The elements of counterfactuality in Mandarin Chinese
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Natural languages vary in their strategies for communicating information about states or events which are contrary to facts. Most languages do not have a dedicated category of counterfactual markers. Instead, languages commonly employ a combination of grammatical materials which have functions independent of counterfactual meaning to mark counterfactuality. Without formal markings of the common grammatical ingredients for counterfactuality, including tense, aspect, or subjunctive morphemes, Mandarin Chinese uses functional and lexical expressions with meanings unrelated to counterfactuality but which in certain grammatical environments and context can give rise to counterfactual inferences. This study provides an analysis of how counterfactuality arises in Mandarin Chinese by investigating two classes of counterfactual expressions: modals for the past and the so-called counterfactual conditionals. The work reveals that the expressions of counterfactuality in Mandarin Chinese involve interactions between elements of temporal modification, modality, conditionals, causal reasoning, negation, and discourse felicity conditions. In addition to exploring issues related to the language-specific composition of counterfactuality in Mandarin Chinese, this study sheds light on the general contextual and logical assumptions that might be behind the strategies used cross-linguistically to convey counterfactuality.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Qin, Longlu |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Condoravdi, Cleo A, 1962- |
| Degree supervisor | Sun, Chao, 1979- |
| Thesis advisor | Condoravdi, Cleo A, 1962- |
| Thesis advisor | Sun, Chao, 1979- |
| Thesis advisor | Matsumoto, Yoshiko, 1954- |
| Degree committee member | Matsumoto, Yoshiko, 1954- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Longlu Qin. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Longlu Qin
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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