{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/21666"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/21666","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Recovery and translation of zero anaphoric subjects in Chinese","abstract":"In reading a narrative, it is crucial to know who the writer is referring to. When the subject of each sentence is made explicit, this task of identifying the referent is simple. However, in a discourse-oriented language like Chinese, there is no grammatical requirement to have a subject in each sentence, and so zero subjects are the norm rather than the exception. There could be several entities present in a discourse made up of clauses with zero subjects. The reader will have to decide which entity is being referred to in each clause. The first part of this dissertation examines the cues that help readers identify the correct referent; the second part investigates how these zero subjects are translated into English where the subjects are usually made explicit.","abstract_html":"In reading a narrative, it is crucial to know who the writer is referring to. When the subject of each sentence is made explicit, this task of identifying the referent is simple. However, in a discourse-oriented language like Chinese, there is no grammatical requirement to have a subject in each sentence, and so zero subjects are the norm rather than the exception. There could be several entities present in a discourse made up of clauses with zero subjects. The reader will have to decide which entity is being referred to in each clause. The first part of this dissertation examines the cues that help readers identify the correct referent; the second part investigates how these zero subjects are translated into English where the subjects are usually made explicit.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Lee, Cher-Leng"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Linguistics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Cheng, Chin-Chuan"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-07T13:15:30Z","date_published":"2011-05-07T13:15:30Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:18Z","subjects":["Language, Linguistics","Literature, Asian"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 1990 Lee, Cher-Leng"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["(UMI)AAI9026243","AAI9026243"],"render_values":[{"text":"(UMI)AAI9026243","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"AAI9026243","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/21666","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Cheng, Chin-Chuan"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Lee, Cher-Leng"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-07T13:15:30Z","10000-01-01","1990"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Linguistics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Language, Linguistics","Literature, Asian"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 1990 Lee, Cher-Leng"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["(UMI)AAI9026243","AAI9026243","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/21666"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["In reading a narrative, it is crucial to know who the writer is referring to. When the subject of each sentence is made explicit, this task of identifying the referent is simple. However, in a discourse-oriented language like Chinese, there is no grammatical requirement to have a subject in each sentence, and so zero subjects are the norm rather than the exception. There could be several entities present in a discourse made up of clauses with zero subjects. The reader will have to decide which entity is being referred to in each clause. The first part of this dissertation examines the cues that help readers identify the correct referent; the second part investigates how these zero subjects are translated into English where the subjects are usually made explicit.","It is proposed that the topic continuity of the relevant passage is important to recover the referents of zero anaphoric subjects. The recovery process begins at the predicate of the zero subject, then continues to the closest subtopic continuity, and then the next until the referent is found. Thus, recovery is said to be a bottom-up process. Principles that help decide whether the most recent entity, the opening entity of the passage, or any other entity present is the referent are derived. This is done through the application of the topic continuity, discourse analysis, semantic matching and contextual knowledge.","An examination of the translation of the zero anaphoric subjects into English reveals that not only noun phrases, pronouns, and new nouns are used, but passives, cohesive devices such as coordination and subordination are used as well. The reasons that decide one usage or another can be that of specification, non-specification, or connection. The topic continuity again plays an important role, especially in the rearrangement of clauses and editing of a particular passage. In order to restructure the translated clauses, the topic continuity of these clauses has to be identified before dealing with the details of each clause. Thus, the restructuring of translation is a top-down process.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T13:15:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9026243.pdf: 9126072 bytes, checksum: a8905d2dc19421bf45360767a86889a9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1990","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:52:23Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:24:07-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Recovery and translation of zero anaphoric subjects in Chinese"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Cheng, Chin-Chuan"],"dc:creator":["Lee, Cher-Leng"],"dc:date":["2011-05-07T13:15:30Z","10000-01-01","1990"],"dc:description":["In reading a narrative, it is crucial to know who the writer is referring to. When the subject of each sentence is made explicit, this task of identifying the referent is simple. However, in a discourse-oriented language like Chinese, there is no grammatical requirement to have a subject in each sentence, and so zero subjects are the norm rather than the exception. There could be several entities present in a discourse made up of clauses with zero subjects. The reader will have to decide which entity is being referred to in each clause. The first part of this dissertation examines the cues that help readers identify the correct referent; the second part investigates how these zero subjects are translated into English where the subjects are usually made explicit.","It is proposed that the topic continuity of the relevant passage is important to recover the referents of zero anaphoric subjects. The recovery process begins at the predicate of the zero subject, then continues to the closest subtopic continuity, and then the next until the referent is found. Thus, recovery is said to be a bottom-up process. Principles that help decide whether the most recent entity, the opening entity of the passage, or any other entity present is the referent are derived. This is done through the application of the topic continuity, discourse analysis, semantic matching and contextual knowledge.","An examination of the translation of the zero anaphoric subjects into English reveals that not only noun phrases, pronouns, and new nouns are used, but passives, cohesive devices such as coordination and subordination are used as well. The reasons that decide one usage or another can be that of specification, non-specification, or connection. The topic continuity again plays an important role, especially in the rearrangement of clauses and editing of a particular passage. In order to restructure the translated clauses, the topic continuity of these clauses has to be identified before dealing with the details of each clause. Thus, the restructuring of translation is a top-down process.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T13:15:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9026243.pdf: 9126072 bytes, checksum: a8905d2dc19421bf45360767a86889a9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1990","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:52:23Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:24:07-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"],"dc:identifier":["(UMI)AAI9026243","AAI9026243","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/21666"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 1990 Lee, Cher-Leng"],"dc:subject":["Language, Linguistics","Literature, Asian"],"dc:title":["Recovery and translation of zero anaphoric subjects in Chinese"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Linguistics"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:18Z"}