caa a22 4500 475782070 CHVBK 20180406123647.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170329e20001101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1023/A:1006411825993 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1023/A:1006411825993 Aspect and Assertion in Mandarin Chinese [Elektronische Daten] [Wolfgang Klein, Ping Li, Hemriette Hendriks] Chinese has a number of particles such as le, guo, zai and zhe that add a particular aspectual value to the verb to which they are attached. There have been many characterisations of this value in the literature. In this paper, we review several existing influential accounts of these particles, including those in Li and Thompson (1981), Smith (1991), and Mangione and Li (1993). We argue that all these characterisations are intuitively plausible, but none of them is precise.We propose that these particles serve to mark which part of the sentence's descriptive content is asserted, and that their aspectual value is a consequence of this function. We provide a simple and precise definition of the meanings of le, guo, zai and zhe in terms of the relationship between topic time and time of situation, and show the consequences of their interaction with different verb expressions within thisnew framework of interpretation. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000 Klein Wolfgang E-mail: wolfgang.klein@mpi.nl aut Li Ping E-mail: pli@richmond.edu aut Hendriks Hemriette E-mail: hpjmh2@cam.ac.uk aut Natural Language & Linguistic Theory Kluwer Academic Publishers 18/4(2000-11-01), 723-770 0167-806X 18:4<723 2000 18 11049 https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006411825993 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006411825993 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Klein Wolfgang E-mail: wolfgang.klein@mpi.nl aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Li Ping E-mail: pli@richmond.edu aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Hendriks Hemriette E-mail: hpjmh2@cam.ac.uk aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Natural Language & Linguistic Theory Kluwer Academic Publishers 18/4(2000-11-01), 723-770 0167-806X 18:4<723 2000 18 11049 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer