Chapter 4
Noun-modifying clause constructions in Sino-Tibetan languages
After a short background introduction on Sino-Tibetan noun modifying clause constructions generally, this paper demonstrates, using naturally occurring data, that the Mandarin pre-head noun-modifying clausal construction is grammatically unlike a relative clause construction, as normally conceived, even though it can be used to restrict the identification of the referent of the head noun, but is grammatically a noun-noun compound, and, like noun compounds, exhibits grammatically unrestricted association between the head and the modifier. The pragmatics of how the relation between the modifier and the head is understood is also briefly discussed.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
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2.Sino-Tibetan
- 3.Modern Mandarin
- 4.Discussion
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Notes
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Abbreviations
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References
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Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco
Wang, Fang & Fuyun Wu
2020.
Postnominal relative clauses in Chinese.
Linguistics 58:6
► pp. 1501 ff.
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