UC Berkeley Dissertations, Department of Linguistics Title A Cognitive Approach to Mandarin Conditionals Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5qw934z5 Author Yang, Fan-Pei Publication Date 2007 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California A Cognitive Approach To Mandarin Conditionals By Fan-Pei Gloria Yang B.A. (National Taiwan Normal Univeristy) 1998 M.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 2003 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Eve Sweetser, Chair Professor George Lakoff Professor Jerome Feldman Spring 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A Cognitive Approach To Mandarin Conditionals Copyright © 2007 By Fan-Pei Gloria Yang Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract A Cognitive Approach To Mandarin Conditionals By Fan-Pei Gloria Yang Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Professor Eve Sweetser, Chair This dissertation provides a description of some of the common Mandarin conditional constructions, with a focus on describing the contributions of the linking devices to the conditional interpretations and their interactions with other elements in constructions. The analyses are based on corpus data and include studies on the pragmatic uses of conditionals. The discussion endeavors to show how cognitive structures link to linguistic structures and how spaces are built and frames evoked. Consequently, the research does not just provide a syntactic description, but offers an in-depth discussion of epistemic stance and grounding of information indicated by the linking devices. The analysis here shows that cognitive approaches such as Construction Grammar, Theory of Mental Spaces, Gestalt psychology, and Embodied Construction Grammar can successfully describe the subtle semantic nuances of constructional meaning, and the different reasoning processes evoked by different conditional constructions. I examine semantic differences between the variants of particular Mandarin conditional constructions, which have not been captured before in previous analyses. Since English conditionals have been completely analyzed in terms of mental spaces, I systematically contrast Mandarin conditionals with English ones. This analysis includes the 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. unambiguous conditional constructions, the exceptive conditional constructions, and the counterfactual constructions. Using Embodied Construction Grammar notation, this research provides the first formalized grammar of Mandarin conditional constructions. In this formalized grammar, the constructions are represented in such a way that semantic features can be separated and linked to cognitive structures such as image schemas and mental spaces and are potentially implementable by computers. Professor Eve Sweetser Thesis Committee Chair 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 O verview.......................................................................................................................l 1.1.1 Characteristics of Mandarin conditional constructions................................2 1.1.2 The importance of studying Mandarin conditional constructions............. 7 1.2 G o a ls............................................................................................................................. 8 1.3 Conditionals...................................................................................................................... 9 1.3.1 From logic structure to cognitive structure......................................................9 1.3.2 The role ofthen ...................................................................................................... 12 1.3.3 Structural issues of the //-clause.......................................................................15 1.3.4 Chinese Conditionals........................................................................................... 18 1.4 Approaches used in the present study...................................................................23 1.4.1 Construction Grammar........................................................................................23 1.4.2 Embodied Construction Grammar................................................................... 26 1.4.3 Theory of Mental Spaces................................................................................... 29 1.5 Data....................................................................................................................................31 1.6 Organization................................................................................................................... 34 Chapter 2 Ruguo Conditionals............................................................................................. 37 2.1 Introduction................................................................................... 37 2.1.1 Past approaches toruguo .................................................................................. 39 2.1.2 G oal...........................................................................................................................41 2.1.3 Organization........................................................................................................... 41 2.2 The meaning of protasis marker............................................................................... 42 2.2.1 Classification of conditionals..............................................................................42 2.2.2 Previous account of protasis marker’s general meaning......................... 45 2.2.3 Contribution ofruguo in Conditionals............................................................. 49 2.3 Topicality and givenness............................................................................................ 56 2.4 Conditionals as figure-ground alignment...............................................................62 2.5 Mental Spaces in the ruguo conditional.................................................................65 2.6 Conclusion................................................................................... 70 Chapter 3 Jiu and Cai in Conditionals................................................................................ 71 3.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 71 3.2 The general meaning ofjiu and cai..........................................................................73 3.2.1 Jiu and Cai in mental spaces and figure-ground alignment.....................73 3.2.2 Sufficiency or necessity of conditions.............................................................82 3.2.3 Biconditionality and Conditional Perfection...................................................89 3.2.4 Focus-background structure..............................................................................92 3.3 Scale, quantity, and context.......................................................................................98 3.3.1 Lai (1995, 1996, 1999): Scalar Adverbs........................................................99 3.3.2 Dancygier and Sweetser (2005):only if and scalar inferential context ..............................................................................................................................................103 3.4 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................105 Chapter 4 The Exceptive Conditional Constructions in Mandarin..........................107 4.1 Introduction................................................................................................................... 107 4.2 Semantics of the Mandarin Exceptive conditional Construction..................112 i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4.2.1 The meaning ofChufei ...................................................................................... 112 4.2.2 The meaning offouze and buran....................................................................114 4.2.3 The meaning ofcai ..............................................................................................115 4.2.4 Compositionality.................................................................................................. 116 4.3 Analysis of thechufei construction.........................................................................118 4.3.1 The co-indexing phenomenon.........................................................................119 4.3.2 Mental spaces and exceptive conditionals..................................................123 4.4 Uses of thechufei construction.............................................................................. 128 4.4.1 Four instances of thechufei construction....................................................130 4.4.2 Conclusion of uses of chufeithe Construction..........................................