A Discourse Study of Chinese Relative Clause Word Order Variation

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Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 168–189

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A discourse-pragmatic study of the word order

variation in Chinese relative clauses
Tao Ming a, Liang Chen b,*
a
Concordia College, Department of Modern Language and Literature, 351 Bishop Whipple, 901 8th St. S., Moorhead, MN 58103, United States
b
University of Georgia, Communication Sciences and Special Education, 542 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30605, United States
Received 19 December 2007; received in revised form 22 May 2009; accepted 31 May 2009
Abstract
In Mandarin Chinese, a relative clause (RC) can either immediately precede the head NP, or may be separated from its head by a
numeral-classifier sequence (NCL). This word order variation results in two types of indefinite nominal constructions: the OMN with
the RC + NCL + NP order (e.g., [tā xiě Ø de]RC [yı̄–běn]NCL shū, ‘a book (that) he wrote’) and the IMN with NCL + RC + NP order
(e.g., [yı̄–běn]NCL [tā xiě Ø de]RC shū, ‘a book (that) he wrote’). In this paper, we use a corpus-linguistic perspective to explore the
conditioning factors that influence the variation of these two constructions in discourse. In particular, grammatical roles of relativized
NPs; information status, animacy, and discourse salience of head NPs; grounding mechanisms; and discourse functions of relative
clauses are analyzed. Examinations of the distribution and occurrence of these two constructions show that they are deployed in
discourse to serve different discourse purposes. The OMN is mainly used in connection with abstract entities with low discourse salience,
and serves the discourse function of identifying the new head NP. In contrast, the IMN is mainly used in conjunction with concrete
(human and concrete object) entities with high discourse salience to serve the discourse function of characterization. It will be argued that
thevariation of these two constructions can be explained with regard to the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance (Sperber
and Wilson, 1995) together with interactions between the discourse function of the NCL and the discourse functions of the RC.
# 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Variation; Relative clause; Numeral-classifier; Chinese; Discourse function; Relevance theory; OMN; IMN
1. Introduction
This paper explores factors governing the word order variation that is possible for a subset of relative clauses (RC)
in Mandarin Chinese. This subset of relative clauses (RC) co-occurs with a cluster of the numeral yı̄ ‘one’ and a
classifier (henceforth NCL).1 There are two possibilities with regard to the relative position of the RC and the NCL: the
relative clause may either precede an NCL (1a) or follow it (1b). In both word orders, the RC precedes its head NP (i.e.,
the noun phrase that is modified by the RC),2 and the relativized NP, namely the element that is gapped inside the
relative clause, is absent. Among its other functions in Chinese, the word de, which we have notated as DE, serves as a
RC marker. The two word orders result in two types of nominal constructions. The first type—the RC + NCL + NP
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 706 542 4566.

