines, and frequently, adjustments have to be made to meet various requirements of different communicative goals.

In the following chapters, I will examine step by step how word order is determined by the interplay of principles at different levels.

6. Organization of the Study

The contents of the subsequent chapters are outlined below. In Chapter II, the starting point of Chinese sentences is analyzed in relation to the general governing conceptual principles and functional principles in the formation of Chinese syntactic patterns. The relationship between natural order and salient order in Chinese will also be addressed.

Chapter III and Chapter IV offer detailed analyses of two closely related syntactic patterns of "presentative sentences," and the "paratactic construction." Their basic communicative functions, the conceptual motivations, as well as the interplay of different conditioning principles are discussed. In addition, the semantic situations presented by the concerned syntactic patterns are also addressed.

Chapter V provides a close examination of the so-called "pseudo passive" sentences in terms of the relationship between their word order and the functional sentence perspective involved in their information structure.

In Chapter VI, "inverted sentences" in Beijing conversational discourse are analyzed in relation to the regulating impact of pragmatic factors and the concept of emergent grammar. Chapter VII presents conclusions of the study.