Název: (Anti-)resultativity, exhaustivity and answerhood : a novel analysis of Mandarin Chinese perfective -le and -guo
Zdrojový dokument: Linguistica Brunensia. 2025, roč. 73, č. 2, s. 100-140
Rozsah
100-140
-
ISSN2336-4440 (online)
Trvalý odkaz (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/LB2025-39075
Trvalý odkaz (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.83070
Type: Článek
Jazyk
anglicky
čínsky
Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Přístupová práva
otevřený přístup
Upozornění: Tyto citace jsou generovány automaticky. Nemusí být zcela správně podle citačních pravidel.
Abstrakt(y)
This paper provides a novel analysis of the Mandarin Chinese perfective particles -le and -guo, based on observations regarding their ability to obtain the resultative reading and the exhaustivity inference in certain question-answer pairs. I argue that these differences follow from the different at-issue contents these two particles allow. While -le allows various constituents in the sentence to at-issue, the at-issue content of a -guomarked sentence is always the existence/instantiation of the event. The study concludes by examining cross-linguistic patterns in tense-aspectual constructions and discusses potential implications for understanding similar distinctions in other languages.
eng
Reference
[1] Altshuler, D. – Schwarzschild, R. 2013. Moment of change, cessation implecatures and simultaneous readings. In: Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 17, 45–62.
[2] Asher, N. – Lascarides, A. 2003. Logics of conversation. Cambridge University Press.
[3] Bertrand, A. – Andreotti, B. – Burge, H. – Chen, S. – Gambarage, J. – Guntly, E. A. – Heins, T. J. – Huijsmans, M. – Kassam, K. – Matthewson, L. – McClay, E. K. – Reisinger, D. – Rullmann, H. – Salles, R. – Schwan, M. D. – Klok, J. V. 2017. Nobody's perfect'. Talk presented at the workshop on the Semantics of Verbal Morphology in Underdescribed Languages, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, June 2–3, 2017.
[4] Bertrand, A. – Aonuki, Y. – Chen, S. – Gambarage, J. – Griffin, L. – Huijsmans, M. – Matthewson, L. – Reisinger, D. – Rullmann, H. – Salles, R. – Schwan, M. – Todorović, N. – Trotter, B. – Vander Klok, J. 2022. Nobody's perfect'. Language Special Issue: Tense and Aspect across languages.
[5] Cable, S. 2017. The implicatures of optional past tense in tlingit and the implications for 'discontinuous past'. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 35(3):635–681. | DOI 10.1007/s11049-016-9355-7
[6] Chen, S. 2018. Finding semantic building blocks: temporal and modal interpretation in Atayal. PhD thesis, University of British Columbia.
[7] Chen, S. – Vander Klok, J. – Matthewson, L. – Rullmann, H. 2021. The 'experiential' as an existential past. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 39(3):709–758. | DOI 10.1007/s11049-020-09488-6
[8] Chierchia, G. – Fox, D. – Spector, B. 2013. Scalar implicature as a grammatical phenomenon. In: von Heusinger, K. – Maienborn, C. – Portner, P. (eds.), Handbücher zur Sprach-und Kommunikationswissenschaft/Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science Semantics Volume 3, 2297–2331. de Gruyter. | DOI 10.1515/9783110253382.2297
[9] Dayal, V. 2016. Questions, Oxford University Press.
[10] Grønn, A. – von Stechow, A. §2017. The perfect. In: Matthewson, M. – Rullman, H. – Zimmermann, T. E. (eds.), Wiley's Linguistics Companion (Companion to Semantics). Blackwell. | DOI 10.1002/9781118788516.sem046
[11] Heim, I. 1991. Artikel und definitheit. In: von Stechow, A. – Wunderlich, D. (eds.), Semantik: Ein internationales Handbuch der Zeitgenössischen Forschung, 487–535. De Gruyter Mouton. | DOI 10.1515/9783110126969.7.487
[12] Heim, I. 1994. Interrogative semantics and karttunen's semantics for know. In: Proceedings of IATL 1, 128–144.
[13] Heim, I. 2011. Definiteness and indefiniteness. In: von Heusinger, K. – Maienborn, C. – Portner, P. (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, 996–1025. De Gruyter Mouton.
[14] Hunter, J. – Asher, N. 2016. Shapes of conversation and at-issue content. In: Semantics and Linguistic Theory, 1022–1042. | DOI 10.3765/salt.v26i0.3946
[15] Iatridou, S. – Anagnostopoulou, E. – Pancheva, R. 2003. Observations about the form and meaning of the perfect. In: Alexiadou, A. – Rathert, M. – von Stechow, A. (eds.), Perfect Explorations. De Gruyter Mouton.
