1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
  4. Volume 9, Issue 2
  5. Article
Volume 9, Issue 2
  • ISSN 2213-8706
  • E-ISSN: 2213-8714
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

Refutatory -sentences possess several syntactic properties that are absent in their interrogative counterparts. First, they carry the assertive rather than interrogative force; second, they are mainly used to refute a claim made by another interlocutor. Given the fact that such a distinction is correlated with the position that ‘where’ occupies in sentence, I propose that when serves as an interrogative -phrase, it is nominal and consists of and an indefinite morpheme concerning location; in contrast, when is a refutatory marker, it is an adjunct, containing an additional negative operator that binds a location-associated variable encoded in the indefinite morpheme. The refutatory further has to move to the Spec of ForceP at LF to acquire the illocutionary force. This analysis not only accounts for the syntactic and pragmatic properties of the refutatory , but also supports the claim that Mandarin -arguments and -adjuncts are formed differently.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/ijchl.21001.liu
2022-12-06
2025-01-16

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/ijchl.21001.liu
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Bhatt, R.
    (1998) Argument-adjunct asymmetries in rhetorical questions. Paper presented inthe Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 29, University of Delaware.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Caponigro, I. and Sprouse, J.
    (2007) Rhetorical questions as questions. InE. Puig-Waldmüller (Ed.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung111 (pp.121–133). Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Cheng, L. L. S.
    (1991) On the Typology of Wh-questions. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts: MIT.
  4. (1994) Wh-words as polarity items. Chinese Languages and Linguistics, 21, 615–640.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Cheng, L. and Huang, C.-T. J.
    (1996) Two Types of Donkey Sentences. Natural Language Semantics, 41, 121–163. 10.1007/BF00355411
     https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00355411 [Google Scholar]
  6. Cheung, Y.-L.
    (2006) Negative Wh-words in Cantonese. InZ. J. Xing (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th North America Conference on Chinese Linguistics (pp.90–102). Los Angeles: GSIL Publications, University of Southern California.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. (2008) The Negative Wh-construction. Ph.D. dissertation, California: University of California, Los Angeles.
  8. Chomsky, N.
    (1964) Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Mouton.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. (1973) Conditions on transformations. InS. Anderson and P. Kiparsky (Eds.), A Festschrift for Morris Halle (pp.232–286). Holt, Reinhart & Winston.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Cinque, G.
    (1999) Adverbs and Functional Heads. Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Emonds, J.
    (1970) Root and Structure-preserving Transformations. Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge: MIT.
  12. Fiengo, R.
    (2007) Asking Questions: Using Meaningful Structures to Imply Ignorance. Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208418.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208418.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  13. Haegeman, L.
    (2007) Operator movement and topicalization in adverbial clauses. Folia Linguistica, 411, 279–325. 10.1515/flin.41.3‑4.279
     https://doi.org/10.1515/flin.41.3-4.279 [Google Scholar]
  14. (2011) The movement derivation of conditional clauses. Linguistic Inquiry, 411, 595–621. 10.1162/LING_a_00014
     https://doi.org/10.1162/LING_a_00014 [Google Scholar]
  15. (2012) Adverbial Clauses, Main Clause Phenomena and the Composition of the Left Periphery: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax 8). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199858774.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199858774.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  16. Han, C.-H.
    (2002) Interpreting Interrogatives as Rhetorical Questions. Lingua, 112(3), 201–229. 10.1016/S0024‑3841(01)00044‑4
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0024-3841(01)00044-4 [Google Scholar]
  17. Heim, I.
    (1982) The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
  18. Hooper, J. & Thompson, S.
    (1973) On the applicability of root transformations. Linguistic Inquiry, 41, 465–497.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Hsieh, M.-L.
    (2001) Form and Meaning: Negation and Question in Chinese. Ph.D. dissertation, California: University of Southern California 2001.
  20. Huang, C.-T. J.
    (1982) Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar. Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge: MIT.
