"As a distinctive syntactic structure in Mandarin Chinese, the Patient-Subject Construction (PSC) is one of the most interesting but least well-understood structures in the language. This book offers a comprehensive account of the history, structure, meaning and use of the PSC. Unlike previous descriptions which were framed in terms of pre-existing grammatical notions such as 'topicalization', 'passivization' and 'ergativization', this book offers a fresh look at the PSC, in which its syntactic and semantic as well as its discourse functions are examined within the system of major construction-types of the language as a whole. The PSC, being low in transitivity, serves primarily the function of backgrounding in discourse. Typologically, the PSC bears a resemblance to middle constructions in Indo-European and other languages, raising interesting questions about ways to understand congruent and divergent syntactic structures across the world's languages. This book will be of interest to students of Chinese Linguistics as well as Language Typology"--.

• Patient-Subject Constructions in Mandarin Chinese
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• Abbreviations
• Major chronological divisions of Chinese history
• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1 Patient-Subject Construction
    • 1.1.1 The scope of ‘patient’
      • 1.1.2 The syntactic position of patient
      • 1.2 The problem of the PSC
      • 1.3 The present approach
      • 1.4 Organization of the book
• 2. Previous Studies of the Patient-Subject Construction
  • 2.1 The PSC is an age-old construction in Chinese
    • 2.2 General properties of the PSC
      • 2.2.1 High text frequency
        • 2.2.2 Syntactic properties
      • 2.3 Previous studies of the PSC
        • 2.3.1 Phonetic marking of the grammatical distinction
        • 2.3.2 Lexical approaches
          • 2.3.2.1 The “Inward-outward conversion” hypothesis
        • 2.3.2.2 “Middle verbs”
        • 2.3.3 Syntactic approaches
        • 2.3.3.1 Object-preposing
        • 2.3.3.2 Passive sentences
        • 2.3.3.3 Topicalization structure
        • 2.3.3.4 Stative sentences
        • 2.3.3.5 Middle constructions
• 3. What the PSC is not
  • 3.1 Topicalization
    • 3.1.1 Prosodic cues
      • 3.1.2 Subjecthood
        • 3.1.3 Focus, subordination and nominalization
      • 3.2 PSC is not passive
        • 3.2.1 Two opposing views
        • 3.2.2 Why PSC is not passive
        • 3.2.2.1 Setting determining criteria
      • 3.3 PSC is not an ergative construction
        • 3.3.1 Ergativity
        • 3.3.2 PSC is not an ergative structure
        • 3.3.3 The PSC is not an ergative construction
• 4. Syntactic and semantic properties of patient-subject constru
  • 4.1 Sub-classifying the PSC
    • 4.2 Different kinds of PSC and their semantic properties
      • 4.2.1 NP + V + Complement
        • 4.2.2 NP + Adverbial + V
        • 4.2.3 NP + V + le 了/zhe 着/guo 过
        • 4.2.4 NP + V + NP
        • 4.2.5 Two special forms
        • 4.2.6 Summary
      • 4.3 Two challenges for the “inactiveness” account
        • 4.3.1 Imperative sentences
        • 4.3.2 The problem of zhengzai
      • 4.4 Chapter summary
• 5. ‘Inactiveness’ and ‘Backgrounding’
  • 5.1 The polysemy of PSC
    • 5.1.1 The PSC as Envisioned within Event Structure
    • 5.2 Inactiveness as grammatical construal
      • 5.2.1 Construction meaning
      • 5.2.2 Relations between constructions
    • 5.3 Discourse functions of PSC
      • 5.3.1 An empirical study
    • 5.4 Chapter summary
• 6. PSC in typological perspective
  • 6.1 PSC-like structures in other languages
    • 6.1.1 Reflexive constructions
      • 6.1.2 Middle constructions
      • 6.2 The Chinese PSC as a middle construction
        • 6.2.1 Sentence form and meaning
        • 6.2.2 The active-middle opposition and its cognitive basis
      • 6.3 Unaccusativity and ergativization
        • 6.3.1 Unaccusativity
        • 6.3.2 Ergativization
      • 6.4 Chapter summary
• 7. Summary and conclusion
  • 7.1 A new picture of the PSC
    • 7.2 Further studies
      • 7.2.1 The voice system
        • 7.2.2 The ba-construction
        • 7.2.3 The PSC and the bei-construction
        • 7.2.4 The classification of construction types in Chinese
• References
• Appendix 1. Verbs
• Appendix 2. Other sources
• Appendix 3. Dictionary
• Index