[16] Iljic, R. 1990. The verbal suffix-guo in mandarin chinese and the notion of recurrence. Lingua 81(4):301–326. | DOI 10.1016/0024-3841(90)90027-i
[17] Kamp, H. – Van Genabith, J. – Reyle, U. 2011. Discourse representation theory. In: Handbook of philosophical logic, 125–394. Springer. | DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-0485-5_3
[18] Koev, T. 2018. Notions of at-issueness. Language and Linguistics Compass 12(12): e12306. | DOI 10.1111/lnc3.12306
[19] Koev, T. 2021. Parentheticality, assertion strength, and polarity. Linguistics and Philosophy, 44:113–140. | DOI 10.1007/s10988-019-09285-4
[20] Koev, T. K. 2013. Apposition and the structure of discourse. PhD thesis, Rutgers University.
[21] Kudo, M. 2020. Tense and aspect in discourse. In: Jacobsen, W.M., T. Y. (ed.), Handbook of Japanese Semantics and Pragmatics, 423–448. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin. | DOI 10.1515/9781614512073-008
[22] Kuno, S. 1982. Principles of discourse deletion-case studies from English, Russian and Japanese. Journal of Semantics, 1(1):61–93. | DOI 10.1093/jos/1.1.61
[23] Lascarides, A. – Asher, N. 2008. Segmented discourse representation theory: Dynamic semantics with discourse structure. In: Computing meaning, 87–124. Springer. | DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-5958-2_5
[24] Li, C. N. – Thompson, S. A. 1989. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. University of California Press.
[25] Lin, J.-W. 2006. Time in a language without tense: The case of Chinese. Journal of Semantics 23(1):1–53. | DOI 10.1093/jos/ffh033
[26] Lin, J.-W. 2007. Predicate restriction, discontinuity property and the meaning of the perfective marker guo in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 16(3):237–257. | DOI 10.1007/s10831-007-9013-5
[27] Matthewson, L. 2006. Temporal semantics in a superficially tenseless language. Linguistics and Philosophy, 29(6):673–713. | DOI 10.1007/s10988-006-9010-6
[28] Matthewson, L. 2014. Mrs. Smith's bad say. http://www.totemfieldstoryboards.org (accessed on 16 September 2021).
[29] McCawley, J. D. 1981. Notes on the english present perfect. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 1(1):81–90. | DOI 10.1080/07268608108599267
[30] Michaelis, L. A. 1994. The ambiguity of the English present perfect. Journal of Linguistics, 30(1):111–157. | DOI 10.1017/s0022226700016200
[31] Moens, M. – Steedman, M. 1988. Temporal ontology and temporal reference. Computational Linguistics, 14(2):15–28.
[32] Nishiyama, A. – Koenig, J.-P. 2010. What is a perfect state. Language 86(3):611–646. Ogihara, T. 1998. The ambiguity of the-te iru form in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 7:87–120.
[33] Oshima, D. Y. 2022. The semantic markedness of the Japanese negative preterite: Nonexistence of (positive) eventualities vs. existence of negative eventualities. In: International Conference on Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics, 31–50. Springer. | DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-43977-3_3
[34] Pan, H. – Lee, P. 2004. The role of pragmatics in interpreting the chinese perfective markers- guo and-le. Journal of Pragmatics 36(3):441–466. | DOI 10.1016/j.pragma.2003.07.003
[35] Parsons, T. 1990. Events in the Semantics of English. MIT press Cambridge, MA.
[36] Percus, O. 2006. Antipresuppositions. In: Ueyama, A. (ed.), Theoretical and empirical studies of reference and anaphora: Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, 52–73. Report of the Grant-Aid for Scientific Research (B), Project No. 15320052, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
[37] Plungian, V. A. – van der Auwera, J. 2006. Towards a typology of discontinuous past marking. STUF-Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 59(4):317–349. | DOI 10.1524/stuf.2006.59.4.317
[38] Portner, P. 2003. The (temporal) semantics and (modal) pragmatics of the perfect. Linguistics and Philosophy 26(4):459–510. | DOI 10.1023/a:1024697112760
[39] Portner, P. 2011. Perfect and progressive. In: Von Heusinger, K. – Maienborn, C. – Portner, P. (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, 996– 1025. De Gruyter Mouton.
