Linguistic typology, language modality, and stuff like that

Abstract

Abstract Pragmatic particles termed general extenders (GE) have been examined across languages and are found to serve multiple functions. Despite the fruitful findings, few study the use of GEs in different language modalities and in typologically more different languages such as Chinese. This research aims to contribute to this literature by investigating the use of the GE zhilei(de) (zld), ‘of that kind,’ in spoken and written Chinese. Data from corpora of spoken and written Chinese suggest that zld displays some distinctive patterns in its form and function, partly due to the typological traits of Mandarin Chinese. The results also indicate that the language modality where zld is deployed may have impacts on its structural and functional distribution. The current article thus holds implications not only for the literature of GEs but also for the study of the interface between linguistic typology, language modality, and pragmatic expressions.