E-mail addresses: mingtao99@yahoo.com (T. Ming), brighterchen@yahoo.com, chen@uga.edu (L. Chen).
1
Following is a list of the abbreviations used in this paper following the convention in Li and Thompson (1981): CL: classifier; EXP: experiential
aspect; DUR: durative aspect; PFV: perfective aspect; Q: question.
2
Chinese and English are both SVO languages, but in English RCs follow their head NP.
0378-2166/$ – see front matter # 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.05.023
T. Ming, L. Chen / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 168–189 169
sequence has the RC as an outer modifier, and the second type—the NCL + RC + NP sequence—has the RC as an
inner modifier. Following N. Zhang (2006), we will call the former type OMN (outer modifier nominal) and the latter
IMN (inner modifier nominal).3
The paper is organized as follows. First, we review previous studies on the variation of OMN and IMN (section 2).
Second, we use a corpus-linguistic perspective to explore factors that govern the distribution and occurrences of the
two types of nominal constructions in written discourse. It is observed that the OMN is mainly used in connection with
abstract entities with low discourse salience to serve the discourse function of identifying the new head NP, whereas
the IMN is mainly used in conjunction with concrete (human and concrete object) entities with high discourse salience
to serve the discourse function of characterization (sections 3–6). Third, we offer an explanation of the observed
patterns of distribution in terms of the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance and interactions between
the discourse functions of the NCL and the RC (section 7).
2. Previous research on the two word order alternations
There is a rich literature on word order variation in this subset of relative clauses in Chinese. Some researchers have
focused on the controversial asymmetry in the acceptability of a particular word order that might be influenced by the
syntactic role of the relativized NP. Other researchers have examined the semantic and distribution contrasts between
these two types of nominal constructions. Starting with Tang (1979), several researchers have suggested that the word
order variation is not possible for subject relative clause; that is, a relative clause in which the gapped or relativized NP
holds the grammatical role of subject in the relative clause. The examples in (1) are object relative clauses; that is, the
object is gapped in the relative clause, and thus allows for both orders. However, a relative clause in which the subject
is relativized or gapped has to follow an NCL and (2a) is thus not grammatically well formed.
3
The variation of the OMN and the IMN is a more general feature of Chinese referential expressions (see e.g., Chao, 1968; Li and Thompson,
1981; N. Zhang, 2006). First, the modifier can also be an adjective phrase, a prepositional phrase, a noun phrase, and so on. Second, numerals other
than yı̄ ‘one’ can occur in an NCL. And third, a demonstrative + classifier sequence such as nà-běn shū (that-CL book ‘that book’) and a
demonstrative + numeral + classifier sequence such as nà-sān-běn shū (that-three-CL book ‘those three books’) can either precede or follow a
modifier. In this study, we focus on relative clauses as modifiers, and the numeral yı̄ ‘one’.
4
The asterisk is used to mark examples as ungrammatical. Wherever a pair of the OMN and the IMN shows up in the example set, the first will be
the OMN and the second the IMN.
170 T. Ming, L. Chen / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 168–189
The grammatical role of the head NPs seems to be irrelevant for this asymmetry. In (2), the head NP is the object of
the main clause. The examples (3a) and (3b) from N. Zhang (2006) show that the same kind of contrast exists when the
head NP is the postverbal subject of the main clause. In each of these two sets of subject gapped relatives, it is the OMN
that is unacceptable.
Hou and Kitagawa (1987) account for the asymmetry between subject gap relative clauses and object gap relative
clauses in terms of whether the gap as an empty category gets licensed (or, in their terms, governed). Specifically, a gap
in the subject position is a variable that cannot be governed by a null operator, but a gap in the object position is a
resumptive pronoun that needs not be governed. In other words, if the relativized NP is the subject of the relative
clause, only the IMN is possible. In contrast, if the relativized NP is the object of the relative clause, both constructions
are possible. Instead of explaining the grammaticality contrasts in terms of the grammatical roles of relativized NPs,
Del Gobbo (2003) focuses on the information status of the head NP. According to Del Gobbo, the OMN differs from
the IMN in terms of information status: the information status of the head NP in an OMN is given or definite, whereas
the head NP in an IMN is new or indefinite. The explanation is that an indefinite nominal in an OMN contains a covert
demonstrative and the covert demonstrative coerces an indefinite nominal to be interpreted as definite.
Consequently, the OMN cannot occur in contexts that preclude definite expressions. L. Zhang (2006) refutes Del
Gobbo’s (2003) account, and suggests that an RC preceding the NCL bears a [+Contrastive Focus] feature and is
moved to the Specifier position of a focus phrase. L. Zhang suggests that the OMN is transformationally derived from
the IMN, and that the OMN is used to express a contrastive focus.
Hou and Kitagawa’s categorical claim is debatable and in fact has already faced challenge (e.g., Huang, 1982). In
fact, it seems that their categorical claim does not hold for either subject relatives (i.e., when the relativized NP is the
subject of the RC) nor object relatives (i.e., when the relativized NP is the object of the RC). With regard to subject
relatives, the following examples from N. Zhang (2006) demonstrate that it is possible for both the OMN and the IMN
to be acceptable (4), or only the OMN is acceptable (5a), or only the IMN is acceptable (6b).
Also contrary to Hou and Kitagawa’s (1987) categorical claim, not all object relative clauses are acceptable for the
OMN. The following examples from N. Zhang (2006) indicate that it is possible for both the OMN and the IMN to be
unacceptable (7), or for the OMN alone to be unacceptable (8a).
5
Example (7b) and its judgment are our own. The fact that both examples in (7) are unacceptable further suggests that the grammatical role of the
relativized NP does not play a primary role in the asymmetry between the OMN and the IMN. N. Zhang (2006) also uses example (7a) as evidence to
suggest that the OMN has been wrongly claimed to be definite in the literature. The rationale, according to her, is that the OMN cannot be predicates
of equational sentences whereas definite nominals can. N. Zhang contrasts (7a) with (i) below.
However, we don’t agree with Zhang’s argument that OMNs can’t be predicate nominals. We suggest that the occurrence of the focus marker
jiù ‘exactly’ may have contributed to the unacceptability of (7a). Without jiù ‘exactly’, both (7a) and (7b) would be acceptable.
N. Zhang (2006) presents a detailed analysis of the syntax–semantic interface in the variation of OMN and IMN.
She argues that these two constructions differ in their semantic interpretation, and the interpretation contrast between
the two constructions affects the structural positions that each can take. With respect to interpretation, N. Zhang
suggests that the two constructions represent two types of indefinite nominals that differ in specificity.6 Whereas the
