The passive voice of subjective experience and objective response: A corpus-assisted analysis of the semantic-pragmatic interface of the Chinese 遭 zao, 受 shou, and 得到 dedao constructions

The passive voice in Chinese is the focus of extensive research seeking to understand its diverse discourse functions. By adopting a corpus-assisted approach, this paper brings attention to an underexplored category of passives – Chinese lexical passive constructions (LPCs) – by analyzing the semantic and pragmatic aspects of the zāo, shòu, and dédào structures. Data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to identify the semantic frames triggered by each LPC, highlighting potential differences in how events are conceptualized. Based on evidence from three corpora representing distinct discourse domains, the paper contends that LPCs not only differ in the range of events they represent but also in the affective valence they convey. As such, they constitute three distinct ways of conceptualizing the effects of an action, allowing the speaker to express their subjective-objective response to the event. This supports the unique form-function relationship of each LPC and informs the pragmatic implications involved in their selection.