scholarly journals Mandarin Chinese sentence final de as a marker of private evidence

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Hooi Ling Soh
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Epistemic Modals ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
Specific Proposal

In this paper, I present new empirical observations regarding discourse restrictions and interpretative effects associated with Mandarin Chinese sentence final de in a bare de sentence. I propose an analysis of de as a discourse marker that marks “private evidence”.  I then consider a prediction of the analysis regarding the distribution of de in yes/no questions.  I show that the pattern of restrictions observed with de in yes/no questions follows from the proposed analysis, coupled with a specific proposal about the syntax of de, and certain standard assumptions about the syntax of yes/no questions and modal auxiliaries.  Specifically, I argue that de heads a projection below TP and above a modal projection for non-epistemic modals.  I then discuss apparent counter-examples to the proposed discourse restrictions and suggest that the apparent counter-examples are not bare de sentences, but rather shi…de sentences with a silent shi.  The proposed analysis has implications on the syntax of modal auxiliaries, the relation between bare de sentences and shi…de sentences, and the syntax of discourse particles.  It connects de with discourse particles that mark the speaker’s belief about whether the (evidence for the) asserted proposition is shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer and whether the (evidence for the) proposition is “verifiable on the spot” (e.g., German ja (Kratzer 1999, 2004; Gutzmann 2009); English parenthetical I’m telling you (Reese and Soh 2018)).

Restrictiveness, exclusivity, adversativity, and mirativity

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Fang Wang ◽  
Mei-Chi Tsai ◽  
Wayne Schams ◽  
Chi-Ming Yang
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Interactional Linguistics ◽  
English Only ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Turn Taking

Mandarin Chinese zhishi (similar to English ‘only’), comprised of the adverb zhi and the copula shi, can act as an adverb (ADV) or a discourse marker (DM). This study analyzes the role of zhishi in spoken discourse, based on the methodological and theoretical principles of interactional linguistics and conversation analysis. The corpus used in this study consists of three sets of data: 1) naturally-occurring daily conversations; 2) radio/TV interviews; and 3) TV panel discussions on current political affairs. As a whole, this study reveals that the notions of restrictiveness, exclusivity, and adversativity are closely associated with ADV zhishi and DM zhishi. In addition, the present data show that since zhishi is often used to express a ‘less than expected’ feeling, it can be used to indicate mirativity (i.e. language indicating that an utterance conveys the speaker’s surprise). The data also show that the distribution of zhishi as an adverb or discourse marker depends on turn taking systems and speech situations in spoken discourse. Specifically, the ADV zhishi tends to occur in radio/TV interviews and TV panel news discussions, while the DM zhishi occurs more often in casual conversations.

Mandarin Chinese buguo (‘but’) as a metacoherence marker in TV/radio interview talks

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-144
Author(s):  
Yufang Wang ◽  
Shu-ing Shyu ◽  
Wayne Schams ◽  
Hsun-Chen Chen
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Previous Proposition ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
News Interviews

Abstract This study examines the uses of Mandarin Chinese buguo ‘but’ as a contrastive discourse marker (CM) in spoken discourse. The data were taken from casual conversations, TV/radio single-interviewee interviews and TV panel news interviews. We found that two main types of the CM buguo were used to mark contrast: restrictive buguo and cancellative buguo. Restrictive buguo is similar to the adv buguo in usage in that it modifies the validity of the preceding proposition to signal implicit contrast. Cancellative buguo is used to cancel the validity of a previous proposition to indicate explicit contrast. As such, restrictive buguo can serve as a topic-shift marker and to convey implicit disagreement; cancellative buguo often acts as a topic-change marker used to introduce explicit disagreement. In particular, both restrictive buguo and cancellative buguo can serve as metacoherence markers, which are often employed by interview hosts/hostesses to make the discourse optimally coherent.

scholarly journals Means of Expression of Epistemic Modality in Russian Political Discourse

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-31
Author(s):  
Živilė Nemickienė
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Epistemic Modal ◽  
Modal Particles ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
The Russian Language ◽  
Modal Adverbs

This paper discusses the means of epistemic modality used in Russian political discourse. Russian political leaders most often use epistemic modal adverbs and mental state predicates in their speeches for hedging purposes. Modal particles and modal expressions are employed more often than predicatively used adjectives, modal auxiliaries are never used due to the peculiarities of the Russian language. Most commonly used words expressing epistemic modality in Russian belong to the group of modal adverbs. Due to the structure of Russian, groups of particles and modal expressions conveying epistemic modality are analysed. The study reveals that Russian politicians use words with epistemic meanings mainly to convince the listener that the information is reliable, and rarely to mitigate the content of the proposition or to reduce the author’s responsibility for what is being claimed. The cognitive processes help to recognize the ideas encoded in epistemic utterances. Those processes are based on the shared knowledge and understanding of the context.

scholarly journals Parenthetical "I'm telling you" as a marker of private evidence

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Brian Reese ◽  
Hooi Ling Soh
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Content ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
English Expression ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Epistemic States ◽  
Discourse Particle

We present an analysis of parenthetical uses of the English expression I'm telling you as a discourse particle, i.e., an expression that conveys information about the epistemic states of discourse participants with respect to the propositional content of an utterance (Zimmermann 2011). The analysis connects I’m telling you to other discourse particles that mark the speaker’s assumptions about whether the (evidence for the) asserted proposition is shared knowledge between the speaker and addressee and whether or not the (evidence for the) proposition is ``verifiable on the spot'', e.g. German ja (Kratzer 1999, 2004), Mandarin de (Soh 2018).

scholarly journals A Balkan View on the Left Periphery: Modal and Discourse Particles

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Anna Roussou
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Item ◽  
Similar Distribution ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Lexical Borrowing ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Modal Particles ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
The Future ◽  
Analytic Expressions

The present paper discusses two sets of so-called particles in the Balkan languages, arguing that the correspondences attested in the E-languages reveal abstract properties at the level of the I-language. The first set involves modal particles which participate in the analytic expressions of the “future” and the “subjunctive”. Future markers are construed as V-related elements externalizing a scope position of the verb, while the subjunctive markers take their features from the nominal set. The second set of data involves the discourse marker “haide” which is argued to externalize features associated with the force of the sentence and its anchoring to the discourse participants. In the case of modal particles, the languages under consideration retain their own lexica, while in the case of the discourse marker, they share the same lexical item (lexical borrowing). Analysis of these phenomena supports an articulated left periphery which also accounts for the similar distribution of the discourse marker “haide”. At the same time, the different externalizations leave room for further microparametric variation.

