http://hdl.handle.net/10397/905 Search the Channel search http://repository.lib.polyu.edu.hk/jspui/simple-search http://hdl.handle.net/10397/5693 Title: Procedural lexical semantics<br/><br/>Authors: Šimon, Petr<br/><br/>Abstract: This thesis takes a fresh look at the notion of predication with a single goal to give an outline of a theory of semantic well-formedness. We advocate a procedural approach to semantic analysis, which argues for a notion of meaning conceived as an abstract procedure. We use two main departure points in our enterprise. First, we evaluate several proposals made by the Generative Lexicon theory and suggest new solutions. Second, we extend the theory of the Transparent Intensional Logic and apply its formal techniques to analysis of word semantics, which allows us to approach the principle by which meanings bond together in complex expressions from a different angle and offer a richer analysis of meaning, both at the level of lexical semantic as well as compositional semantic analysis. Our theory of predication goes beyond simple juxtaposition of a predicate and an argument and we ask what goes on in the process of function application, the representative approach to the unity of proposition, itself. We analyse this process in detail by decomposing both predicates and arguments and point out the ways by which these two combine in complex expressions and ultimately how they create propositions. These techniques allow us to describe a flexible formal system suitable for analysis of meaning change as well as meaning variation, including the analysis of cross-linguistic phenomena.<br/><br/>Description: ix, 141 p. : ill. ; 30 cm.; PolyU Library Call No.: [THS] LG51 .H577P CBS 2012 Simon http://hdl.handle.net/10397/5692 Title: Tone merger in Guangzhou Cantonese<br/><br/>Authors: Ou, Jinghua<br/><br/>Abstract: Cantonese stands out from other Chinese dialects by having a complex tonal system. However, this complex tonal system has been reported to be in the process of merging. Although there has been a number of studies of the tone merger phenomenon in Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC), few studies have been conducted for Guangzhou Cantonese (GZC). Thus, this study conducted a comprehensive investigation into the variations and mergers of tones in contemporary GZC. Three experimental tasks, discrimination, identification and production, were administered to 75 subjects in three different age groups: young adults (20-25 yrs old); middle-aged (35-45 yrs old) and senior (over 50 yrs old). Forty-eight real syllables, generated by eight CV(C) roots, were used in all three tasks. An acoustic study was conducted to follow up the results of the production task. In the discrimination task, AX paradigm was used to examine whether native GZC speakers can still contrast all the six tones in perception. The overall results showed that T3/T6 and T4/T6 were the two most readily confused pairs. However, the discrimination ability differed among the three age groups. The identification task was administered to investigate the directions of tone mergers attested in the discrimination task. The stimuli were presented aurally to the participants who were asked to select a character from a list of six to represent the perceived syllable properly. Overall, the identification accuracy of T6 was significantly lower than those of the other tones. T6 was more often identified as T3 and also as T4. The error patterns differed among the three age groups. In the production task, the stimuli were embedded into two sentence carriers and read aloud by the participants in order to investigate the production of the six tones. Overall results demonstrated that the production accuracies of T6 and T5 were significantly lower than those of the other tones and these two tones were mainly produced as T3. In addition, the accuracy of T3 was significantly low in the middle-aged group, whereas that of T2 and T3 were significantly low in the young adult group. As for the direction of errors, T3 was found to be produced as T6 and T2 as T5. In all, two types of merger were identified: 1) T3/T6, a full-merger; and 2) T4/T6, a near-merger. The confusion between T3 and T5 was proposed as a case of alternative character readings. The acoustic study was conducted on the T3/T6 full-merger to examine the phonetic realizations of the new level tone and to better understand the mechanism of this merger. The results showed that the two level tones have been merged into one category and realized as a mid-level tone. Also, our results suggested that different mechanisms of tone merger were adopted by different age groups. The present study provided supporting evidence that tone merger is on-going in contemporary GZC. Tone mergers in the two varieties of Cantonese (HKC vs. GZC) were compared and implications for Cantonese as a whole were discussed.<br/><br/>Description: xiv, 95 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm.; PolyU Library Call No.: [THS] LG51 .H577M CBS 2012 Ou http://hdl.handle.net/10397/5691 Title: Between the traditional and the modern : image representations of women in Hong Kong and mainland China TV commercials<br/><br/>Authors: Chung, Man Kwan<br/><br/>Abstract: This study attempts to compare the image representations of women in TV commercials between Hong Kong and mainland China and to explore the competition and/or intertwinement between the traditional/local and modern/global forces in the construction of new images of Chinese women. A total of 1199 TV commercials from Hong Kong and mainland China in 2010 were collected, examined and analyzed for their image representations of Chinese woman by using both content analysis and multimodal analysis. While the content analysis examined the dimensions related to both voice/verbal characteristics and visual representations of women, the multimodal analysis further studied the textual and semiotic modes such as gesture, gaze, posture, head movement, facial expression, interaction, dress, grooming, and the use of space in order to better understand the ideological representations of women in contemporary Cultural China. Results of this cross-cultural/regional study show that the representations of Chinese women in both Hong Kong and mainland China TV commercials can neither be simply qualified as "traditional" nor as "modern", but rather, they can be more appropriately described as a