Clause and verbal group systems in Chinese: a text-based functional approach
Edward McDonald
PhD Thesis, School of English, Linguistics & Media, Macquarie University, 1998
Chapter 0: Aims and organisation of the study
0.0 Grammar and discourse in Chinese
0.1 The theoretical framework of the present study
0.2 Applying a systemic functional framework to Chinese
0.3 The nature and organisation of this study
Chapter 1: The grammar of a Chinese text: developing a descriptive framework
1.0. Grammar and the organisation of text
1.1 Contexts of the grammar: text and its relationship to context
1.2 Functional organisation (i): Textual
1.3 Functional organisation (ii): Interpersonal
1.4 Functional organisation (iii): Experiential
Chapter 2: Modelling grammatical structure in Chinese
2.0 Grammatical system and grammatical structure
2.1 Defining the boundaries for the realisation of grammatical systems: rank and structure
2.2 Functional structures of the clause
2.3 Clauses in text
Chapter 3: Text data and grammatical description: a system-based approach
3.0 The text under description and its descriptive categories
3.1 Extending the description: comparison of different texts
3.2 Generalising the description: system realised by structure
3.3 Relativising the description: a systemic functional approach in contrast with other frameworks
Chapter 4: Verbal group systems in text
4.0 The description of verbal elements in Chinese
4.1 A multifunctional analysis of verbal elements in Chinese
4.2 Verbal group marking
4.3 System instantiated in text
4.4 Verbal group marking in the unfolding of a text
Chapter 5: Contextualising verbal group marking: issues in the development of a text-based description of Chinese grammar
5.0 Verbal group, clause and text: different patterns of organisation
5.1 Top-down description: the contexts of grammatical marking
5.2 Bottom-up description: grammatical marking as an organising principle of text
5.3 Grammatical description and the use of texts: issues in application
Summary
Chapter 1 lays the groundwork for the theoretical framework and the descriptive methodology of the thesis. Using a single Chinese text as data, it first raises the questions of what constitutes a text, and how a text relates to the context in which it is produced. It introduces the three functional components or metafunctions of systemic functional theory according to which language use may be understood - the textual, the interpersonal, and the experiential - and shows how these metafunctions can be used in the description of a text to make connections between its context of situation (register), its overall organisation as a text (discourse-semantics) and the form of its wording (lexicogrammar). It describes the lexicogrammar of the Chinese text in terms of the basic grammatical systems which build up the meaning of the clause, and the functional clause elements which realise those systems.
Chapter 2 reviews the grammatical description put forward in Chapter 1 in terms of the different structures constituted by the textual, interpersonal and experiential elements of the clause in Chinese. It discusses the relationship between the central lexicogrammatical unit of clause and the other units of which it is constituted. It shows how the different functional components of the lexicogrammar define structures whose scope does not always coincide with the clause. It then examines how clauses are joined together, analysing the text in terms of a further functional structure - the logical, and shows how these four types of grammatical structure come together to express the meanings of the whole text.
Chapter 3 completes the functional treatment of Chinese clause structure begun in Chapter 1 by examining the grammatical systems that lie behind the different function structures of the clause. It compares the single text used in Chapter 1 with other Chinese texts which contrast with it in terms of their textual, interpersonal, experiential or logical patterning, and discusses the ways in which a grammatical description is influenced by features of the texts chosen as data. It then sets out the parameters of a systemic functional description of Chinese grammar and contrasts this with other descriptive frameworks. It explores the implications of a system-based approach to grammatical description, and shows how this can be used to make connections between the organisation of the clause and the organisation of the text.
Chapter 4 simultaneously narrows the scope of the description from clause to verbal group and broadens its focus from a static overview of grammatical patterning to a dynamic view of how grammatical systems are instantiated in the unfolding of a text. It sets out the systemic meaning options available in the verbal group in Chinese and the structures through which they are realised, and shows the relationship of the verbal group systems to the clause systems already described in previous chapters. It traces the changes in verbal group marking through the unfolding of a particular Chinese text by describing the meanings that are taken up from verbal group systems at different points in the text, and identifying the various factors that trigger this marking.
Chapter 5 sums up the issues raised throughout the thesis by setting up a framework for motivating verbal group marking in Chinese through its contribution to the organisation of text. It characterises the relationship between the different layers of meaning in text - the grammatical meanings embodied in clauses and groups, and the semantic meanings realised over the text as a whole - and shows how grammatical description needs to be both top-down, i.e. in terms of the contexts of grammatical structure, and bottom-up, i.e. in terms of its realisations. In putting forward this small-scale functional description of the grammar of a number of Chinese texts, it is concerned to develop a text-based process of grammatical description which can be applied for purposes, such as language teaching, which depend on interpreting the meaning and wording of text.