INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the originalor copysubmitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriterface, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adverselyaffect reproduction, In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyrightmaterial had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell lnforrnat«,n Company 300 North Zeeb Ruad, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 USA 313,761-4700 800521-0600 - ---- ----------------------- Order Number 9118066 Studies on interrogatives in Chinese Tsai, Ching-yuan Kenneth, Ph.D. University of Hawaii, 1990 Copyright <£)1990 by Tsai, Ching-yuan Kenneth. All rights reserved. V·M·I 300N. Zeeb Rd Ann Arbor,MI 48106 ._._-~-------_._----- STUDIES ON INTERROGATIVES IN CHINESE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS DECEMBER 1990 By Ching-yuan Kenneth Tsai Dissertation Committee: Patricia A. Lee, Chairperson Robert Cheng George Grace P. Gregory Lee Y.-C. Li iii (0) 1990 ching-yuan K. Tsai All Rights Reserved ------- ----- iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all my committee members. In the writing of this dissertation, they all provided valuable suggestions and comments. Especially, I would like to thank Professors Patricia A. Lee and Robert Cheng for giving their precious time to discuss various issues with me and encouraging me when I encountered difficulty. Thanks are also due to one anonymous referee of Journal of Chinese Linguistics, whose comments helped the second chapter of this dissertation. Finally, I would like to thank my wife for being the first informant to discuss the data with me and for supporting me spiritually. Without her, this dissertation might not have come into existence. ------ --- v ABSTRACT This dissertation studies three areas in Chinese interrogatives: question words as quantifiers, rhetorical questions, and A-not-A questions. For question words, those occurring in special contexts are interpreted as the universal quantifier, whereas those used in question sentences or used as indefinite nouns are interpreted as the existential quantifier. For rhetorical questions, those involving negation are semantically interpreted as manifesting logical contradictory relationship; they are pragmatically interpreted as the speaker's challenge to the hearer for disapproving a logically unavoidable deduction from given premises. Examples are given to show that rhetorical questions can be found not only in particle questions and question-word questions but also in A-not-A questions and disjunctive questions. It is also shown that although the use of interrogatives as rhetorical questions is usually determined by the context, some linguistic constructions or phrases in Chinese do force the rhetorical reading on the question sentences. These constructions include some polarity items, special sequences and frozen forms, and question sentences in which the question words are preposed or which contain some counterfactual phrases. For A-not-A questions, it is shown that the relation between the two juxtaposed predicates is not that of syntactic vi negation, but rather semantic contradiction, and it is proposed that three rules are needed. Those with the form of 'VP not V' are derived through anaphoric ellipsis, while those with the form of 'V not VP' are derived by the reduplication of the verbal and an insertion of the negative bu or mei. And the A-not-A questions with perfective, experiential, or inchoative aspect are derived by the addition of meiyou 'not-have' to the end of the sentences. Moreover, it is believed that these three rules are competing against each other, with the reduplication r~le being the prevalent one. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• i V ABSTRACT •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• V LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS ••••••••••••••••••• ix . CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 .The Language Chinese ••••••••••••..••••••••• 1 1.2 Purpose and Scope .........................• 2 1.3 Four Types of Interrogatives in Chinese •••• 5 1.3.1 Particle Questions .••••••.••••.•••••••••••• 6 1.3.2 Question-word Questions ••••••••••••••••.