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Varieties of Alternatives

Focus Particles and wh-Expressions in Mandarin

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Mingming Liu

    1. School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, China

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  • Explicitly analyses a variety of linguistic phenomena in Mandarin
  • Includes a combination of theoretical innovations and empirical coverage
  • Explores the role of alternatives in natural language grammar
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Frontiers in Chinese Linguistics (FiCL, volume 3)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xix
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Mingming Liu
    Pages 1-9

  3. Background

    • Mingming Liu
    Pages 11-41

  4. Varieties of Alternatives: Mandarin Focus Particles

    • Mingming Liu
    Pages 43-79

  5. More Exclusives

    • Mingming Liu
    Pages 81-101

  6. Mandarin wh-Conditionals: Challenges and Facts

    • Mingming Liu
    Pages 103-133

  7. Proposal-A: wh-Conditionals as Interrogative Conditionals

    • Mingming Liu
    Pages 135-152

  8. Proposal-B: wh-Conditionals as Interrogative Dependency

    • Mingming Liu
    Pages 153-170

  9. Conclusion

    • Mingming Liu
    Pages 171-174
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Keywords

About this book

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.

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, China

    Mingming Liu

About the author

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.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Varieties of Alternatives

  • Book Subtitle: Focus Particles and wh-Expressions in Mandarin

  • Authors: Mingming Liu

  • Series Title: Frontiers in Chinese Linguistics

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6208-7

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Peking University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-10-6207-0Published: 26 October 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-13-4826-6Published: 23 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-10-6208-7Published: 17 October 2017

  • Series ISSN: 2522-5308

  • Series E-ISSN: 2522-5316

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIX, 174

  • Number of Illustrations: 16 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Semantics, Chinese

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