SPEAKER COMMITMENT BY MANDARIN CONDITIONAL CONNECTIVES: DISTRIBUTIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE 28-30.05.2020 The 21st Chinese Lexical Semantics Workshop (CLSW2020) at the City University of Hong Kong Mingya Liu, Humboldt University of Berlin (mingya.liu@hu-berlin.de) & Yuting Wang, Nanjing University (wangyuting0205@hotmail.com)
2 Contents • Introduction: Mandarin CCs (conditional connectives) • Observation: Distribution of Mandarin CCs • Analysis: CCs in terms of speaker commitment • Experiment: wanyi vs. ruguo/jiaru/yaoshi • Conclusion
3 1. Introduction Ø CCs (conditional connectives) • Restrictor analysis: English if has no distinctive conditional meaning; if -clauses serves to restrict domains of various operators. (Kratzer 1986/91) • The restrictor analysis has inspired many fruitful follow-up studies showing that the interpretation of conditionals is subjective to a process of semantic and pragmatic modulation; however, the modulating role of CCs is understudied.
4 Ø CCs and speaker commitment: • Epistemic evaluations of CCs can be modeled by using speaker commitment scales(SCSs) (Giannakidou 1998/2014; Giannakidou & Mari 2015) For example, English in (1a) and Italian in (1b): (1) a. More committed <unmodalized p , MUST p , POSSIBLY p > Less committed b. More committed <nel caso che , nell’eventualità che , casomai > Less committed (2) committed <‘m wahrscheinlichen Fall , dass’, wenn, falls , ‘im More unwahrscheinlichen Fall , dass’’ > Less committed (Liu 2019)
5 Section 2: Observations
6 2.1. General picture on Mandarin CCs Ø Mandarin possesses a variety of conditional markers. u CCs CCs occurring at the beginning of the antecedent differ in style and frequency, e.g. • Formal style: ru/ruo/ruruo/tang/tanghuo/tangshi/sheruo … • General: ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/jiashe/wanyi … ←Focus They are all used in hypothetical conditionals, therefore some studies consider them to be hypothetical markers. (3) Ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/jiashe/wanyi mingtian xiayu, shiwai huodong hui quxiao. if tomorrow rain outdoor activity will cancel ‘If it rains tomorrow, the outdoor activities will be canceled.’
7 u Conditional Marker • Conditional marker at the end of the antecedent: de-hua ‘speaking of/ hypothetically speaking’ (4) Mingtian xiayu de-hua, shiwai huodong hui quxiao. tomorrow rain outdoor activity will cancel ‘If it rains tomorrow, the outdoor activities will be canceled.’ De-hua is not as independent as other CCs. It tends to co-occur with a CC at the beginning of the antecedent ( ruguo…de-hua ). Frequency of co-occurrence(Xie 2010): 79% in written materials; 50.9% in colloquial speeches.
8 • Chinese also features conditional markers in the consequent. While English then can occur optionally in the consequent in combination with a CC in the antecedent, Mandarin name/jiu/ze‚ ‘ then’ / adverbs hai/ye/you ‘still/also/again’ can occur with or without any CCs in the antecedent. (5) Mei ren lai, women jiu hui jia. no person come we then go home ‘If no one comes, we will go home.’ (6) Yi ge ren haipa shibai, name ta yongyuan bu hui chenggong. one CL person fears failure then he/she forever not will succeed 'If a person is afraid of failure, he/she will never succeed.’ (7) You ren qu, women ye qu. have person go we also go ‘If someone goes, we will also go.’
9 u Special CCs or adverbs to express counterfactual conditionals. (Jiang 2000/2014/to appear, Ippolito & Su 2014) • Special CC: yaobushi ‘if not’: (8) Yaobushi Luomiou ai Zhuliye, ta bu hui he xia duyao. if-not Romeo love Juliet he not will drink down poison ‘If Romeo hadn’t loved Juliet, he would not have drunk the poison.’ In contrast with CC+negation: (9) Yaoshi mingtian bu xiayu, shiwai huodong hui zhaochang juxing. if tomorrow not rain outdoor activity will as-usual hold ‘If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, the outdoor activity will be held as usual.’ • Adverb: zao ‘early’: (10) Zao zhidao ni mai le niunai, wo jiu bu mai le. early know you buy LE milk I not buy LE ‘Had I known that you bought milk, I would not buy it.’
