Dramatized Discourse -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Dedication -- Table of contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- List of figures and tables -- Notational conventions -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Database -- The syntax of the ba-construction -- 3.1. Compositional properties of the ba-construction -- 3.2. The ba-construction and mood -- 3.2.1. Indicative -- 3.2.2. Imperative -- 3.2.3. Interrogative -- 3.2.4. Subjunctive -- 3.3. The ba-construction and modality -- 3.4. The ba-construction and negation -- 3.5. The ba-construction in passive sentences -- 3.6. The ba-construction in causative sentences -- 3.7. The ba-construction as subordinate -- 3.8. Mandarin word order and the ba-construction -- Previous approaches -- 4.1. Disposal -- 4.2. Transitivity -- 4.2.1. Overview -- 4.2.2. What is transitivity? -- 4.3. The causativity approach -- 4.4. The problem -- The hypothesis of discourse dramaticity -- 5.1. The system of discourse dramaticity -- 5.2. The human factor -- 5.2.1. Cognitive salience -- 5.2.2. Subjectivity and emotionality -- 5.3. Redundancy -- Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity -- 6.1. Cognitive salience at the clause level -- 6.1.1. Cognitive salience and the number of participants -- 6.1.2. Cognitive salience and verbal dynamism -- 6.1.3. Cognitive salience and verbal modification -- 6.1.4. Cognitive salience of event and salient participants -- 6.1.5. Cognitive salience and information structure -- 6.2. Cognitive salience at the trans-clause level -- 6.2.1. Foregrounding properties -- 6.2.2. Textual linking -- Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity -- 7.1. The nature of linguistic subjectivity and emotionality -- 7.2. Conceptual metaphors -- 7.3. Intensifiers -- 7.3.1. Intensifying adverbs -- 7.3.2. Intensifying quantifiers -- 7.4. Mood and modality -- 7.4.1. Mood -- 7.4.2. Modality.

7.4.3. The potential construction versus the modal verb neng -- 7.5. Frequency variation across discourse types as additional evidence -- An interim conclusion -- The pragmatization of the ba-construction -- 9.1. Evolution and a functional view of syntactic change -- 9.2. Serial verb construction as source of change -- 9.2.1. Formal pressure towards change -- 9.2.2. Functional re-adaptation and its formal repercussions -- 9.3. Regulation and systemization -- 9.3.1. Data -- 9.3.2. Results -- 9.3.3. Discussion -- 9.4. Inadequacies of the OM postulation -- 9.5. Subjectification -- Final remarks -- Notes -- -24pt -- References -- Text material -- Author index -- Subject index -- The series Studies In Functional And Structural Linguistics.