Citation

Yi Z. Chinese Language and Discourse 2020; 11(1): 84-106.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020)

DOI

10.1075/cld.19001.zha

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper examines a non-canonical passive construction in Chinese. In this construction, the passive marker bei can proceed a constituent including intransitive verbs, adjectives and nouns, in such expressions as bei zisha/'commit suicide,' bei xing fu/'happy' or bei gaotie/'high speed train.' Following Mental Space Theory (Fauconnier 1994, 1997), this paper argues that the construction serves as a space builder, which prompts conceptualizers to build a counterfactual space to hold the event conveyed by the constituent but deny the event or its associated assumption in the base space. The Mental Space operations produce the interpretations of the construction featured by ambiguity and irony. This study demonstrates the existence of dedicated counterfactual constructions in Chinese. It showcases an attempt to posit cognitive operations as the constructional function and outlines a cognitively plausible procedure to derive specific interpretations of the construction in the context. © John Benjamins Publishing Company 2020.

Language: en

Keywords

Irony; Constructional function; Counterfactuality; Mental Space; The non-canonical passive construction