[40] Roberts, C. 1996. Information structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In: Yoon, J. H. – Kathol, A. (eds.), Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics.
[41] Rooth, M. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural language semantics, 1(1):75– 116. | DOI 10.1007/bf02342617
[42] Sauerland, U. 2008. Implicated presuppositions. In: Steube, A. (ed.), The discourse potential of underspecified structures, 581–600. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin. | DOI 10.1515/9783110209303.4.581
[43] Shirai, Y. 2000. The semantics of the japanese imperfective-teiru: An integrative approach. Journal of pragmatics 32(3):327–361. | DOI 10.1016/s0378-2166(99)00051-x
[44] Simons, M. – Beaver, D. – Roberts, C. – Tonhauser, J. 2017. The best question: Explaining the projection behavior of factives. Discourse processes 54(3):187–206. | DOI 10.1080/0163853x.2016.1150660
[45] Singh, R. 2011. Maximize presupposition! and local contexts. Natural Language Semantics 19(2):149–168. | DOI 10.1007/s11050-010-9066-2
[46] Soh, H. L. 2009. Speaker presupposition and mandarin chinese sentence final le: A unified analysis of the change of state and the contrary to expectation reading. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 27(3):623–657. | DOI 10.1007/s11049-009-9074-4
[47] Soh, H. L. – Gao, M. 2006. Perfective aspect and transition in mandarin chinese: An analysis of double-le sentences. In: Proceedings of the 2004 texas linguistics society conference, 107–122.
[48] Spector, B. 2007. Modalized questions and exhaustivity. In: Proceedings of the 17th Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT XVII), 282–299. | DOI 10.3765/salt.v17i0.2962
[49] Spector, B. – Sudo, Y. 2017. Presupposed ignorance and exhaustification: how scalar implicatures and presuppositions interact. Linguistics and Philosophy 40(5):473–517. | DOI 10.1007/s10988-017-9208-9
[50] Sun, H. 2014. Temporal construals of bare predicates in Mandarin Chinese. PhD thesis, Leiden University.
[51] Sun, Y. 2022. Incompleteness under Discussion. PhD thesis, The University of Chicago.
[52] Tonhauser, J. 2012. Diagnosing (not-) at-issue content. Proceedings of Semantics of Underrepresented Languages of the Americas (SULA) 6:239–254.
[53] Wang, C. 2018. The syntax of le in Mandarin Chinese. PhD thesis, Queen Mary University of London.
[54] Yeh, M. 1996. An analysis of the experiential guo exp in Mandarin: A temporal quantifier. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 5:151–182. | DOI 10.1007/bf00215072
[55] Zhao, R. 2022. Decomposing perfect readings. Languages 7(4):251. | DOI 10.3390/languages7040251
[56] Zhao, R. 2023. Definiteness effects and competition in tenses and aspects. PhD thesis, University College London.
[2] Asher, N. – Lascarides, A. 2003. Logics of conversation. Cambridge University Press.
[3] Bertrand, A. – Andreotti, B. – Burge, H. – Chen, S. – Gambarage, J. – Guntly, E. A. – Heins, T. J. – Huijsmans, M. – Kassam, K. – Matthewson, L. – McClay, E. K. – Reisinger, D. – Rullmann, H. – Salles, R. – Schwan, M. D. – Klok, J. V. 2017. Nobody's perfect'. Talk presented at the workshop on the Semantics of Verbal Morphology in Underdescribed Languages, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, June 2–3, 2017.
[4] Bertrand, A. – Aonuki, Y. – Chen, S. – Gambarage, J. – Griffin, L. – Huijsmans, M. – Matthewson, L. – Reisinger, D. – Rullmann, H. – Salles, R. – Schwan, M. – Todorović, N. – Trotter, B. – Vander Klok, J. 2022. Nobody's perfect'. Language Special Issue: Tense and Aspect across languages.
[5] Cable, S. 2017. The implicatures of optional past tense in tlingit and the implications for 'discontinuous past'. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 35(3):635–681. | DOI 10.1007/s11049-016-9355-7
[6] Chen, S. 2018. Finding semantic building blocks: temporal and modal interpretation in Atayal. PhD thesis, University of British Columbia.
