The basis of this work is a collection of Mandarin Chinese dialogues recorded on tape and transcribed so as to constitute a spoken corpus of 5,000 sentences. Using examples from this corpus, the author discusses several issues in the analysis of spoken Mandarin. The main purpose of the work is to demonstrate the viability of a data-oriented approach to syntax and semantics. In this approach, both the way people talk and what they talk about are relevant for the linguistic description. The procedures and terms used in the analyses are introduced step by step without assuming more than an everyday familiarity with linguistic terminology.
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