Varieties of Alternatives
Focus Particles and wh-Expressions in Mandarin
Published on 17. October 2017
XIX, 174 pages
978-981-10-6208-7 (ISBN)
Description
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.
More details
Series
Edition
1st ed. 2018
Language
English
Place of publication
Singapore
Singapore
Publishing group
Springer Singapore
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Reflowable
Illustrations
XIX, 174 p. 16 illus.
File size
2,75 MB
ISBN-13
978-981-10-6208-7 (9789811062087)
DOI
10.1007/978-981-10-6208-7
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
10/2017
Springer
€53.49
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
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.
Content
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Background.- Chapter 3. Varieties of Alternatives: Mandarin Focus Particles.- Chapter 4. More Exclusives.- Chapter 5. Mandarin Wh-conditionals: Challenges and Facts.- Chapter 6. Proposal-A: Wh-conditionals as Interrogative Conditionals.- Chapter 7. Proposal-B: Wh-conditionals as Interrogative Dependency.- Chapter 8. Concluding Remarks.
