Null Subjects in Chinese

Abstract

It is widely observed that the null subject is a comparatively commonplace in Chinese. However, currently, few studies have extensively explored the null subject phenomenon in the Chinese-type language. This thesis presents the first comprehensive and systematic study of null subjects in Chinese both at the sentence level and the discourse level. The term 'null subject' in this research describes the phonetically null though syntactically/semantically/pragmatically present element in the subject position. Null subjects are divided into two major types, i.e. referential null subjects and non-referential null subjects, with seven subtypes in total based on three criteria, i.e. [referential] [argumental] [lexicalized]. To account for the distribution, properties and resolution of null subjects in Chinese, I have made a corpus-based investigation within the framework of Centering Theory (Grosz, Joshi and Weinstein 1995; Walker, Joshi and Prince 1998). A corpus of 30,000 words was built by collecting three different genres from the Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin, among which there are 1,429 null subjects that were identified and analysed. Given that Centering Theory is a parametric theory, I have proposed a revised Centering Model based on the specifications of Centering parameters in Chinese. With this model, three resolution algorithms have been developed to resolve 737 anaphoric null subjects in the corpus. The research finds that: 1. Referential null subject is the main (default) type among types of null subject in Chinese discourse. 2. Null subjects and their antecedents primarily occur in independent clauses, especially in coordinate clauses. 3. The use of null subjects in Chinese discourse is mainly constrained by pragmatic/context condition such as given information or world knowledge. 4. In terms of Centering Theory, Cb is largely realized as a null subject, which is frequently used to indicate a CONTINUE transition. 5. The factors contributing to the resolution of null subjects are diverse, although the combination of the parallelism of grammatical roles and main/subordinate distinction plays a more significant role than topic-prominence and animacy, and 6. Various factors interact with each other in the resolution procedure of null subjects. Syntactic factors work together with semantic factors while constructing and ranking the possible antecedents; pragmatic, semantic, (cognitive) and discourse factors are more important while determining the antecedents. In sum, this study shows clearly that a multi-factorial as well as a discourse-based approach such as the Centering Model is applicable to, effective and successful in the explanation of null subjects in Chinese.