A Systemic Functional Approach to the Categorial Status of Post-Nominal Monosyllabic Localizers in Mandarin Chinese

Literature entails six viewpoints regarding the categorial status of post-nominal monosyllabic localizers in Mandarin Chinese, including locative particles, nouns or a subclass of nominals, clitics, spatial enclitics or particles, postpositions and postpositions in circumpositions. In order to resol...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wei He
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2025-07-01
Series:SAGE Open
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440251340533
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849228823856414720
author Wei He
author_facet Wei He
author_sort Wei He
collection DOAJ
description Literature entails six viewpoints regarding the categorial status of post-nominal monosyllabic localizers in Mandarin Chinese, including locative particles, nouns or a subclass of nominals, clitics, spatial enclitics or particles, postpositions and postpositions in circumpositions. In order to resolve the disputes, this article argues for the postposition viewpoint from a systemic functional perspective given limited studies regarding this in the literature. Systemic Functional Linguistics can provide proper descriptions for various linguistic phenomena, including localizers, observing the function-oriented language study principle. Hence, to specify the categorial status of post-nominal monosyllabic localizers, this study takes a systemic functional approach to investigate their semantic and syntactic functions. The findings indicate that post-nominal monosyllabic localizers are postpositions, for like prepositions, they express positional relationships between things, and along with their preceding nominals, can function as Subjects, Complements and Adjuncts within Chinese clauses, and as completives in Chinese prepositional phrases.
format Article
id doaj-art-c0f1ab2d12ef4082a98478dd721509c1
institution Kabale University
issn 2158-2440
language English
publishDate 2025-07-01
publisher SAGE Publishing
record_format Article
series SAGE Open
spelling doaj-art-c0f1ab2d12ef4082a98478dd721509c12025-08-22T16:03:38ZengSAGE PublishingSAGE Open2158-24402025-07-011510.1177/21582440251340533A Systemic Functional Approach to the Categorial Status of Post-Nominal Monosyllabic Localizers in Mandarin ChineseWei He0Beijing Foreign Studies University, ChinaLiterature entails six viewpoints regarding the categorial status of post-nominal monosyllabic localizers in Mandarin Chinese, including locative particles, nouns or a subclass of nominals, clitics, spatial enclitics or particles, postpositions and postpositions in circumpositions. In order to resolve the disputes, this article argues for the postposition viewpoint from a systemic functional perspective given limited studies regarding this in the literature. Systemic Functional Linguistics can provide proper descriptions for various linguistic phenomena, including localizers, observing the function-oriented language study principle. Hence, to specify the categorial status of post-nominal monosyllabic localizers, this study takes a systemic functional approach to investigate their semantic and syntactic functions. The findings indicate that post-nominal monosyllabic localizers are postpositions, for like prepositions, they express positional relationships between things, and along with their preceding nominals, can function as Subjects, Complements and Adjuncts within Chinese clauses, and as completives in Chinese prepositional phrases.https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440251340533
spellingShingle Wei He
A Systemic Functional Approach to the Categorial Status of Post-Nominal Monosyllabic Localizers in Mandarin Chinese
SAGE Open
title A Systemic Functional Approach to the Categorial Status of Post-Nominal Monosyllabic Localizers in Mandarin Chinese
title_full A Systemic Functional Approach to the Categorial Status of Post-Nominal Monosyllabic Localizers in Mandarin Chinese
title_fullStr A Systemic Functional Approach to the Categorial Status of Post-Nominal Monosyllabic Localizers in Mandarin Chinese
title_full_unstemmed A Systemic Functional Approach to the Categorial Status of Post-Nominal Monosyllabic Localizers in Mandarin Chinese
title_short A Systemic Functional Approach to the Categorial Status of Post-Nominal Monosyllabic Localizers in Mandarin Chinese
title_sort systemic functional approach to the categorial status of post nominal monosyllabic localizers in mandarin chinese
url https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440251340533
work_keys_str_mv AT weihe asystemicfunctionalapproachtothecategorialstatusofpostnominalmonosyllabiclocalizersinmandarinchinese
AT weihe systemicfunctionalapproachtothecategorialstatusofpostnominalmonosyllabiclocalizersinmandarinchinese