Varieties of Alternatives: Focus Particles and Wh-Expressions in Mandarin

ISBN-13: 9789811062070 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 174 str.

Mingming Liu

Opis

This book concerns two focus particles (jiu, dou) and wh-expressions (shenme = `what', na geren = `which person') in Mandarin Chinese. An idea based on alternatives and varieties of alternatives in particular - following Chierchia's 2013 analysis of the polarity system - is pursued to account for the systematic ambiguities.

Spis treści

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. The Cast of Characters 

1.2. Main Themes 

1.3. Overview of Things to Come 

Chapter 2. Background

2.1. Semantic Assumptions

2.2. Syntactic Assumptions

Chapter 3. Varieties of Alternatives: Mandarin Focus Particles

3.1. Introduction 

3.2. Deriving ‘Ambiguities’ through Alternatives

3.3. Regulating Ambiguities

3.4. Connection to Previous Work

3.5. Conclusion

Chapter 4. More Exclusives

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Exclusive (Dis)harmonies

4.3. Too Many Onlys

4.4. Conclusion

Chapter 5. Mandarin Wh-conditionals: Challenges and Facts

5.1. Introduction 

5.2. Basics of Wh-conditionals 

5.3. Previous Analyses . .

5.4. Semantic Properties of Wh-conditionals

5.5. Conclusion

Chapter 6. Proposal-A: Wh-conditional

s as Interrogative Conditionals

6.1. Developing the Proposal

6.2. Explaining the Properties in Detail

6.3. Conclusion

Chapter 7. Proposal-B: Wh-conditionals as Interrogative Dependency

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Dependency as Relations between Questions 

7.3. The Significance of Short Answers 

7.4. Questions as Sets of Structured Meanings 

7.5. Wh-conditionals Encode a Special Dependency Relation 

7.6. Explaining the Properties 

7.7. Comparison, Conclusion and Implication

7.5. Wh-conditionals Encode a Special Dependency Relation 

7.6. Explaining the Properties

7.7. Comparison, Conclusion and Implication

Chapter 8. Concluding Remarks

O autorze

Dr. Mingming Liu received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2016 and currently works as an assistant professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, China. His work has addressed several aspects of Mandarin grammar: focus particles such as the famous dou “each, all, even, already” and other only-like exclusives, wh-expressions and wh-conditionals, Mandarin conditionals in general and resultative verb compounds. He has published articles in several peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.

Blurb

This book concerns two focus particles (jiu, dou) and wh-expressions (shenme = ‘what’, na geren = ‘which person’) in Mandarin Chinese. These items are systematically ‘ambiguous’ and have played important roles in various aspects of Mandarin grammar. An idea based on alternatives and varieties of alternatives in particular – following Chierchia’s 2013 analysis of the polarity system – is pursued to account for the systematic ambiguities. The unambiguous semantics of jiu, dou and wh-expressions are maintained and ‘ambiguity’ explained through varieties of alternatives interacting with other independently motivated aspects of the structure they occur in. By examining these aspects in detail, the book will help readers gain a better understanding of a broad range of phenomena that involve these items – including exhaustivity, distributivity, questions and conditionals.