OMN is exclusively specific, the IMN can be either specific or non-specific. With respect to structural positions,
Zhang suggests that the IMN is subject to a more stringent structural distribution constraint than the OMN in that an
IMN can occur neither as preverbal subjects (5b above) nor as shifted objects (9b below), whereas the OMN is free
from this constraint.
It is obvious from the above review of literature that previous studies have focused on the syntactic or semantic
differences between these two constructions. The question of when each of the two constructions is used in discourse
has received little attention. We know of no previous work that considers the word order variation in these two types of
nominal constructions from a discourse-pragmatic and corpus-linguistics perspective. In addition, the previous
studies, without exception, have been based on intuitive and introspective analyses of grammaticality or acceptability
judgments alone without considering the effect of discourse demands on the structure of linguistic forms. This
methodology has been shown to have its limitations (see e.g., Chen and Guo, 2008; Chu, 1998; Gries, 2003; Tao,
1996). This has already been made clear by the disagreement on the grammaticality judgments on the word order
variation. The contrast between (9a) and (9b), for example, is questionable. The example in (9a) is marginal without
the universal quantifier dōu ‘all’, and even if it’s well-formed it would mean ‘‘Baoyu has read all four papers on
pronouns’’ and thus would not be equivalent to its English translation. The example in (9b), on the other hand, would
be well-formed if the universal quantifier dōu ‘‘all’’ were added after shifted object (Chen, 2003). Previous studies
also took a deterministic view of language, and thus failed to recognize that language is not fundamentally ‘‘always
this and never that’’ (Halliday, 1961:259) but is instead probabilistic. As we will find out shortly, N. Zhang’s (2006)
categorical view that an IMN can never occur in preverbal subject position does not stand up to the evidence in our
corpus data (see e.g., example (11a) in section 4). Each language provides its speakers with a variety of structural
options to express the same situation, and various factors contribute to the choice of one structure over another. Some
choices are more probable than others, and probabilities of occurrences are highly relevant to the description of a
particular form (Tao and McCarthy, 2001). Finally, previous studies have made no attempts to examine when and how
speakers choose one construction over the other in a particular discourse situation, and thus it is not possible to explain
which word order a speaker will most likely choose in a natural discourse setting. Recent functional studies of
structural alternation have found how different processing requirements and discourse factors lead speakers to choose
one word order over the other, and in fact more generally to choose one structure over others, during the evanescent
process of online communication (Fox and Thompson, 1990; Gries, 1999; Pu, 2007). As Siewierska (1988:29) also
points out, ‘‘studies of word order variation reveal that word order is dependent on an array of syntactic, semantic,
pragmatic and even phonological factors.’’ We argue that the word order variation that is exhibited in the two types
of nominal constructions depends on a number of conditioning factors as well. It is the purpose of this paper to
investigate the influence of these conditioning factors on the occurrence and distribution of the two constructions in
discourse from a corpus-linguistic perspective. We explore the factors that help explain why one construction occurs
6
N. Zhang (2006) argues that the OMN has wrongly been claimed to be definite in the literature, because the OMN cannot occur in contexts where
definite nominals can.
more frequently than the other in discourse, as well as the underlying motivation that guides native speakers’ choices
of one construction over the other.
3. The data
The data were taken from the Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese, or LCMC (McEnery et al., 2003). LCMC is a
one-million-word balanced corpus of written Mandarin Chinese. The corpus consists of five hundred 2000-word
samples of written Chinese texts sampled from 15 text categories published in Mainland China around 1991. With the
help of the text analysis software Concordance (Watt, 1999), a total of 290 relevant relative clauses were culled from
LCMC, with OMNs and IMNs accounting for 55% and 45% of the total data respectively, as shown in Table 1.
We explore the factors that govern the distribution of the two constructions here.
Table 1
Frequency distribution of the two types of nominal constructions.
OMN 161 55%
IMN 129 45%
Total 290 100%
4. Conditioning factors governing the word order variation
Previous studies on relative clauses and word order variations in general have identified various factors that may
play a role in the choice of one construction over the other. We have already touched upon two such factors in our
review of previous research, namely, the grammatical roles of the relativized NP inside the RC and the information
status of the head NP in the two constructions. Other than these two factors, discourse oriented studies of relative
clauses in other languages (e.g., Fox, 1987; Fox and Thompson, 1990) have identified various other factors influencing
the distribution of relative clauses. Of particular interest here are the animacy of head nouns in relative clauses,
grounding mechanisms, the discourse function of relative clauses, and the salience of head nouns in discourse. We
devote one subsection of the following discussion to each of the six dimensions, first introducing our coding of a
particular dimension and then reporting the results from the corpus-based analysis of the influence of a particular
factor on the distribution and occurrence of the OMN and the IMN constructions. For our statistical calculations, we
have used the chi-square test.
(10) The six dimensions of the coding of the two constructions are listed below:
a. Information status of head NPs
b. Grammatical roles of relativized NPs
c. Animacy of head NPs
d. Grounding mechanisms
e. Discourse salience of head NPs
f. Discourse functions of relative clauses
4.1. Information Status of head NP
Information status serves as a key element by which communication participants structure their utterances
(Ward and Birner, 2004). It has been shown to be a decisive factor with regard to a variety of syntactic phenomena
(see for example Kaltenböck, 2000 on it-extraposition and Arnold et al., 2000, on heavy-NP shift and dative
alternation). In the literature, word order variation is often discussed in the context of information status (see e.g.,
Liu, 2007). Chafe (1994) identifies three different information statuses: given, new, and identifiable. However, in
this study we contrast the traditional categories of ‘‘new’’ and ‘‘given’’ information, as entities carrying
‘‘identifiable’’ information seem to pattern most like those carrying ‘‘given’’ information in our data. These two
categories are defined below:
a. New information: A referent is introduced into the discourse for the first time and is not anaphorically related to any
previous referent. It is supposed that new information is not in the hearer’s focal consciousness [roughly, in short-
term memory] (Chafe, 1980, 1987, 1994).
b. Given information: A referent is not introduced into the discourse for the first time and is anaphorically linked to its
previous mention; in Chafe’s terms, it is in the hearer’s focal consciousness (Chafe, 1980, 1987, 1994).
