Abstract:
In recent years, a "unique" sentence like "The Chinese national table tennis team can never be beaten (by others); the Chinese men's national football team can never beat anyone" has been circulating on the internet. From the perspective of grounding theory, this paper discusses Chinese "unique" sentences, reveals a usage-based view of grammar, and demonstrates the charm of the interactive interface among grammar, pragmatics, and cognition, which is conducive to promoting innovation and development in linguistic theories. The study finds that: 1) Chinese "unique" sentences are the result of grounding, which eliminates ambiguity by transforming indefiniteness into definiteness through grounding; 2) Chinese "unique" sentences are a form of Dui-speeches that generates pragmatic meaning. The shift from background to prominence indicates that such "unique" sentences are context-dependent rather than autonomous, highlighting the speaker's attitude; 3) The transition from objective description to subjective interpretation indicates that while these "unique" sentences appear to be objective descriptions on the surface, they are, in fact, subjective interpretations. The study of grounding in language holds typological significance.