••• 13 1.3.3 Disjunctive Questions ••••••••••.••••••••••• 15 1.3.4 A-not-A questions . 16 Notes ............................................. 22 CHAPTER 2: QUESTION WORDS AS QUANTIFIERS 2.1 Introduction . 24 2.2 Question Words in Special Contexts ••••••••• 26 2.3 Question Words as Existential Quantifier ••• 29 2.3.1 Definiteness Effects ••••••••••••••••••••••• 30 2.3.2 Cooccurrence Restriction ••••••••••••••••••• 32 2.3.3 Scope Ambiguity . 34 2.3.4 Question Sentences •••••.••••••••••••••••••• 42 2.3.5 Rhetorical Questions ••••••••••••••••••••••• 47 2.4 Concluding Remarks •••••.••••••••••••••••••• 51 Notes 53 CHAPTER 3: RHETORICAL QUESTIONS 3.1 Introduction .. CI •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 62 3.2 Two Types of Rhetorical Questions ••••••.••• 64 3.2.1 Rhetorcial Questions Involving Contradiction 65 3.2.2 Rhetorical Questions Not Involving Contra- diction 73 3.3 A-not-A and Disjunctivee Questions as Rhetorical Questions? .••••••••••••••••••••• 77 3.4 Constructions Affecting the Interpretation of Questions . 92 3.4.1 Polarity Items " 0 D •••• 93 3.4.2 Special Sequences and Frozen Forms ••••••.•• 96· 3.4.3 Preposed Question Words and Counterfactuals 1.09 3.5 concluding Remarks ••••••••••••••.••.••••.•• 113 Notes ............................................. 115 viii CHAPTER 4: A-NOT-A QUESTIONS 4.1 Three Views of A-not-A questions ••••••••••• 120 4.2 Lu's view . 121 4.3 The View of Wang and Rand ••••••••••••• ~ •••• 124 4.4 Huang; s View ••••••••••....•••••••••••..•.•• 1.30 4.4.1 Directionality Constraint and Immediate Dominance Condition •••••••••••••..••••••••• 131 4.4.2 Lexical Integrity and Prepositional Stranding . 143 4.4.3 Island Condition . 146 4.5 More Evidence Against the View of Wang and . Rand •••••••••••••••••••••••.••••..•.•.••••• 147 4.5.1 Negation and Aspect ••••••.••••••••••••••••• 148 4.5.2 Adverb Modification .••••••••••••••••••••••• 157 4.5.3 Quantification and Scope •.•.••••.••••.••••• 166 4.6 Huang's Formulation and Its Inadequacy ••••• 174 4.7 A Fourth View of A-not-A questions ••••••••• 180 4.8 Concluding Remarks •••••• : •.••••••.•.••••••• 190 Notes ............................................. 192 CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS 5 • 1 SUlnIllary. ••••••••••••••••••••••••.•••••••• •• 199 5.2 Implications. ••••.••••••••••••••••••••••• •• 205 REFERENCES •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 210 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS ? preceding a sentence to mark it as odd 1r Drecedina a sentence to m'l.LA.-- as not grammatical % preceding a sentence to mark it as viewed differently by different speakers in terms of acceptability (?) ending a sentence which can be interpreted as either a declarative or a question sentence {} indicating that the elements included between 'the braces are alternatives at the same slot in a construction ASP short for 'aspect' CL short for 'classifier' DE indicating a genitive [, s] or a nominalizer EMP short for 'emphasis' EXP short for the experiential aspect INCH short for the inchoative aspect PART short for the particles other than QP PERF short for the perfective aspect QP short for 'question particle' CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Language Chinese The term Chinese, or the more formal term Mandarin Chinese, usually refers to a major dialect family of China, Northern Mandarin. since this dialect is centered in Peking, sometimes it is simply called Peking Mandarin. It has been officially assigned as the standard language since the 1950s, and is called Putonghua 'common language' in Mainland China or GUoyu 'national language' in Taiwan. Although Peking Mandarin has been chosen as the standard language, it should be kept in mind that as this language has spread over the past three or four decades to various regions and has mingled with different dialects, neither the Putonghua nor the GUoyu is identical to Peking Mandarin (for some of the possible reasons, see Zhu 1987). One may say that in fact there are different versions of the Northern Mandarin spoken in different regions, though they are rather similar. The influences of the various dialects on the standard languages vary in different regions. Even within the same region, the strength of the influence