Therefore, head NPs evoking entities that carry given or inferable information were coded as given, and other head
NPs were coded as new. For example, the head noun in (11a), fùnüˇ ‘‘woman,’’ is introduced into the discourse for
the first time and it carries new information. In contrast, the head noun nüˇrén ‘‘woman’’ in (11b) is not introduced
in the discourse for the first time and it is anaphorically linked to the co-referring pronoun tā ‘‘she’’ in the previous
clause; therefore, it carries given information.
Table 2 presents the information status of head NPs in the data. As can be seen by the frequencies cross-tabulated
in Table 2, the percentage of either construction does not differ by the information status of head NPs, x2
(1, N = 290) = 0.74, p > .05.
Further analysis of the impact of information status on the choice of one RC construction over the other in discourse
shows that the overwhelming majority of head NPs in the extracted RCs carry new information. In Table 2 only a total
of 7 cases of the head NP carry old information, accounting for 0.5% of the data. Among head NPs with the internal
word order of RC + NCL + NP, only 2 tokens (0.2% of the total data) are found to carry old information, which
strongly argues against the claim that the head NP with the word order RC + NCL + NP is preceded by a covert
demonstrative and carries definite or old information (Del Gobbo, 2003). If anything, it is the opposite: most RCs with
a NCL, regardless of the relative order, are associated with new or indefinite information. The following excerpt is one
of the rare examples where the head NP of the relative clause carries old information.
Table 2
Distribution over the information status of head NPs for OMN and IMN.
Given New Row total
OMN 2 (0.2%) 127 (99.8%) 129 (100%)
IMN 5 (0.3%) 156 (99.7%) 161 (100%)
Column total 7 283 290
In this excerpt, the head noun nüˇ yǎnyuán ‘‘actress’’ is introduced into the discourse for the first time.
However, it carries old information because it co-refers to a known person Liú Xiǎoqı̀ng whose character is
established in the earlier discourse. In conclusion, contrary to Del Gobbo (2003), information status is not a significant
factor determining the distribution of the two constructions.
4.2. The grammatical roles of relativized NPs in relative clauses
The grammatical roles of relativized NPs are relevant for explaining the distribution of relative clauses (Fox, 1987;
Fox and Thompson, 1990; Hou and Kitagawa, 1987). For the purpose of the present study, three grammatical roles are
distinguished: subject (S), object (O), and others (X). Examples follow.
In (13), the zero NP that co-refers to the head NP fùnüˇ ‘‘woman’’ is the subject of the relative clause. The
zero NP inside the RC co-refers to the head NP xiǎoshı̄ ‘‘poem’’ in example (14), and serves as the object
of the RC.
The example in (15) illustrates a case where the relativized NP, which corresponds to the head NP měilı̀
‘‘beauty,’’ is neither the subject nor the object of the relative clause. As mentioned above, the non-core argument
grammatical role is symbolized with the capital letter X in this study.
The distribution of grammatical roles of relativized NPs in relative clauses is detailed in Table 3. There is a
highly significant relationship between the grammatical role of the relativized NP and construction type, x2
(2, N = 290) = 51.5, p = .000.
Table 3
Distribution over grammatical roles of relativized NPs in the RCs for OMN and IMN.
O S X
OMN 32 (74%) 38 (23%) 50 (59%)
IMN 11 (26%) 124 (77%) 35 (41%)
Total 43 (100%) 162 (100%) 85 (100%)
Hou and Kitagawa (1987) argue that if the relativized NP inside a relative clause takes the syntactic role of subject,
the IMN should be used, without exception. By contrast, if the relativized NP inside the RC is the object, either
construction is acceptable. The data in Table 3 show that such a categorical claim is not well supported. Our results
demonstrate that 23% of subject gapped RCs take the word order RC + NCL + NP (i.e., OMN). In addition, Table 3
shows that the majority of object gapped RCs exhibit the word order RC + NCL + NP. Thus, the data from Table 3
demonstrate that there are strong association patterns in the subject and object roles in the RC: whereas the object
gapped RCs favor the OMN, subject gapped RCs prefer the IMN.7 This pattern suggests that the grammatical role of
the relativized NP in the relative clause plays a role in the distribution of the two constructions. However, if we
consider the distribution of X-relative clauses, we find that OMNs and IMNs are almost evenly distributed, which is a
strong indicator that it is not possible to decide which word order should be used only on the basis of the grammatical
role of the relativized NP inside the relative clause. In addition, as Fox (1987) points out, the distribution of subject
versus object relatives itself has a lot to do with the various functions of each of those types of clauses.
The discussion in this section and in the last section (section 4.1) demonstrate that previous research on the
distribution of the two constructions is inadequate and that the information status of the head NP and the grammatical
role of the relativized NP in this subset of relative clauses in Chinese do not suffice to predict the use of one
construction over the other. This observation prompts us to explore more factors that influence the deployment of the
two constructions. In the following sections we will show that the choice of one construction over the other is closely
related to the animacy of the head NP and the discourse functions of the relative clause in the two constructions.
4.3. Animacy of head nouns
Animacy has been shown to play a significant role in various grammatical phenomena. The animacy of the modifier,
for example, is held by many grammarians to be an influential factor in the variation between the English genitive
(the old man’s face) and the of-construction (the face of the old man). The genitive is favored with nouns that denote
7
Incidentally, the results from Table 3 also show that there are about four times as many subject relative clauses as object relative clauses (162 vs.
43). This is consistent with Keenan and Comrie’s (1977) findings for written English, where subject relatives consistently outnumbered object
relatives. Fox (1987), on the other hand, has found an equal number of subject relatives and object relatives (46 each) in a corpus of over 100 relative
clauses in conversational English.
human beings, whereas the of-construction is preferred for concrete or abstract inanimate nouns (Kreyer, 2003). In a
corpus study of Dutch and German newspaper texts, Mak et al. (2002) found that animacy was an important
determinant of the distribution of subject and object relative clauses in those two languages. Fox and Thompson (1990)
also observed that the animacy of head NPs played a significant role in explaining the distribution of syntactic types of
relative clauses in English conversation. The present study examines the relevance of head NP animacy in the word
order variation in Chinese relative clauses.
It has long been recognized that the humanness or animacy of referents of NPs is a matter of degree. NP referents
are ordered in part along a continuum from abstractness to concreteness and, within the concrete objects, from
inanimate to animate referents (Gries, 1999). Yamamoto (2006), for example, notes that animacy ‘‘can be regarded as
an assumed cognitive scale of some measure, extending from human through animate to inanimate’’ (p. 29). For the
purposes of the present study, three categories of NP referents are identified:
a. ANIMATE