10 Ø CCs can co-occur with each other: ruguo-yaoshi; ruguo-wanyi; wanyi-yaoshi; jiaru-yaoshi Contrast: English * if-when …; German * wenn-falls ‘when if’… A priority order observed in Xie (2010): ruguo>yao>wanyi>yaoshi> jiaru/jiashe/jiaruo/jiashi/tangruo (11) Ruguo ni yaoshi bu xiang qu, wo ye bu qu. if you if not want go I also not go 'If you don’t want to go, I will not go either.' (12) Ruguo wanyi mingtian xiayu, women jiu quxiao shiwai huodong. if if tomorrow rain we then cancel outdoor activity 'If it rains tomorrow, we will cancel the outdoor activity.’ However, the priority order proposed cannot predict some facts, such as jiaru-yaoshi , and wrongly predicts some facts, such as * wanyi-jiaru . We leave the issue to future studies.
11 2.2. Distribution of CCs * in different conditionals • Indicative conditionals • Premise conditionals • Counterfactual conditionals • Optatives conditionals • Biscuit conditionals • Co-occurence with Quantifying adverbs • Co-occurence with Polarity items * CCs here only include the general ones occurring at the antecedent-initial position
12 2.2.1 Indicative conditionals Most of Mandarin CCs can occur in indicative conditionals, but it is odd to use CCs with jia- ‘hypothetically’ , e.g. jiaru/jiashe/jiaruo in contexts where there is supporting evidence for the truth of the antecedent. [Scenario: Teacher A and B are monitoring an exam, and Zhangsan is a student in the classroom taking the exam. Students are not allowed to use mobile phones during the exam.] (13) A: Zhangsan gangcai zai kan shouji. Zhangsan just now be look mobile phone ‘Zhangsan was looking at the mobile phone’ B: Ruguo/yaoshi/wanyi/??jiaru Zhangsan zuobi, women yao zuzhi ta. if Zhangsan cheat we will stop him ‘If Zhangsan is cheating, we will stop him.’
13 2.2.2 Premise conditionals Wanyi and jia- CCs are odd in premise conditionals. In the same scenario with (13): (14) A : Zhangsan zai zuobi ! Zhangsan at cheat ‘Zhangsan is cheating’ B: Ruguo/yaoshi/??wanyi/??jiaru Zhangsan zuobi, women yao zuzhi ta. if Zhangsan cheat we will stop him ‘If Zhangsan is cheating, we will stop him.’
14 2.2.3 Counterfactual conditionals Wanyi cannot be used in counterfactual conditionals. (15) Ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/*wanyi wo shi nande, wo hui liu huzi. . if I am male, I will grow beard 'If I were a man, I would get a beard.’ Conditional markers in the consequent also have limited distributions in counterfactual conditionals. (16) Yaobushi zuotian ni qu, wo ye/*jiu bu hui qu de. if-not yesterday you go I also/ then not will go ‘If you hadn’t gone yesterday, I wouldn‘t have gone either.’
15 2.2.4 Optatives conditionals Similar with counterfactual conditionals, wanyi is the only CC that cannot be used in optative conditionals. However, the consequent with jiu is obligatory, unlike English. (17) Ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/*wanyi ta hai huozhe jiu hao le ! If he still alive then good LE 'If only he were alive !’ Following Grosz (2012), we assume that (17) has no descriptive but presuppositional content: ‘he is not alive’ & expressive content: ‘the speaker desires that he be alive’
16 2.2.5 Biscuit conditionals English Biscuit conditionals: If you are hungry, there are biscuits on the table. Most CCs can be used in biscuit conditionals, except for jia - CCs, and Conditional markers e.g. jiu,ye cannot be used in the consequent. (18) Ruguo/yaoshi/wanyi/?jiaru ni e le, zhuozi shang (*jiu/ye) you binggan. if you hungry table on then/also have biscuit 'If you are hungry, there are biscuits on the table.'
17 2.2.6 Co-occurrence with quantifying adverbs • German CC falls cannot co-occur with quantifying adverbs, for example immer ‘always’ (Zaefferer 1991). (19) Immer wenn/*falls Steffi gewinnt, wird gefeiert. (Always wenn/falls Steffi wins, it will be celebrated.) • The same goes for wanyi, for example after meici ‘every time’: (20) Meici ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/*wanyi shangdian dazhe, ta jiu qu mai dongxi. every-time if store discount he then go buy thing 'Every time the store is on sale, he goes shopping.'
18 2.2.7 Co-occurrence with polarity items • Most CCs license negative polarity items (NPIs), except for yaobushi (cf. Ippolito & Su 2014, in which they analyze bu as a negative clitic, different from normal negation ). (21) Ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/wanyi ni kanjian renhe ren, lai gaosu wo. if you see any person come tell me 'If you see any person, come and tell me.' (22) * Yaobushi wo kanjian renhe ren, wo bu hui lai gaosu ni de. if-not I see any person I not will come tell you DE ‘If I had not seen anyone, I wouldn’t come to tell you.’
19 Section 3: Analysis
Recommend
More recommend