delicate hybridization of both. While more traditional images are projected in the aspects of "product type" and "credibility", more modern images are portrayed via non-domestic settings and in recreational roles. Maintaining the traditional characteristics of being "in-group/ sameness", the more modern images are also "non-dependent" to others. While adhering to traditional expectations of being modest and frugal, they can also be assertive and act as providers of solutions and suggestions. In general, woman figures in Hong Kong commercials exhibited more modern but less traditional traits than its mainland China counterparts. In the dimension of voice and female verbal characteristics, Hong Kong commercials feature more female voices and more English-mixing than its mainland China counterparts. Furthermore, the results of this study validate the significance and dominance of hedonism in Hong Kong society, as manifested in the extensive association of hedonistic values with woman images and in the emphasis of self-enjoyment, independence, individuality and sociability. In mainland China commercials, in contrast, woman images are often associated with masculinity, as manifested in their portrayals in conventional masculine occupations and workplace and in promoting technology products. Finally, the study concludes with a discussion on the transformations of woman images in Chinese society in the globalizing age and on the "Chinese style of modern women" who retain Chinese feminine inner qualities such as being kind and caring but seek individual difference and good life for themselves at the same time. A non-dichotomized approach towards international advertising as well as to cultural studies of Chinese women is thus proposed which calls for further and more rigorous research into the interplay between the traditional and the modern dynamics in Chinese women today.<br/><br/>Description: viii, 209 leaves : col. ill. ; 30 cm.; PolyU Library Call No.: [THS] LG51 .H577M CBS 2012 Chung http://hdl.handle.net/10397/5513 Title: The ingredients of counterfactuality in Mandarin Chinese<br/><br/>Authors: Wang, Yuying<br/><br/>Abstract: This dissertation studies the realization of conditional counterfactual meaning in Mandarin Chinese. It first identifies lexical items and syntactic expressions that contribute, explicitly or implicitly, to the formation of counterfactual meaning (such expressions being termed "counterfactual ingredients" in this work). It then provides semantic and pragmatic analysis to the role played by each ingredient in the realization of counterfactuality. Based on the analyses of these ingredients, the dissertation finally attempts to give a global semantic-pragmatic account of the process of counterfactual interpretation. Our purpose here is to prove that in Chinese, there are indeed linguistic components that can result in counterfactuality, but they only constitute part of the counterfactuality generating system, which can construct other counterfactual meanings, in some cases via accessing multiple layers of contexts. Some major Chinese counterfactual ingredients examined here include temporal elements, hypothetical conjunctions, negators, rhetorical questions, personal pronouns and counterfactual enhancers. It is claimed that unlike the seemingly complicated manifestations, which appear to be assorted and scattered in grammatical or lexical realizations, counterfactual ingredients fall into two categories, those which contribute to factual meaning and those which contribute to negation: FACTUAL: temporal expressions, personal pronouns, rhetorical questions, counterfactual enchancers; NEGATION: negators. Counterfactuality in Chinese can be achieved mainly through time-distancing and negation. Some temporal expressions, such as zao(早) and le(了), are used to create a time-distancing effect, projecting an imagined event time E that is removed from the real event time. E is only vaguely projected, i.e. being unspecific in time. Negating the current and factual can transport language users to a different possible world: a world as similar to the actual world as possible, with one exceptional difference introduced by the protasis. Another interesting finding we have made during the process of the research is that although counterfactual conditionals are well accepted as a typical example of irrealis, some of the ingredients that are studied here, such as temporal expressions and negators (bushi (不是) and meiyou（沒有）,, which are more frequently used than bu（不）) are always applied to realis occasions. It can be concluded that counterfactual in Chinese is an example of realization of irrealis through partial realis representations.; Based on the analysis of individual counterfactual ingredients, we reach an overall account of counterfactuality in Chinese conditional sentences. We argue that the interpretation of a counterfactual conditional may be established via accessing three layers of contexts. A local context is formed when one or several of the counterfactual ingredients are exploited in a conditional sentence. The second layer of context is what we call compound sentence context, which refers to the interpretation of the protasis and the apodosis. It is argued in the dissertation that it is the counterfactual ingredients in the protasis, rather than those in the apodosis, which play a dominant role in deciding the reading of a conditional sentence. Finally a macro context, or discourse context. It could be the information provided by the previous content, or general knowledge, or even observable features about the immediate physical environment on the spot or about the interlocutors. These three contexts interact with one another. The advantage of developing such an account of the counterfactual conditionals and their intuitive truth-condition lies in mainly two aspects. First, counterfactual ingredients are no longer trivial and some of them which were once taken as redundant can be successfully categorized either to be a factive element or a negation element, and thus can all be incorporated into the system of counterfactual interpretation. Second, based on the indexical analysis of the protasis and the apodosis, we can even prove that the counterfactual fallacies are not fallacies at all, if the context remains the same.<br/><br/>Description: xi, 292 p. : ill. ; 30 cm.; PolyU Library Call No.: [THS] LG51 .H577P CBS 2012 Wang