Aspects of Discourse Structure in Mandarin Chinese

This study examines aspects of discourse, including thematic structure, information structure, and word order. Data consists of transcriptions of interviews with 20 Mandarin speaking informants in both institutional and non-institutional settings. Texts of three interviews, representing narrative, expository, and procedural discourse types, are intensively examined and appended. In dealing with thematic structure, emphasis is placed on the sentence-initial devices used to establish the point of departure and on the implications of thematic structure on the conceptual and cognitive processes of Chinese speakers. In discussing information structure particular attention is paid to the sentence-final devices used by speakers to indicate the focuses of their communicative interest. The study of word order is directed towards the intra-sentential dynamism, which is governed by a number of principles. The author states that all of these principles suggest a strong and significant isomorphism between word order on one hand, and real-world events and human perception on the other.