[7] Chen, S. – Vander Klok, J. – Matthewson, L. – Rullmann, H. 2021. The 'experiential' as an existential past. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 39(3):709–758. | DOI 10.1007/s11049-020-09488-6
[8] Chierchia, G. – Fox, D. – Spector, B. 2013. Scalar implicature as a grammatical phenomenon. In: von Heusinger, K. – Maienborn, C. – Portner, P. (eds.), Handbücher zur Sprach-und Kommunikationswissenschaft/Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science Semantics Volume 3, 2297–2331. de Gruyter. | DOI 10.1515/9783110253382.2297
[9] Dayal, V. 2016. Questions, Oxford University Press.
[10] Grønn, A. – von Stechow, A. §2017. The perfect. In: Matthewson, M. – Rullman, H. – Zimmermann, T. E. (eds.), Wiley's Linguistics Companion (Companion to Semantics). Blackwell. | DOI 10.1002/9781118788516.sem046
[11] Heim, I. 1991. Artikel und definitheit. In: von Stechow, A. – Wunderlich, D. (eds.), Semantik: Ein internationales Handbuch der Zeitgenössischen Forschung, 487–535. De Gruyter Mouton. | DOI 10.1515/9783110126969.7.487
[12] Heim, I. 1994. Interrogative semantics and karttunen's semantics for know. In: Proceedings of IATL 1, 128–144.
[13] Heim, I. 2011. Definiteness and indefiniteness. In: von Heusinger, K. – Maienborn, C. – Portner, P. (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, 996–1025. De Gruyter Mouton.
[14] Hunter, J. – Asher, N. 2016. Shapes of conversation and at-issue content. In: Semantics and Linguistic Theory, 1022–1042. | DOI 10.3765/salt.v26i0.3946
[15] Iatridou, S. – Anagnostopoulou, E. – Pancheva, R. 2003. Observations about the form and meaning of the perfect. In: Alexiadou, A. – Rathert, M. – von Stechow, A. (eds.), Perfect Explorations. De Gruyter Mouton.
[16] Iljic, R. 1990. The verbal suffix-guo in mandarin chinese and the notion of recurrence. Lingua 81(4):301–326. | DOI 10.1016/0024-3841(90)90027-i
[17] Kamp, H. – Van Genabith, J. – Reyle, U. 2011. Discourse representation theory. In: Handbook of philosophical logic, 125–394. Springer. | DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-0485-5_3
[18] Koev, T. 2018. Notions of at-issueness. Language and Linguistics Compass 12(12): e12306. | DOI 10.1111/lnc3.12306
[19] Koev, T. 2021. Parentheticality, assertion strength, and polarity. Linguistics and Philosophy, 44:113–140. | DOI 10.1007/s10988-019-09285-4
[20] Koev, T. K. 2013. Apposition and the structure of discourse. PhD thesis, Rutgers University.
[21] Kudo, M. 2020. Tense and aspect in discourse. In: Jacobsen, W.M., T. Y. (ed.), Handbook of Japanese Semantics and Pragmatics, 423–448. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin. | DOI 10.1515/9781614512073-008
[22] Kuno, S. 1982. Principles of discourse deletion-case studies from English, Russian and Japanese. Journal of Semantics, 1(1):61–93. | DOI 10.1093/jos/1.1.61
[23] Lascarides, A. – Asher, N. 2008. Segmented discourse representation theory: Dynamic semantics with discourse structure. In: Computing meaning, 87–124. Springer. | DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-5958-2_5
[24] Li, C. N. – Thompson, S. A. 1989. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. University of California Press.
[25] Lin, J.-W. 2006. Time in a language without tense: The case of Chinese. Journal of Semantics 23(1):1–53. | DOI 10.1093/jos/ffh033
[26] Lin, J.-W. 2007. Predicate restriction, discontinuity property and the meaning of the perfective marker guo in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 16(3):237–257. | DOI 10.1007/s10831-007-9013-5
[27] Matthewson, L. 2006. Temporal semantics in a superficially tenseless language. Linguistics and Philosophy, 29(6):673–713. | DOI 10.1007/s10988-006-9010-6
[28] Matthewson, L. 2014. Mrs. Smith's bad say. http://www.totemfieldstoryboards.org (accessed on 16 September 2021).
[29] McCawley, J. D. 1981. Notes on the english present perfect. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 1(1):81–90. | DOI 10.1080/07268608108599267
[30] Michaelis, L. A. 1994. The ambiguity of the English present perfect. Journal of Linguistics, 30(1):111–157. | DOI 10.1017/s0022226700016200
[31] Moens, M. – Steedman, M. 1988. Temporal ontology and temporal reference. Computational Linguistics, 14(2):15–28.
