Structures and Meanings of Mandarin Conditionals

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper investigates the conditional constructions in Mandarin Chinese. First we introduce the English conditionals, and take them as a point of reterence for the study of the Mandarin conditionals. In particular, we divide the Mandarin conditionals into three types: the event-conditional, the premise-conditional, and the conjunctive conditional. We show the following: (ⅰ) Syntactically, the Mandarin event-conditional and premise-conditional have structures very similar to their English correspondents, the former involving TP adjunction and the latter CP adjunction. The conjunctive conditional has a coordinate structure. (ⅱ) However, the Mandarin conditionals differ from their English correspondents in that different types of conditionals require different licensing conditions. Specifically, the event-conditional in Mandarin requires a relational element for licensing, whereas the premise-conditional in Mandarin may additionally be licensed by a non-indicative mood. The conjunctive conditional in Mandarin patterns more with the event-conditional than with the premise-conditional, though there are still differences. It is argued that all these can be traced to the structural properties of the conditionals and the syntax-semantics interaction involved.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. Intrcduction
• 2. English conditionals
• 3. Mandarin conditionals
• 4. Structures of Mandarin conditionals
• 5. Types of Mandarin conditionals
• 6. Relationality in the event-conditionals
• 7. Premise-conditionals and modification of the speech act
• 8. The formation of the conjunctive conditional
• 9. Conclusion
• 【References】
• 【Abstract】

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 Kratzer, Angelika, "What ‘must’ and ‘can’ must and can mean" 1 : 337-355, 1977

2 Cheng, Lisa, L.-S, "Two types of donkey sentences" 4 : 121-163,

3 Paris, Marie-Claude, "The semantics of JIU and CAI in Mandarin Chinese. In Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages" University of Foreign Studies 181-196, 1985

4 Biq, Yung-O, "The semantics and pragmatics of CAI and JIU in Mandarin Chinese" Cornell University 1984

5 Chomsky, Noam, "The minimalist program" The MIT Press 1995

6 Rizzi, Luigi, "The fine structure of the left periphery, In Elements of grammar: handbook of generative syntax" Kluwer 281-337, 1997

7 Lin, T.-H. Jonah, "Syntactic structures of complex sentences in Mandarin Chinese" 3 : 63-97, 2006

8 Culicover, Peter W, "Semantic subordination despite syntactic coordination" 28 (28): 195-217, 1997

9 Lai, Huei-Ling, "Rejected expectations: the scalar particles cai and jiu in Mandarin Chinese" 37 : 625-661, 1999

10 Lin, Jo-Wang, "Polarity licensing and wh-phrase quantification in Chinese" University of Massachusetts 1996

11 Iatridou, Sabine, "On the contribution of conditional then" 2 : 171-199, 1994

12 Lasnik, Howard, "Move alpha" MIT Press 1992

13 Kratzer, Angelika, "Modality, In Semantics: an international handbook of contemporary research" de Gruyter 639-650, 1991

14 Portner, Paul, "Modality" Oxford University Press 2009

15 Chomsky, Noam, "Minimalist inquiries: the framework, In Step by step: essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik" The MIT Press 89-155, 2000

16 Partee, Barbara B. H., "Mathematical methods in linguistics" Kluwer 1990

17 Rizzi, Luigi., "Locality and left periphery, In The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 3: structures and beyond" Oxford University Press 223-252, 2004

18 Hsieh, I-Ta., "Genericity and adverbial quantification: from a Chinese perspective" National Tsing Hua University 2004

19 Gasde, H.-D., "Functional categories, topic prominence, and complex Sentences in Mandarin Chinese" 34 : 263-294, 1996

20 Biq, Yung-O, "From focus in proposition to focus in speech situation: CAI and JIU in Mandarin Chinese" 16 : 72-108, 1988

21 Hole, Daniel P, "Focus and background marking in Mandarin Chinese: system and theory behind cai, jiu, dou and ye" Routledge 2004

22 McCawley, James, D, "Everything that linguists have always wanted to know about logic *but were ashamed to ask, second edition" Chicago University Press 1993

23 Kratzer, Angelika, "Conditionals, In Papers from the parasession on pragmatics and grammatical theory" Chicago Linguistics Society 115-135, 1986

24 Higginbothan, James, "Conditionals and compositionality" 17 : 181-194, 2003

25 Haegeman, Liliane, "Conditional clauses: external and internal syntax" 18 : 317-339, 2003

26 Tang, C.-C. Jane, "Chinese phrase structure and extended X’-theory" Cornell University 1990

27 Haquard, Valentine, "Aspects of modality" Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2006

28 Wang, Y.-F. Flora, "A syntactic study of the Chinese negative polarity item renhe" 25 : 35-62, 1996