DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L312151
Authors: Yuhuan Wang
Abstract: Three morphosyntactic forms of Mandarin direct object are examined for their discourse functions. Results from an empirical study show that Mandarin speakers choose to use the BA-construction to foreground objects whose referents they deem noteworthy for the development of the discourse; they opt for object-incorporation to background objects whose referents they consider insignificant. Otherwise, they leave objects ground-neutral in the canonical object-bearing structure. These discourse grounding devices are argued to be linguistic responses to the cognitive demand for attention management.
Keywords: direct object; morphosyntax; cognitive-functional; discourse grounding; Mandarin
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