Structural, semantic & pragmatic properties of Nong constructions in Mandarin: Evidence from corpora
What is it about?
This paper extends a previous study on the use patterns of the so-called light verb nong 弄 in three types of discourse genres: natural speech (telephone conversation), TV show (sitcom), and written text. Corpus findings show that, in addition to the reported low transitivity clauses where there is either one argument expressed or no arguments at all, nong constructions with elaborate verbal predicates with a rich set of complements and adverbials and other adjunct elements are dominant in corpora. These features correlate with negative affective stance and high degrees of subjectivity, in additional to features of informality. Together they are taken as co-varying features in highly interactive discourse contexts for designated communicative goals. Methodologically, this paper shows that it is important to examine verbs and argument structure based on corpus data and with an expanded view.