Human beings and animals are included in this category.
b. CONCRETE INANIMATE
Concrete is restricted to referential concrete objects or substances.
c. ABSTRACT INANIMATE
It is used for events, abstract concepts, and anything else that is not prototypically concrete.
Table 4 presents the distribution of the two word orders for Human, Concrete, and Abstract Head NPs.
Table 4
Distribution over animacy of head NPs for OMN and IMN.
Human Concrete Abstract
OMN 9 (10%) 19 (25%) 102 (85%)
IMN 85 (90%) 57 (75%) 18 (15%)
Total 94 (100%) 76 (100%) 120 (100%)
Table 4 shows a close correlation between word order and the animacy of head NPs, x2 (2, N = 290) = 138,
p = .000. On the one hand, the IMN is favored over the OMN in relative clauses with human head NPs: the
overwhelming majority of relative clauses with human head NPs make use of the word order NCL + RC + NP. A
similar pattern is also found for relative clauses with concrete head NPs, although the number is lower. On the other
hand, the OMN is favored over the IMN if the head NP refers to an abstract entity.
The results in Table 4 reveal an interesting pattern. Instead of a categorical distinction between human versus non-
human entities, or between concrete versus non-concrete entities, we find distinctions along a continuum from human to
concrete non-human and finally to abstract non-human entities with other possible finer distinctions in between. In short,
for abstract head NPs, the OMN is favored, whereas for non-abstract head nouns, the IMN is preferred. The findings from
Table 4 lead us to the conclusion that animacy is an important factor in the distribution of the two constructions.
4.4. Grounding
We treat grounding as one factor that may influence word order variation because grounding (and discourse
functions of relative clauses to be discussed in section 4.6) is closely related to the animacy of head nouns. Fox and
Thompson (1990), for example, have identified grounding as an prominent factor that helps to explain the way relative
clauses are distributed in English conversation.
To achieve effective communication, a speaker or writer introduces new referents into the discourse in such a way
as to make them relevant for the listener or reader at the point where they are introduced, and grounding is the primary
way of making relevant NPs whose relevance is not clear from prior mention or situation (Fox and Thompson, 1990).8
8
Grounding as used here refers to the ways of relating one structural unit to another in discourse, and should be distinguished from the term
‘grounding’ in connection with foregrounding and backgrounding in narrative structure (see also Chu, 1998:34).
Following Fox and Thompson (1990), we focus on three kinds of grounding: anchoring, main clause grounding, and
proposition linking. In anchoring, a new referent (or the NP representing it) is grounded through linking itself to a
known referent in its modifying relative clause. Anchoring is illustrated in example (16).
In example (16), the new referent yı̄-shǒu xiǎoshı̄ ‘‘a poem’’ is grounded by the human subject wǒmēn
‘‘we’’ in the relative clause. The referent of the first person pronoun wǒmēn ‘‘we’’ is given by virtue of the
speaker’s role as speech participant, and thus the relative clause containing the pronoun anchors the new referent
yı̄-shǒu xiǎoshı̄ ‘‘a poem’’, which is then made relevant to the current discourse through its connection to the
given referent.
When the relative clause provides no grounding, the main clause can ground a new NP referent by relating it to a
given discourse referent. In other words, a new referent can also be grounded by known information contained in a
main clause. Fox and Thompson (1990) refer to this second way of grounding a new referent in the same main clause
as the given referent as main clause grounding. This can be illustrated with example (17).
The example in (17) is preceded by discussion of Zhāng Shēnfǔ (proper name), which is a given referent in
discourse. The new referent wénzhāng ‘‘article’’ as the head NP in example (17) is grounded by the known subject
Zhāng Shēnfǔ in the main clause and the modifying relative clause serves to characterize the head noun and
provide additional information regarding the head noun.
The third way to ground a new referent is by means of proposition-linking, which, according to Fox and Thompson
(1990), is linking an entity to given referents ‘‘by means of frames invoked in earlier discourse’’ or by way of a
modifying relative clause that is linked to earlier proposition. Fox and Thompson (1990) provide the following as an
example of proposition-linking (Fox and Thompson, 1990:309).
(18) B: Y’know I’ve been reading about people very old people lately,
A: Yea//:h?
B: Like they had an article in the Rolling Stone with this guy who’s supposed to be a hundred and thirty.
The oldest American. He is a black who lives in Florida and they interviewed him,. . .
B: and one thing they said in the article that was really intriguing was, in the United States at this point,
there are over a hundred thousand people [who are over a hundred years old].
In this example, the entire head NP referent a hundred thousand people is grounded by the relative clause who are
over a hundred years old by means of proposition linking: the new referent a hundred thousand people is made
relevant to the current discourse by the established link between the relative clause and the earlier proposition I’ve
been reading about people very old people lately. An example of propositional linking from the corpus is presented in
(19).
The head noun dàshı̀ ‘‘big event’’ in (19) is grounded by the relative clause guānxı̀
guómı́n jı̄ngjı̀ hé shèhuı̀ fázhǎn quánjú ‘‘that is critically related to the development of national economy and social
growth’’ by proposition linking via the link between the relative clause and an earlier proposition beginning with
kāizhǎn quán-mı́n yı̀wù zhı́-shù yùndòng ‘‘to launch the movement of planting trees by
volunteers across the whole country’’.
A careful calculation of different grounding mechanisms with regard to the two constructions produces Table 5.
Table 5
Distribution over grounding mechanisms for OMN and IMN.
Anchoring Main clause grounding Proposition-linking via RC Total
OMN 6 (4%) 21 (13%) 134 (83%) 161 (100%)
IMN 20 (16%) 97 (75%) 12 (9%) 129 (100%)
Table 5 shows that the relationship between grounding mechanisms and the choice of construction types is a highly
significant, x2 (2, N = 290) = 157, p = .000. The frequencies suggest that head NPs in the OMN are predominantly
grounded by relative clauses through proposition linking. By contrast, the head NPs in the IMN are mainly grounded
by a given referent in the main clause.
4.5. Discourse salience of head NPs
Noun phrases or the entities they evoke differ with respect to their salience, thematic importance, or topicality in
discourse. A human NP, for example, tends to be topical, salient, and thematically important in discourse. We include
discourse salience of the head NP as a possible conditioning factor for three reasons. First, it has been frequently observed
that the relative salience of information in prior discourse context influences the choice of linguistic forms for a
subsequent utterance (e.g., Prat-Sala and Branigan, 2000). Second, as we will demonstrate shortly, discourse salience of a
head NP is closely related to its animacy. The third reason relates to the discourse function of the NCL. Li (2000) also
suggests that the use versus non-use of an NCL is motivated by discourse and pragmatics.9 She argues that an NCL fulfills
the discourse function of highlighting the salience of a discourse participant. In other words, an NCL puts NPs in a more