[32] Nishiyama, A. – Koenig, J.-P. 2010. What is a perfect state. Language 86(3):611–646. Ogihara, T. 1998. The ambiguity of the-te iru form in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 7:87–120.
[33] Oshima, D. Y. 2022. The semantic markedness of the Japanese negative preterite: Nonexistence of (positive) eventualities vs. existence of negative eventualities. In: International Conference on Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics, 31–50. Springer. | DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-43977-3_3
[34] Pan, H. – Lee, P. 2004. The role of pragmatics in interpreting the chinese perfective markers- guo and-le. Journal of Pragmatics 36(3):441–466. | DOI 10.1016/j.pragma.2003.07.003
[35] Parsons, T. 1990. Events in the Semantics of English. MIT press Cambridge, MA.
[36] Percus, O. 2006. Antipresuppositions. In: Ueyama, A. (ed.), Theoretical and empirical studies of reference and anaphora: Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, 52–73. Report of the Grant-Aid for Scientific Research (B), Project No. 15320052, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
[37] Plungian, V. A. – van der Auwera, J. 2006. Towards a typology of discontinuous past marking. STUF-Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 59(4):317–349. | DOI 10.1524/stuf.2006.59.4.317
[38] Portner, P. 2003. The (temporal) semantics and (modal) pragmatics of the perfect. Linguistics and Philosophy 26(4):459–510. | DOI 10.1023/a:1024697112760
[39] Portner, P. 2011. Perfect and progressive. In: Von Heusinger, K. – Maienborn, C. – Portner, P. (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, 996– 1025. De Gruyter Mouton.
[40] Roberts, C. 1996. Information structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In: Yoon, J. H. – Kathol, A. (eds.), Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics.
[41] Rooth, M. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural language semantics, 1(1):75– 116. | DOI 10.1007/bf02342617
[42] Sauerland, U. 2008. Implicated presuppositions. In: Steube, A. (ed.), The discourse potential of underspecified structures, 581–600. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin. | DOI 10.1515/9783110209303.4.581
[43] Shirai, Y. 2000. The semantics of the japanese imperfective-teiru: An integrative approach. Journal of pragmatics 32(3):327–361. | DOI 10.1016/s0378-2166(99)00051-x
[44] Simons, M. – Beaver, D. – Roberts, C. – Tonhauser, J. 2017. The best question: Explaining the projection behavior of factives. Discourse processes 54(3):187–206. | DOI 10.1080/0163853x.2016.1150660
[45] Singh, R. 2011. Maximize presupposition! and local contexts. Natural Language Semantics 19(2):149–168. | DOI 10.1007/s11050-010-9066-2
[46] Soh, H. L. 2009. Speaker presupposition and mandarin chinese sentence final le: A unified analysis of the change of state and the contrary to expectation reading. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 27(3):623–657. | DOI 10.1007/s11049-009-9074-4
[47] Soh, H. L. – Gao, M. 2006. Perfective aspect and transition in mandarin chinese: An analysis of double-le sentences. In: Proceedings of the 2004 texas linguistics society conference, 107–122.
[48] Spector, B. 2007. Modalized questions and exhaustivity. In: Proceedings of the 17th Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT XVII), 282–299. | DOI 10.3765/salt.v17i0.2962
[49] Spector, B. – Sudo, Y. 2017. Presupposed ignorance and exhaustification: how scalar implicatures and presuppositions interact. Linguistics and Philosophy 40(5):473–517. | DOI 10.1007/s10988-017-9208-9
[50] Sun, H. 2014. Temporal construals of bare predicates in Mandarin Chinese. PhD thesis, Leiden University.
[51] Sun, Y. 2022. Incompleteness under Discussion. PhD thesis, The University of Chicago.
[52] Tonhauser, J. 2012. Diagnosing (not-) at-issue content. Proceedings of Semantics of Underrepresented Languages of the Americas (SULA) 6:239–254.
[53] Wang, C. 2018. The syntax of le in Mandarin Chinese. PhD thesis, Queen Mary University of London.
[54] Yeh, M. 1996. An analysis of the experiential guo exp in Mandarin: A temporal quantifier. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 5:151–182. | DOI 10.1007/bf00215072
[55] Zhao, R. 2022. Decomposing perfect readings. Languages 7(4):251. | DOI 10.3390/languages7040251
[56] Zhao, R. 2023. Definiteness effects and competition in tenses and aspects. PhD thesis, University College London.