  21. Katz, J. and Postal, P.
    (1964) An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions. MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Kiss, A.
    (2015) On Chinese Negative-Wh Constructions and Causal/Denial-How Questions. Master thesis. Netherland: Leiden University.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Klima, E.
    (1964) Negation in English. InJ. A. Fodor and J. J. Katz (Eds.), The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language (pp.246–323). Prentice Hall, Englewood.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Ladusaw, W.
    (1979) Polarity Sensitivity as Inherent Scope Relations. Ph.D. dissertation, Texas: University of Texas, Austin.
  25. Li, A.
    (1992) Indefinite wh in Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics11, 125–156. 10.1007/BF00130234
     https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00130234 [Google Scholar]
  26. Lin, J.-W. and Tang, C.-C. J.
    (1995) Modals as verbs in Chinese: A GB perspective. The Bulletin of Institute of History and Philology, 661, 53–105. Taiwan: Academia Sinica.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Lin, T.-H. J.
    (2012) Multiple-modal constructions in Mandarin Chinese and their finiteness properties. Journal of Linguistics, 481, 151–186. 10.1017/S0022226711000272
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226711000272 [Google Scholar]
  28. Pan, V. J.
    (2014) Deriving Special Questions in Mandarin Chinese: A Comparative Study. InJ. Park and I. Lee (Eds), Comparative Syntax: Proceedings of the 16th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (pp.349–368).
     [Google Scholar]
  29. (2015) Mandarin Peripheral Construals at the Syntax-Discourse Interface. The Linguistic Review, 32(4), 819–868. 10.1515/tlr‑2015‑0005
     https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2015-0005 [Google Scholar]
  30. (2019) Architecture of the Periphery in Chinese. Routledge. 10.4324/9781315158228
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158228 [Google Scholar]
  31. Reinhart, T.
    (1993) Wh-in-situ in the framework of the Minimalist Program. Lecture given atUtrecht Linguistics Colloquium.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Rizzi, L.
    (1997) The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. InL. Haegeman (Ed.), Elements of Grammar (pp.281–337). Kluwer. 10.1007/978‑94‑011‑5420‑8_7
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5420-8_7 [Google Scholar]
  33. (2001) On the Position of ‘Int(errogative)’ in the Left Periphery of the Clause. InG. Cinque and G. Salvi (Eds), Current Studies in Italian Syntax: Essays offered to L. Renzi (pp.287–296). Elsevier.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Sadock, J. M.
    (1974) Towards a Linguistic Theory of Speech Acts. Academic Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Shao, J.
    (1996) Xiandai Hanyu Yiwenju Yanjiu [Research on Interrogatives in Mandarin Chinese]. Haodong Shifan Daxue Chubanshe [East China Normal University Press].
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Shi, D.
    (2000) Topic and Topic-comment constructions in Mandarin Chinese. Language, 76(2), 383–408. 10.1353/lan.2000.0070
     https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2000.0070 [Google Scholar]
  37. Sprouse, J.
    (2007) Rhetorical Question and Wh-movement. Linguistic Inquiry, 38(3), 572–580. 10.1162/ling.2007.38.3.572
     https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2007.38.3.572 [Google Scholar]
  38. Tsai, W.-T. D.
    (1994) On Economizing the Theory of A’-dependencies. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts: MIT.
  39. (1999) On lexical courtesy. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 81, 39–73. 10.1023/A:1008354312243
     https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008354312243 [Google Scholar]
  40. (2000) The hows of why and the whys of how. Chinese Studies, 18(1), 209–235.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. (2008a) Object Specificity in Chinese. The Linguistic Review, 251, 479–502. 10.1515/TLIR.2008.014
     https://doi.org/10.1515/TLIR.2008.014 [Google Scholar]
  42. (2008b) Left periphery and how-why alternations. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 171, 83–115. 10.1007/s10831‑008‑9021‑0
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s10831-008-9021-0 [Google Scholar]
  43. Yang, B. C.-Y.
    (2015) Locating Wh-intervention Effects at CP. InW.-T. D. Tsai (Ed.), The Cartography of Syntactic Structures 11: The Cartography of Chinese Syntax (pp.153–186). Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210687.003.0005
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210687.003.0005 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/ijchl.21001.liu
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): refutatory force; rhetorical questions; unselective binding; wh-phrase

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error