In Mandarin Chinese, referential concepts such as definite, indefinite etc. function effectively as grammatical categories, but this was not the case in Old Chinese. This paper proposes that the verb “you 有” originally expressed existence coupled with a sense of prominence but came to simply express referential notions such as specificity or indefiniteness by the Middle Chinese period. This change was mediated by a second development, which saw the use of “you 有” in spatial existential constructions. Placing the indefinite in a spatial context enhanced its identifiability, thus allowing simple indefinites to occur freely in existential constructions.

This paper discusses the historical process by which Chinese indefinite, verb-object noun phrases came to be marked with numerals and classifiers. Specifically, three texts were chosen from the bianwen, a collection of vernacular manuscripts from the Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties period, and a comprehensive investigation was conducted of indefinite nouns that carried “topic persistence” in the subsequent discourse. Accordingly, the study attempts to define the conditions for occurrence of the following three types of marked form and the differentiation in function between these three categories: numeral + noun, numeral + classifier + noun, and noun + numeral + classifier.

This article examines the functions of numerical-classifier phrases as markers of indefinite reference during the Southern-Song Dynasty. Detailed examinations of “Zhuzi Yulei” published in the 13th century reveal the following points made clear: (1) the combination of “yi” and “ge” was not yet prefixed to a noun as a typical marker of indefinite reference. (2) In the case of prefixing a classifier of “ge” to a noun of “ren” (人), the number of “ren” was always “yi.” (3) In most cases prefixing “yi ge” (一箇) to a noun meaning people other than “ren,” the noun was accompanied by a modifier. The combination of “yi” and “ge” and a modifying construction were frequentlly to co-occurrence.

As part of an attempt to shed new light on reference in Chinese, this paper investigates the correspondence between meaning and structure from the viewpoint of markedness. Research on reference to date has largely been limited to nominal expressions. In contrast, the present study is considerably broader in scope, examining spatial, adjectival, and verbal expressions as well. It is shown that a diverse variety of grammatical phenomena, which have previously been viewed as distinct from one another, can all be revealingly analyzed in terms of reference. Providing a unified account of these phenomena, this paper demonstrates that, in Mandarin Chinese, the opposition between conceptual reference and actual reference—arguably one of the most basic ontological distinctions—is realized as a contrast between unmarked constructions and marked constructions and that, moreover, this contrast can be observed cross-categorially.

This study first confirmed that Mandarin Chinese demonstrative na can be used as an associative anaphora and a bound variable anaphora in the frame of discourse (Minsky 1977). Moreover, even if there is no linguistic antecedent in the preceding context, na can still be used if the addressee is considered to be able to identify the frame successfully. Meanwhile, this paper also discussed the differences among na, zhe and bare noun phrases and explained the reason for these differences.

The goal of this paper is to show Bybee’s (1985) Iconicity Principle can account for the order of inferential expressions of ‘evidential judgment’ and ‘probability judgment’ in Mandarin Chinese. Evidential judgment such as dàgài is inter-subjective in that it presupposes the presence of a hearer to whom evidence is conveyed, while probability judgment such as yīdìng is subjective in that it can appear in a soliloquy. Data prove that the word order of the inferential expressions is ‘inter-subjective/evidential > subjective/ probability > predicate’, as predicted by the Iconicity Principle.

The main purpose of this paper is to argue that the function of the adverb “JIU (就)” is closely related to a speaker’s recognition and evaluation of quantity. From the perspective of semantic orientation, this paper classifies the sentence patterns into three different types: (1) back-oriented, (2) front-oriented and (3) dual-oriented, and discusses how an implicit meaning is represented behind a sentence, as well as how a subjective quantity in each pattern above is realized in connection with the adverb “JIU (就)” as a focus-sensitive operator.