salient position. NPs that have higher discourse salience tend to be introduced into discourse with an NCL whereas NPs
with lower discourse salience tend not to be ushered into discourse with an NCL. Given that an NCL appears in both the
OMN and the IMN, it’s interesting to see how discourse salience may play a role in the distribution of the two
constructions.
While salience of NPs or the entities they evoke is frequently appealed to in studies of how people structure
discourse and keep track of mentioned entities, an explicitly defined measure of salience is lacking. Linguistic
complexity is sometimes used to infer the discourse salience of the entity to which an NP refers. The assumption
behind this practice is that linguistic complexity tends to reflect discourse salience (e.g., Haiman, 1985). This is
evident in the following statement from Prat-Sala and Branigan (2000).
‘‘When speakers produce an utterance, they sometimes highlight some information as more important or salient
than the rest. For example, when a speaker utters There was this old car near a bridge, with a shattered
windscreen and flat tires, he or she introduces two new entities (a car and a bridge), but makes one of them more
salient in the discourse than the other, by mentioning it first, preceding it with a focusing structure, and providing
extra information about it’’ (p. 168).
Li (2000) also suggests that ‘‘[T]he more attributes explicitly used for participant/entity, the more distinctly the
participant/entity will be perceived, and the more saliently it will figure in the event conceptualization of the
hearer or reader’’ (p. 1121). In particular, the more pronominal modifiers used on the same NP, the higher its
discourse salience. And Li (2000) observes that the use versus non-use of NCLs is correlated with the amount
of pronominal modification on the same NPs, which provides evidence for the role of NCLs to highlight the
salience of NPs. The number of pronominal modifiers, however, is not a practical measure of salience for the head
NP in the two constructions under study, because we are examining the word order variation of the OMN and the
IMN.
Instead, we use Givón’s (1983) measure of topic persistence as a heuristic measure of discourse salience. If the
entity evoked by an NP is salient in discourse, it will tend to persist in the subsequent discourse after its initial
introduction into discourse. The more salient it is, the longer it will persist. This measure is essentially a measure of
frequency of mention: the longer an entity persists in discourse, the more frequently it will occur in a discourse, and the
higher discourse salience it enjoys (Gries, 1999). On the other hand, if an NP, once introduced to discourse, is never
mentioned in the subsequent discourse, we can assume that it does not play any significant role in the development of
the discourse (i.e., that it is not salient).
Thus, we calculated discourse salience values of head NPs by counting the number of occurrences of a head NP in the
subsequent 10 clauses after its initial mention (cf. Sun, 1988). For example, if a head NP occurs four times in the
subsequent 10 clauses, its discourse salience value is 4. For ease of comparison, the total number of discourse salience
values is then divided by tokens of the head NPs. Essentially, the degree of discourse salience of the three types (human,
concrete, and abstract) of head NPs depends on the mean occurrences of each type of head NP in the subsequent 10
clauses. The higher the number is, the higher the discourse salience is. The results are reported in Table 6, which shows
that human head NPs have the highest discourse salience, concrete object nouns have lower discourse salience, and
abstract nouns have the lowest discourse salience.10
9
Sun (1988) also suggests that the use versus non-use of NCL is closely related to the discourse function of the nouns with which they co-occur.
Sun (1988) found that the use or non-use of an NCL correlated with the thematic importance of its co-occurring referent. A thematically important
entity or discourse participant tends to co-occur with an NCL whereas entities or discourse participants with minor thematic importance tend not to
be introduced into the discourse with an NCL. According to Li (2000:1118), the difference between her account and Sun’s (1988) account is that in
her account the application of ‘‘an NCL is only to put NPs in more salient positions. They could designate important NPs at the thematic level, but
they do not necessarily do so’’.
10
The correlation between discourse salience of head NPs and animacy should not surprise us. After all, human beings, in general, tend to interact
with other entities more frequently than with concrete objects in discourse, which, in turn, interact more frequently with other entities than do
abstract entities (see e.g., Gries, 1999).
Table 6
Mean discourse salience value of different types of head NPs in subsequent ten clauses.
Total number of discourse salience value Total number of head NPs Mean discourse salience value
Human 292 94 3.1
Concrete 114 76 1.5
Abstract 12 120 0.1
Together with our previous observation that the OMN is favored with abstract head NPs, whereas the IMN is
favored with human head NPs, the results in Table 6 above strongly indicate that the choice of one construction over
the other positively correlates with the salience of the head NPs in the two constructions. That is, the higher the
discourse salience of the head NP, the more likely it is that the IMN is used. This correlation between discourse
salience and the variation of OMNs and IMNs may be further highlighted if we consider Table 7, which lists the
mean discourse salience of the head NPs associated with each construction. The mean discourse salience value
associated with each word order is derived by dividing the total number of discourse salience value by total tokens
of head NPs.
Table 7
Discourse salience of head NPs in OMN and IMN.a
Discourse salience of head NPs
OMN 0.57
IMN 2.07
a
The two values of discourse salience in Table 7 were obtained via the following formulae.
For OMN: [26(Human) + 29 (Concrete) + 13 (Abstract)]/[9 (Human) + 19 (Concrete) + 102 (Abstract)] = 0.57.
For IMN: [265 (Human) + 85 (Concrete) + 2 (Abstract)]/[85 (Human) + 57 (Concrete) + 18 (Abstract)] = 2.07.
The data in Table 7 leads to the conclusion that the preference of one construction over the other is closely related to
the discourse salience of head NPs and that the lower the discourse salience of the head NP, the more likely it is that the
OMN is employed.
4.6. Discourse functions of relative clauses
Having discussed different grounding mechanisms and discourse salience with regard to the two constructions,
we will proceed to discuss the discourse functions of relative clauses in the two constructions. Fox and
Thompson (1990:301) identify two major types of relative clauses according to their functional roles:
identification and characterization. In the first type, the relative clause helps to identify the referent of a
head NP or make the referent relevant at a point in a particular discourse situation when it is first introduced.
In the second type the relative clause provides a characterizing assertion or description of the head NP referent in a
particular discourse situation. They use the contrast in (20) to illustrate the two discourse functions.
(20) a. This man [who I have for linguistics] is really too much.
b. There’s a woman in my class [who’s a nurse].
The relative clause in (20a) is used to identify the new head referent this man by linking it to the given referent
