Degree intensifiers as expressives in Mandarin Chinese

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 256-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiguo Xie ◽  
Qiongpeng Luo
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Conventional Implicature ◽  
Strong Emotion ◽  
Interesting Class ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Degree Adverbs

Abstract In this paper, we provide an empirical description and a theoretical analysis of the adverbial use of hǎo ‘(lit.) good’, lǎo ‘(lit.) old’, and guài ‘(lit.) strange’ in Mandarin Chinese. The three adverbs represent a small yet theoretically interesting class of lexical items. Because they manifest certain similarities to canonical degree adverbs such as hěn ‘very’ and fēicháng ‘extremely’, they have been usually treated as pure degree adverbs in the descriptive linguistics literature. Empirical evidence, however, shows that these adverbs actually fuse together both degree intensification and expressive meanings. For instance, they convey strong emotion on the part of the speaker and cannot appear in non-veridical contexts such as negation, modals, information-seeking questions, and antecedents of conditionals. We argue that hǎo, lǎo, and guài are mixed-content lexical items. Based on their empirical behaviors, we follow recent advances in multidimensional semantics to propose a hybrid formal analysis of hǎo, lǎo, and guài by incorporating degree semantics into a multidimensional logic for conventional implicature.

scholarly journals Lexicalist vs. exoskeletal approaches to language mixing

2018 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maren Berg Grimstad ◽  
Brita Ramsevik Riksem ◽  
Terje Lohndal ◽  
Tor A Åfarli
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Language Mixing ◽  
Functional Features ◽  
Mixing Patterns ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The One

Abstract This article presents empirical evidence that disfavors using highly lexicalist minimalist models, such as the one presented in Chomsky (1995), when analyzing language mixing. The data analyzed consist of English – Spanish mixed noun phrases discussed in Moro (2014) as well as English – Norwegian mixed noun phrases and verbs taken from the Corpus of American Norwegian Speech. Whereas the lexicalist model in Chomsky (1995) only can explain a subset of the mixing patterns attested in both authentic English – Spanish mixed noun phrases and the American Norwegian corpus, we show that an alternative exoskeletal model can account for all of them. Such a model would entail that rather than assuming lexical items with inherent, functional features that determine the derivation, syntactic structures are generated independently from the lexical items that come to realize them.

scholarly journals Considering the Issue of Purpose in Leadership: A Review of Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-296
Author(s):  
Megan Vercueil ◽  
Angelo Nicolaides
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
Academic Leadership ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Theoretical Examination ◽  
Practical Implications

This article reviews and integrates the findings of academic leadership studies to guide leaders as they deal with practical implications of “purpose” in leadership at the workplace. This paper offers a theoretical analysis of trait, situational, and value-based leadership theory and presents a philosophically informed theoretical examination of purpose in leadership. Although there is great enthusiasm around the topic of purposeful leadership, much of the knowledge is based on qualitative studies rather than empirical evidence. We hope this article could usefully inform leadership by bringing academic knowledge to the fore to support the enterprise leadership environment. To date, limited empirical research on the role and importance of “purpose” in leadership is available. Our study fills this gap and is unique in that it analyses existing literature and proffers guidance irrespective of the leadership style of those towards whom it is directed. Keywords: Leadership, individual, mission, organisation, purpose, values, vision.

scholarly journals The Categorization of Dou (都) in Chinese: A Study from a Cross-linguistic Perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-234
Author(s):  
Zhang Ying
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The World ◽  
Universal Quantification ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Universal Quantifiers ◽  
To Come ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Linguistic Approach

Compared with prototypical universal quantifiers in other languages of the world, dou in Mandarin Chinese presents more complicated semantic behaviors. One of the most disputed issues is what are the relations between dou expressing “universal quantification” (uq) and dou expressing “scalar trigger” (sca). First-hand data that comes from 40 languages demonstrates that Mandarin Chinese is the only language that employs the same form for “universal quantification” and “scalar trigger”. The empirical evidence strongly suggests that uq dou and sca dou are different, and the two functions uq and sca lack universal conceptual correlations. The special polysemous behavior of Mandarin dou, is proved to come from two language-specific reanalysis processes in dou’s diachronic development which also supports the two-dou claim. The study thus instantiates how a cross-linguistic perspective provides insights to explain long-standing language-particular issues. Besides, it is also argued that the cross-linguistic approach is promising in predicting if a future research is on a right track as it can steer us through overgeneralization and undergeneralization.

scholarly journals Public Goods in Tourism Municipalities: Formal Analysis, Empirical Evidence and Implications for Sustainable Development

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricard Rigall-I-Torrent ◽  
Modest Fluvià
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Utility Functions ◽  
Broad Sense ◽  
Production Functions ◽  
Private Firms ◽  
Tourism Product

This paper formally analyses the effects that public goods (in a broad sense) have on tourists and private tourism firms. By approaching the tourism product as a bundle of characteristics, the paper shows how the supply of public goods in tourism municipalities positively affects both the tourists' utility functions and the private firms' production functions. Some implications of this fact regarding the sustainability of tourism are discussed. By means of hedonic methods, empirical evidence of location on prices for hotels on Catalonia's coast (Spain) is provided.

scholarly journals Keynesian macroeconomic policy: Theoretical analysis and empirical evidence

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Arestis ◽  
Fernando Filho ◽  
Terra Bittes
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Macroeconomic Policy ◽  
Effective Demand ◽  
Macroeconomic Policies ◽  
Animal Spirits ◽  
Economic Instability

Investment depends on subjective factors, such as expectations, conventions, and confident animal spirits. In a context of economic instability and crises, economic policy is the main source to support entrepreneurs? expectations and investment. In this sense, macroeconomic policies are capable of affecting effective demand and building a good institutional environment, which is essential to keep the entrepreneurs? expectations confident and promote their animal spirits. Given these propositions, this contribution has two objectives. The first is to develop a Keynesian type of macroeconomic policy able to stimulate investment and effective demand, and, as a result, mitigate unemployment. The idea is to offer alternative macroeconomic policy prescriptions in relation to the New Consensus Macroeconomics one. This proposal aims to establish the role, according to the Post Keynesian view, the logic of operation of each policy, and the proper coordination among these Keynesian macroeconomic policies. The second objective is to present, briefly, relevant empirical evidence of the Post Keynesian macroeconomic policies.

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