Subjectivity and result marking in Mandarin

Abstract

Recent corpus studies have shown that differences in subjectivity − the degree to which speakers express themselves in an utterance − can account for the usage of causal connectives (because, so) in major European languages. If the notion of subjectivity is a basic cognitive principle, it ought to play a role in the description of connectives in other languages. In this paper, we present a corpus analysis of five Mandarin result connectives, kĕjiàn, suŏyĭ, yīncĭ, yīn'ér, and yúshì. We used four subjectivity indicators: modality, domain (following Sweetser 1990), and the presence and identity of a Subject of Consciousness -the person responsible for constructing the causal relation. Results show that kĕjiàn, suŏyĭ, yīncĭ, yīn'ér, and yúshì display different degrees of subjectivity. To a large degree, our findings corroborate previous observations in the literature (e.g. the ones in Xing 2001).However, our analysis also shows that while kĕjiàn, yúshì, and yīn'ér have robust profiles across genres, the subjective meanings of suŏyĭ and yīncĭ, two common connectors, are genre sensitive.

Causality and subjectivity in discourse: The meaning and use of causal connectives in spontaneous conversation, chat interactions and written text

“…We would like to see such methods used in studies that could re veal whether other, lessrelated languages, also encode such categories of cau sality, or other types of coherence relations. Recent results on Mandarin Chinese (Li et al 2013), and results from studies looking into parallel corpora of translated texts (Cartoni et al 2013) are promising. Table A2: Parameter estimates for model 6 (Table A1).…”

Causality and Subjectivity in Spanish Connectives: Exploring the Use of Automatic Subjectivity Analyses in Various Text Types

“…However, there is evidence in diff erent languages showing that some connectives preferentially express objective meanings, while others specialize in expressing subjective meanings. Most of these studies have focused on Dutch (Pander Maat & Degand, 2001;Pander Maat & Sanders, 2001;Pit, 2006;Verhagen, 2005;Sanders & Spooren, 2015;Stukker & Sanders, 2009); there are also studies on German (Günthner, 1993;Keller, 1995;Pit, 2007;Stukker & Sanders, 2012;Wegener, 2000), and other typologically less related languages have also been explored, such as Mandarin-Chinese (Li et al, 2013) and French (Degand & Pander Maat, 2003;Zuff erey, 2012). However, other Romance languages, such as Spanish, are understudied r om this perspective.…”

Unifying dimensions in coherence relations: How various annotation frameworks are related

“…In a paraphrase test, the annotator is instructed to choose one of two or more given paraphrases that best suits the coherence relation expressed in the text. We noticed that the framework manuals and their discussion of annotated examples hardly propagate the use of such text-linguistic tests, even though such tests have proved their value in studies on connectives in language use in various languages and across genres and media (see among others, Degand and Maat 2003;Knott and Dale 1994;Li et al 2013;Pit 2007;Spooren and Sanders 2008;Stukker et al 2008;Zufferey 2012). A notable exception is PDTB's process for annotating implicit relations, where annotators are instructed to insert a connective that, according to them, accurately captures the relation.…”

“…Results of corpus-based studies suggest that the lexicons of connectives in various languages are organized according to similar dimensions. Even though some languages have been studied more intensively than others, recent research (see Degand and Pander Maat 2003;Stukker and Sanders 2012; for an overview on causal connectives) suggests that the relevance of the CCR-dimensions not only holds for closely related languages like Dutch, English, French and German, but also for typologically less-related languages like Mandarin (Li et al 2013;Li et al 2016). This research program is far from finished, however, and is currently being tested on more languages.…”