I, whereas the relative clause in (20b) does not serve to ground the referent. Instead, it makes a characterizing
assertion, and the relative clause does not provide any anchoring given referent to identify the new referent a
woman. In this study, relative clauses that serve the discourse function of identification include not only those that
provide an anchoring to a given referent such as the example in (16) but also those which provide grounding to the
head NP via proposition linking as in (19). For ease of reference, they are represented as (21) and (22),
respectively.
Relative clauses in Chinese can also serve as characterizing devices; the relative clause in example (12), repeated
here as (23), serves to provide characterization rather than grounding.
In example (23) the relative clause does not serve to identify the discourse entity represented by the head NP
yı̀-wèi nüˇ yǎnyuán ‘‘an actress’’ which has already been grounded by the given referent Liú Xiǎoqı̀ng
(proper name) by the time it is reached. Rather, the relative clause characterizes the referent by providing further
information.Table 8 summarizes the discourse functions of relative clauses with regard to the two constructions.
Table 8
Distribution over discourse functions of RCs for OMN and IMN.
Characterization Identification Other Total
OMN 17 (11%) 131 (81%) 13 (8%) 161 (100%)
IMN 91 (70%) 20 (16%) 18 (14%) 129 (100%)
The frequencies cross-tabulated in Table 8 suggest that the choice of the two constructions is significantly related to
the discourse function of the relative clause, x2 (2, N = 290) = 131, p = .000. As Table 8 shows, the relative clause in
the OMN mainly serves the discourse function of identification by providing an anchoring given referent or by
grounding the head NP through proposition linking. By contrast, the IMN mainly serves the discourse function of
characterization.
5. Interim summary
In this study the variation of the OMN construction and the IMN construction has been analyzed with regard to six
linguistic and discourse factors, namely, the grammatical role of the relativized NP, information status of the head NP,
the animacy of the head NP, grounding mechanisms, the discourse function of the relative clause, and the discourse
salience of the head NP. Table 9 provides a rough summary of the distribution of OMN and IMN in each of the five
conditioning factors.
The analysis of the conditioning factors has shown that all of them except the information status of the head NP
influence the choice of construction. With regard to the information status of the head NP, the analysis shows that the
head NP in both constructions tends to carry new information. Therefore the claim that the two constructions are
distinguished from each other on the basis of differentiating information status on the head NP (e.g., Del Gobbo, 2003)
is not supported. The influence of the grammatical role of the relativized NP was demonstrated by a strong association
between object relatives and the OMN on the one hand, and between subject relatives and the IMN on the other. It
should be pointed out, however, that the less than perfect association challenges Hou and Kitagawa’s (1987)
categorical claim about the unavailability of the OMN in subject relative clauses based on clause level analyses. In
addition, if we consider the fact that the two constructions are almost evenly distributed in X-relatives (i.e., where the
Table 9
Summary of distribution patterns of OMN and IMN in each of the five conditioning factors.
OMN IMN
Information status Given
New U U
Grammatical roles of relativized NPs O U
S U
X U U
Animacy of head NPs Concrete (human and concrete objects) U
Abstract U
Grounding mechanisms for head NPs Anchoring
Main clause grounding U
Proposition linking U
Discourse salience of head NPs High U
Low U
Discourse functions of RCs Characterization U
Identification U
Others
relativized NP takes a grammatical role other than subject and object) in our data, the correlation between the variation
of OMN and IMN on the one hand and the grammatical role of the relativized NP on the other is less than clear.
So far the conditioning factors have, for the most part, been analyzed in isolation from each other. However, we
have already seen that some of these factors are closely related to each other (e.g., animacy and discourse salience
of head NPs). Fox and Thompson (1990) also argue that discourse function is closely related to grounding
mechanism. If a head NP is grounded by the main clause, by the time the relative clause is produced, there is no
discourse need for the relative clause to ground the new head NP. As a result, the relative clause mainly serves the
discourse function of characterization by providing additional information. If we focus on the shaded area in
Table 9, an interesting pattern emerges. Specifically, we observe that for OMN, the head NP tends to be an abstract
entity, tends to be grounded by proposition linking, tends to have a low salience value, and tends to have an RC that
serves the discourse function of identification. By contrast, for IMN, the head NP tends to be a concrete (human
and concrete object) entity, tends to be grounded by a main clause, tends to have a relatively high salience value,
and tends to have an RC that serves the discourse function of characterization. It thus seems that the two
constructions are deployed in discourse to serve different discourse purposes. We will take up this important
observation in the next section.
6. Toward a discourse-pragmatic explanation of the variation of the OMN and the IMN constructions
In the previous sections we have examined the discourse properties that distinguish between the two constructions.
Specifically, we have observed that the OMN is mainly used in connection with abstract entities of low salience to
serve the discourse function of identifying the new head NP, whereas the IMN is mainly used in conjunction with
concrete (human and concrete object) entities of high salience to serve the discourse function of characterization. We
believe that the correlation between the distribution of the two constructions and the discourse properties of linguistic
elements within them cannot be dismissed as accidental, and is in need of explanation.
The explanation that we will offer here rests on the cognitive principle of relevance, as well as the function of the
NCL to highlight the salience of NPs in discourse and that of the relative clause to provide a characterization of the
head NP referent or to help to identify the head NP referent. Before we present the explanation, some remarks on the
cognitive principle of relevance are necessary.
Building on Grice’s Maxim of Relevance, which states that that any conversational contribution should
contribute to the relevance of the discourse as a whole, and on one of Grice’s central claims that utterances
automatically create expectations that guide the hearer towards the speaker’s meaning, Sperber and Wilson (1986/
1995) developed their theory of relevance. The theory rests on two principles: the Cognitive Principle of
Relevance: ‘‘Human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance’’ (Sperber and Wilson,
1995:260), and the Communicative Principle of Relevance: ‘‘Every act of overt communication communicates a
presumption of its own optimal relevance’’ (Sperber and Wilson, 1995:260). It is argued that the expectations of
relevance raised by an utterance are precise enough, and predictable enough, to guide the hearer/reader towards
the meaning that the writer/speaker intends to convey. Relevance is assessed in terms of cognitive effects and
processing effort as in (24).
(24) Relevance of an input to an individual