On modal grounding, reference points, and subjectification

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 56-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert Cornillie
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
Epistemic Modals ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Point Function ◽  
Theoretical Underpinning ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Epistemic Modal ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
Definition Of

In this paper it is argued that Langacker’s definition of grounding predications is problematic for languages other than English. The idea that in English tense and modal auxiliaries are mutually exclusive grounding elements leads Langacker (1990, 2003) to consider both deontic and epistemic modal auxiliaries as grounding predications, whereas he excludes German modals from being so on the basis of their tense inflection. In this paper I contend that, unlike the deontic modal verbs, and despite their tense marking, Spanish epistemic modals deber ‘must’, poder ‘may’ and tener que ‘have to’ are certainly appropriate for modal grounding due to their reference point function and to the subjectification they undergo. I show that deontic modality is more affected by temporal grounding than epistemic modality. Moreover, the impossibility of inserting an inchoative verb such as ir a ‘to be going to’ corroborates the theoretical underpinning that Spanish epistemic modals effect an epistemic grounding similar to that of the grounding predications in English.

The grammaticalization of you know

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Vincent ◽  
Sarah Darbaky ◽  
Amina Mettouchi
Keyword(s):  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Standard Values ◽  
Core Value ◽  
Spatio Temporal

Most accounts of you know as a discourse marker underline shared knowledge as its core value. This study focuses on less standard values of you know where it functions as an introducer of new viewpoints or pieces of information, as a marker of the speakers’ will to impose their viewpoint, or as an emphasizing marker.
 We show that the loss of the spatio-temporal anchoring of the sequence and the evolution of its prosodic features are characteristics of those particular uses of you know. This leads us to propose a grammaticalization cline with clearcut stages, where the more argumentative uses of you know correspond to the rightmost stage of the cline <propositional – textual – interpersonal> (Traugott and Dasher 2002).

Discourse-pragmatic principles for temporal reference in Mandarin Chinese conversation

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 513-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Temporal Reference ◽  
Temporal System ◽  
Temporal Location ◽  
Narrative Context ◽  
Mandarin Speakers ◽  
Dynamic Time

This study investigates the Mandarin temporal system in ordinary conversations. It is found that during the dynamic time course of interaction, Mandarin speakers tend to rely more heavily on certain underlying principles, rather than on overt markers, to convey temporal location: In a narrative context, temporal reference is almost always established at the beginning of the story and is not subsequently changed, provided that there is a continuity of action across the verbs. In contexts where turn-by-turn talk is at work, speakers tend to establish the time reference through the inherent semantics of the verbs being employed. The data also suggest that other factors, such as shared knowledge and discourse co-text, appear to play a significant role in helping disambiguate the temporal standpoint of utterances which otherwise have potentially competing temporal anchors.

scholarly journals Evidentiality ‘In’ and ‘As’ Context Corpus-based insights about the Mandarin V-过 construction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vittorio Tantucci
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Specific Item ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Critical Issues

In this paper we argue that evidentiality can be a category of a linguistic system that emerges from the intersection between form, usage and ‘contextual situatedness’. We provide a multivariate corpus-based case study about the usage of the V-过 guo construction in written Mandarin, and show how the text types in which the chunk appears significantly contribute to determine its pragmatic usage and its emergent meaning grounded in shared knowledge and collective recognition. This approach sheds new light on two critical issues. The first is that evidentiality is an important grammatical category of documentary, factual and academic prose in Mandarin Chinese. The second, much broader, claim of this paper is that generalisations about grammatical/semantic categories need to account for the usage of specific item in context. In this sense, ‘physical and socio-cultural situatedness’ is as important a dimension as form and meaning in order to define categorial membership.

scholarly journals Data Handling in Industry 4.0: Interoperability Based on Distributed Ledger Technology

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 3046 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shengjing Sun ◽  
Xiaochen Zheng ◽  
Javier Villalba-Díez ◽  
Joaquín Ordieres-Meré
Keyword(s):  
Industry 4.0 ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Construction Sector ◽  
Encrypted Data ◽  
Information Transparency ◽  
Semantic Data ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Specific Proposal ◽  
Access To Knowledge ◽  
Different Sources

Information-intensive transformation is vital to realize the Industry 4.0 paradigm, where processes, systems, and people are in a connected environment. Current factories must combine different sources of knowledge with different technological layers. Taking into account data interconnection and information transparency, it is necessary to enhance the existing frameworks. This paper proposes an extension to an existing framework, which enables access to knowledge about the different data sources available, including data from operators. To develop the interoperability principle, a specific proposal to provide a (public and encrypted) data management solution to ensure information transparency is presented, which enables semantic data treatment and provides an appropriate context to allow data fusion. This proposal is designed also considering the Privacy by Design option. As a proof of application case, an implementation was carried out regarding the logistics of the delivery of industrial components in the construction sector, where different stakeholders may benefit from shared knowledge under the proposed architecture.

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