Le coordonnant adversatif du mandarin standard

Abstract

One of the most popular morphemes signifying adversative relation in Mandarin is 但是 dànshì, which can be considered as either a conjunction or an adverb. When 但是 dànshì is used as adversative conjunction and adversative adverb, it shows different syntactic distributions. Focus on the conjunction 但是 dànshì, it allows coordination between linguistic units at various levels such as morphemes, nominal clauses, propositions, and even paragraphs. Besides 但是 dànshì, other terms like 可是 kěshì, 不过 búguò et 然而 rán’ér frequently occur in Chinese daily communication. They also express adversative meanings and assume a coordination function. In most of the cases where 但是 dànshì is used, it can be switched to its variants freely without changing the meaning, but it is forbidden in specific contexts. We will show in this article the syntactic distribution of adversative conjunction 但是 dànshì and its variants in Standard Mandarin Chinese, aiming to provide a comparative presentation of different signifiers from a distributional perspective.