a. Other things being equal, the greater the positive cognitive effects achieved by processing an input, the
greater the relevance of the input to the individual at that time.
b. Other things being equal, the greater the processing effort expended, the lower the relevance of the
input to the individual at that time.
In short, the speaker/writer needs to maximize the relevance of his or her utterances by reducing the mental effort of
the addressees, while at the same time increasing the contextual effects. One way of accomplishing this is to code as
many aspects of the messages that one intends to convey in the utterances such that the relevance of the utterances will
be maximized. To put it another way, the surface form of an utterance will often reflect some aspects of the message
that the form is intended to convey (see e.g., Haiman, 1985).
We suggest that Chinese speakers/writers are guided by the cognitive principle of relevance as they choose between
the OMN and IMN constructions. On the one hand, when the head NP evokes a human or concrete entity, the IMN
construction is more likely than the OMN to produce a relevant utterance. On the other hand, when the head NP evokes
an abstract entity, the use of the OMN is more likely than the IMN to produce a relevant utterance. In each case, the
choice of a particular construction contributes to relevance by guiding the audience towards the speaker’s informative
intention, hence reducing the overall effort required to arrive at the intended interpretation. We will take these two
observations in turn.
In the IMN, the NCL precedes the RC. Why is the IMN more likely to be used when a human or concrete
entity (rather than an abstract entity) is evoked? The answer lies in the principle of cognitive salience as
well as the interaction between the discourse function of the NCL and that of the modifying relative clause.
Remember that the NCL is used to highlight the discourse salience of the discourse participant and to
introduce a salient discourse participant (Li, 2000a). From a real-time processing perspective, the moment the
hearer or reader reaches the NCL, he/she is expecting to find a salient discourse participant in the later part of
the sentence. Thus the early placement of the NCL before the relative clause creates in the addressees an
expectation that a salient discourse participant—namely a human being or a concrete entity—will be
introduced into discourse and brought into the spotlight, and that the function of the modifying RC will be to
characterize the referent to be named by the head NP. Accordingly, if the IMN is chosen, the expectation created
in the actively involved addressee would maximally match the intended message in the speaker/writer’s mental
representation.
The principle of cognitive salience, together with the interaction between the discourse function of the NCL and
that of the modifying relative clause, also provides an explanation for our observation that the OMN, where the NCL
follows the relative clause, is preferred for introducing head NPs that evoke abstract entities with relatively low
salience. The choice of the OMN creates in the addressees an expectation that the modifying relative clause will
identify the abstract head noun primarily via proposition linking. By introducing the identifying relative clause first,
the speaker/writer conveys the message that the information contained in the relative clause is expected to receive the
spotlight. The information provided by the relative clause in an OMN is so indispensable that without it the abstract
head noun would be semantically bleached or empty.11 We will try to illustrate this idea with the following example
(25).
In example (25) the head NP shǒuduàn ‘‘method’’ is grounded by the whole relative clause. It is worth
mentioning that the human subject referent in the relative clause can not ground the abstract noun for two reasons:
firstly it is not a given referent; and secondly, an abstract head NP is non-manipulable and can not be grounded by a
human being. Therefore the relative clause is of primary importance: it identifies the abstract head NP by providing the
grounding information via proposition linking. This principle is evident in example (26), where the relative clause is
removed.
11
It’s also interesting to note that the discourse function of the NCL may be inhibited to certain extent if the OMN is used with an abstract head NP,
because it seems now optional as in (i) below.
Without the relative clause, the example in (26) is not informative at all. The following example provides further
proof that the relative clause in the OMN construction is of paramount importance for abstract head NPs.
As in (25), the head NP of the relative clause in (27) cannot be grounded by any given referent in earlier discourse.
As a result, the whole relative clause serves to ground the abstract head NP. The paramount importance of the relative
clause to identify the abstract entity is evidenced by the fact that the whole sentence is semantically incomplete if the
relative clause is taken out, as in (28):
These examples (25)–(28) suggest that relative clauses serve to identify abstract head NPs by providing
grounding information. Without this information, it is impossible for the reader to identify the head NP. The early
deployment of the relative clause before the NLC facilitates the processing of the abstract head NP by providing
identification information at an earlier time. The relevance of the whole utterance is thus optimized. By contrast,
placing an NCL before a relative clause that modifies an abstract noun (or any noun with relatively low salience)
increases the risk of mishandling the language input. Recall that abstract nouns refer to events, abstract concepts,
and anything else that is not prototypically concrete. By definition, abstract nouns are non-referential and they
tend to fade out from the discourse after their initial mention, as evidenced by the low number of occurrences in
the subsequent ten clauses in Table 6. The moment the hearer or reader reaches the NCL, he/she is expecting to
find a salient discourse participant in the later part of the sentence. However, the non-referential and transitory
nature of abstract nouns makes them unsuitable for introducing a new participant to the discourse. As a result, the
listener or hearer may be led down the garden path when the IMN is used with an abstract head NP, and
accordingly the placement of NCL before a relative clause when the head NP evokes an abstract entity is
cognitively costly.
Our proposal that a grounding relative clause should be placed before a NCL for the purpose of early identification
of the introduced new referent finds its justification in the fact that if there is more than one modifying clause, the
grounding relative clause always precedes the NCL, which in turn goes before the characterizing relative clause, as in
(29) and (30).
In (29), the abstract head NP fǎlü` ‘law’ is modified by two relative clauses. The first one 1709
yı̄qı̄lı́ngjiǔ nián ānná nüˇwáng zhı́zhèng shı́ bānbù de ‘which was issued in 1709 when Queen
Anna was in power’serves to ground the abstract head noun by providing a grounding given human referent ānná
nüˇwáng ‘Queen Anna’ and the grounding relative clause goes before the numeral-classifier sequence. The second relative
clause mı́ngchēng rǒngchǎng de ‘whose name was tediously long’ is used to characterize it and the
characterization relative clause is placed after the NCL. It is obvious that the relative word order between relative clauses
and NCL follows our observation that identifying relative clauses tend to precede NCL whereas characterizing relative
clauses tend to follow it. The same phenomenon is observed in example (30) where the abstract head noun jı̀shù
‘technique’ is modified by two relative clauses. The first one provides an anchoring given referent Cetus
měiguó Cetus gōngsı̄ hé jiālı̀fúnı́yà dàxué ‘‘the US Cetus Coorporation and the University of
California’’ to ground it and the grounding relative clause is placed before the NCL. The second relative clause
characterizes the abstract head NP by providing additional descriptive information. The characterizing relative clause,
once again, is deployed after the relative clause. In each case, the relevance of the utterance is optimized thanks to the
pragmatically motivated positioning of the NCL and each of the relative clauses, which serve different discourse purposes.
These examples with NPs modified by two relative clauses provide further evidence for Fox and Thompson’s (1990)
observation that the two relative clauses are sequenced in an orderly fashion and that the order of the two relative clauses
can be predicted from the discourse factors we have discussed so far. Incidentally, these examples pose great challenges
for previous non-pragmatic approach to word order variations in Chinese relative clauses. For transformation-based
approaches such as Hou and Kitagawa (1987), Del Gobbo (2003) and L. Zhang (2006), it is far from clear what the
transformational counterparts of these examples are, and how one construction may be transformationally derived from
the other. For the syntax–semantic interface approach represented in N. Zhang (2006), the challenge is different. Whereas
N. Zhang recognizes the two constructions as structurally independent of each other, her approach simply has nothing to
say about the positioning of the two relative clauses modifying the same NP.
7. Additional observations
We have shown that the use of the two constructions (word orders) is not determined by the grammatical roles of the
relativized NP nor by the information status of the head NP. Instead, their differentiated use is attributed to the
interaction between the discourse function of the NCL and that of relative clauses. However, we have not addressed L.
Zhang’s (2006) argument that the OMN is transformationally derived from the IMN by virtue of the movement of the
relative clause from a post-NCL position. According to L. Zhang, the motivation of the movement is to express
contrastive focus and the prediction is that the head NP in the OMN should be either definite or linked to a definite element
in the relative clause. However, examination of relative clauses with the word order RC + NCL + NP shows that many
relative clauses (75%) do not contain the required definite element to locate the head NP and that many relative clauses
(61%) that have a definite element do not exhibit the word order of RC + NCL + NP. Therefore, the prediction that the
head NP in the word order RC + NCL + NP exists to convey contrastive focus is not supported. Once again, we argue that
clause level structural analysis cannot provide a convincing explanation as to which construction should be used.
8. Concluding remarks
In Mandarin Chinese, a relative clause (RC) can either immediately precede its head NP, or may be separated
from its head by a numeral-classifier sequence (NCL). This word order variation results in two alternating
constructions: the OMN with RC + NCL + NP order and the IMN with NCL + RC + NP order. The aim of this
paper has been to explore the use of these two constructions in discourse from a corpus-linguistic perspective. In
particular, the influence of the grammatical roles of relativized NPs, information status, animacy, discourse
salience of head NPs, grounding mechanisms, as well as discourse functions of relative clauses have been
analyzed. Examinations of the distribution and occurrence of these two constructions show that they are deployed
in discourse to serve different discourse purposes. The OMN is mainly used in connection with abstract entities
with low discourse salience to serve the discourse function of identifying the new head NP, whereas the IMN is
mainly used in conjunction with concrete (human and concrete object) entities with high discourse salience to
serve the discourse function of characterization. We argue that the variation in these two constructions can be best
explained with regard to the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance, and the interactions between
two major underlying factors, namely the discourse function of an NCL and that of a RC. The relative order of RC
and NCL seems to indicate the direction in which relevance is to be sought. When the discourse function of an
NCL to introduce a salient participant is fully realized and highlighted, an NCL tends to precede a RC. If the
discourse function of an NCL is not fully realized and but is weakened, an NCL tends to follow a RC. By the same
token, if the discourse function of a RC to ground a referent is accentuated, the word order RC + NCL + NP is
favored over the word order NCL + RC + NP. Conversely, if the discourse function of a RC to ground a referent is
attenuated, the word order NCL + RC + NP dominates. In either case, the choice of one construction over the
other highlights the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance. Results from the present study suggest
that clause level structural analysis does not suffice to explain the underlying factors that govern the choice of
alternative means of expressions in a language. By contrast, corpus data can be tremendously useful in helping us
arriving at a realistic account of the structure of human language. The examination of naturally occurring
discourse where alternating forms may be used is indispensable for discovering the motivations underlying the
choice of one form over the other. In the case of the two types of alternating nominal constructions we have
examined here, a corpus-linguistic approach reveals that the discourse function of NCL and relative clauses, the
discourse salience of head NPs, and the mechanism of grounding all play a role in deciding which word order
should be employed. More importantly, the choice of one particular construction reflects the speaker’s effort to
help the hearer to recognize the speaker’s communicative intention with a minimum justifiable effort and thus
satisfies the criterion of consistency with the principle of relevance.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the previous version of this paper. The
help from Katie Coleman is greatly appreciated as well.
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Tao Ming, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Chinese in Department of Modern Language and Literature at Concordia College.
Liang Chen, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences and Special Education at the University of Georgia.

A Discourse Study of Chinese Relative Clause Word Order Variation

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Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 168–189

A discourse-pragmatic study of the word order

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 706 542 4566.

2. Previous research on the two word order alternations

4. Conditioning factors governing the word order variation

4.1. Information Status of head NP

4.2. The grammatical roles of relativized NPs in relative clauses

4.3. Animacy of head nouns

4.5. Discourse salience of head NPs

4.6. Discourse functions of relative clauses

(24) Relevance of an input to an individual

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