Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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In this thesis, I investigated interjections in spoken Taiwan Mandarin. I gathered data from a contemporary spontaneous conversation between two Taiwan Mandarin speakers that I recorded in the...Show moreIn this thesis, I investigated interjections in spoken Taiwan Mandarin. I gathered data from a contemporary spontaneous conversation between two Taiwan Mandarin speakers that I recorded in the Leiden University for Linguistics Phonetics Laboratory. I described these interjections by writing down their form as accurately as possible, and placed them into categories I designed based on their meaning. After that, I discussed existing literature about interjections and compared it with my own data. Since there is no standard definition of interjections, I formulated my own definition based on my data. Finally, I tested whether or not the presence of a running microphone has an influence on the use of interjections by speakers. I compared one part during which the speakers think the microphone is running with another part during which they think it is off. The interjections I found in these parts are very similar, suggesting that my data reflect a natural language conversation. This work aims to shed light on the use of interjections in Taiwan Mandarin, and to contribute to a wider discussion of interjections.Show less
In this thesis the argument made is that Mandarin sentence-le is to be analyzed as the English nonfinite perfect "to have + -ed". First, by the use of the Reichenbach-Klein framework, a definition...Show moreIn this thesis the argument made is that Mandarin sentence-le is to be analyzed as the English nonfinite perfect "to have + -ed". First, by the use of the Reichenbach-Klein framework, a definition is given of the used terms such as 'tense' and 'aspect'. Then, also using the Reichenbach-Klein framework, a description is given of the main characteristics of the English nonfinite perfect "to have + -ed". Then, a description is given of the semantics of le, based on what is said about this in the literature. Finally, a native speaker is asked to answer questions about sentences in which sentence-le is used with different types of predicates in order to see how the meaning of these sentences differ or are similar to the meaning of sentences in which the English nonfinite perfect is used.Show less
