The Chinese Particle Le: Discourse Construction and Pragmatic Marking in Chinese (Routledge Studies in Asian Linguistics)

Ever since the start of Chinese linguistic studies, the description of the Chinese particle LE has remained elusive. The classification has evolved from a listing of sentences and the discussion of contrastive pairs to a more context and discourse--oriented analysis. The development in recent years of inferential models and situation semantics has opened the way for a renewed study of the use of the Chinese particle LE. The present book discusses the Chinese data from a 'mental space' perspective and brings out the role so -called Chinese 'sentence LE' plays in the construction and maintenance of discourse. The Book Gives An Overview Of The Various Approaches To The Particle, And Traces The Historic Development Of The Particle From Han Times To Its Modern Usage. It Shows How The Idea Of 'completion Of A Situation' In Han Time Started To Develop Into A Discourse Marker During The Song Dynasty And Thereafter Evolved Into The Modern Usage Of The Particle Le. Modern Usage Is Grasped Through An Analysis Of More Than Five Hundred Contextualised Examples, Which Illustrate Uses Of The Particle Le In Procedural Discourse, In Children's Stories, And In Everyday Conversations.--jacket. 1. Introduction -- 2. Previous Studies -- 3. The Particle Le And The Study Of Language Use -- 4. The Historical Development Of The Particle Le -- 5. Action-picture Stories -- 6. Children's Stories -- 7. Conversations. Marinus Van Den Berg And Guo Wu. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [272]-277) And Index. Ever since the start of Chinese linguistic studies, the description of the Chinese particle LE has remained elusive. The classification has evolved from a listing of sentences and the discussion of contrastive pairs to a more context and discourse-oriented analysis. The development in recent years of inferential models and situation semantics has opened the way for a renewed study of the use of the Chinese particle LE. This book discusses the Chinese data from a'mental space'perspective and finally reveals the role so-called Chinese'sentence LE'plays in the construction and maintenance of discourse. Ever since the start of Chinese linguistic studies, the description of the Chinese particle LE has remained elusive. The classification has evolved from a listing of sentences and the discussion of contrastive pairs to a more context and discourse-oriented analysis. The development in recent years of inferential models and situation semantics has opened the way for a renewed study of the use of the Chinese particle LE. This book discusses the Chinese data from a 'mental space' perspective and finally reveals the role so-called Chinese 'sentence LE' plays in the construction and maintenance