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A study of characteristics of relative clause markers in Chinese and Japanese languages and related syntactic issues: From the standpoint of linguistic typology

  • The Japanese Language Association of Korea
  • Abbr : JLAK
  • 2022, (74), pp.157-175
  • DOI : 10.14817/jlak.2022.74.157
  • Publisher : The Japanese Language Association Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > Japanese Language and Literature
  • Received : September 30, 2022
  • Accepted : November 13, 2022
  • Published : December 20, 2022

Zhang Jing-yuan 1 Sheng Wen -zhong 2

1河南大学
2上海外国語大学

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to compare the similarities and differences between Chinese and Japanese relative clauses in terms of the types, positions and functions of markers, and to explore the syntactic and semantic issues arising from the markers of relative clauses in the context of linguistic typology. In modern Japanese, the marker of the relative clause is the conjunctive form, while in Chinese, it is the structural auxiliary "de". In Japanese, the marker for the relative clause is different from that for noun modifiers such as the genitive case, which is more in line with linguistic commonality; in Chinese, the marker "de" is used uniformly for nouns, pronouns, and relative clauses to modify nouns, which is not uncommon in such languages. In terms of the function of relative clause markers, both Chinese and Japanese relative clause markers cannot be used to indicate the syntactic component of the central clause in the subordinate predicate, but Japanese relative clause markers are used to indicate the tense and aspect in addition to the relative clause, while Chinese relative clause markers have a single function. There are also commonalities between Chinese and Japanese in relative clause markers. Since the markers are located in front of the central clause, they cannot identify the syntactic relationship between the central clause and the predicate of the relative clause, which makes it impossible to determine the domain of the relative clause and adopt the same structure as the appositive clause, etc.

Citation status

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