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On the Dynamic Semantics of Fǒuzé and Bùrán in Mandarin Chinese

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Chinese Lexical Semantics (CLSW 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 13249))

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Abstract

This paper argues that fǒuzé and bùrán share a unified dynamic semantics: they update an information state by adding, into the information state, a proposition which is evaluated, provided the negation of the information expressed by the discourse before the proposition comes in. SDRT is used to model their dynamic semantics. It is also briefly discussed what it means to evaluate an imperative or a question when fǒuzé/bùrán connects one of them to another clause. Moreover, it is shown that fǒuzé and bùrán can be distinguished in two aspects. First, fǒuzé is not compatible with two propositions which have a parallel relationship, but, instead, is fine when two propositions have a causal relationship. Second, fǒuzé has an ‘anti-good consequence’ property.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The abbreviations used in this paper include: ASSO for an associative marker, CL for a classifier, DUR for a durative aspect marker, PRG for a progressive aspect marker, Prc for a sentence-final particle, Q for a question particle.

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Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper is presented at the 25th Annual Meeting of International Association of Chinese Linguistics in 2017. I thank the audience at IACL 25 for enlightening discussions. I am also grateful to CLSW 2021 reviewers and on-line workshop participants for comments, questions and discussions. I acknowledge the financial support of Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under the grant number MOST 105-2410-H-194-086.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Linguistics, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan

    Jiun-Shiung Wu

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  1. Jiun-Shiung Wu
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Correspondence to Jiun-Shiung Wu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore, Singapore

    Minghui Dong

  2. Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China

    Yanhui Gu

  3. National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Jia-Fei Hong

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Wu, JS. (2022). On the Dynamic Semantics of Fǒuzé and Bùrán in Mandarin Chinese. In: Dong, M., Gu, Y., Hong, JF. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13249. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06703-7_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06703-7_24

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-06703-7

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