LINGUIST List 7.422

Thu Mar 21 1996

Sum: Classifiers in Vietnamese Narrative Discourse

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Stephen-USA_Daleysil.org, Classifiers in Vietnamese Narrative Discourse

 Dear Colleagues,
 I posted a query on the list late in 1994 when I was preparing to
do a study on classifiers in Vietnamese narrative discourse. At that
time, I received several very helpful responses, which I incorporated
into my research. Now that I've completed the study, I am pleased to
present the abstract and citations for those of you who may be
interested. You may obtain a copy of the study itself through:
 
 UMI Dissertation Services
 300 North Zeeb Road
 PO Box 1346
 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346
 313-761-4700 1-800-521-0600
 
 Abstract
 THE USE OF CLASSIFIERS IN VIETNAMESE NARRATIVE TEXTS
 Karen Ann Chadbourne Daley, M.A.
 The University of Texas at Arlington, 1995
 Supervising Professor: Susan C. Herring

 Classifiers in Vietnamese are said to have numerous syntactic and
semantic functions, including nominalization, individuation, anaphoric
reference, and marking definiteness or possession. However, these
functions also occur among unclassified NPs, and few classified Ps
conform to the so-called prototypical classifier construction for
Vietnamese. Consequently, the reason a speaker chooses to use a
classifier is not apparent. In this investigation, perhaps the first
discourse study of classifiers in Vietnamese to date, I analyze the
distribution of classifiers in four narratives, using text based
measurements (Referential Accessibility, Referential Distance,
Referential Persistence, Overall Frequency; GivA2n 1983), and four
criteria from a study of classifiers in White Hmong (Riddle 1989).
The findings indicate 'referential salience' is the basic discourse
function for classifiers in Vietnamese.
 
 References

 [N.B.-The Vietnamese script in the following bibliography has
been stripped of all diacritics; I also have an electronic copy of the
references in .rtf for those who might be interested in obtaining it
in that format. The Vietnamese text was originally typed in
SILDoulosViet (for the Mac), and the Russian references, which have
been transliterated below, were originally typed in a shareware font
called Vremya.]
 
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	++++++++++++++
 Karen (Chadbourne) Daley
 Summer Institute of Linguistics
 For email correspondence, use the address below and indicate in the
 Subject line that the message is for Karen.
 Internet: stephen-usa.daleysil.org