A Dynamic Analysis of Minimizers in Chinese lian…dou Construction

Abstract

Minimizers are widely acknowledged cross-linguistically to denote a minimal quantity, extent or degree. With respect to minimizers in Mandarin Chinese, Shyu (Linguistics 54:1355(Linguistics 54: -1395(Linguistics 54: , 2016 claims that their so-called negative polarity is purely syntactically determined and is facilitated by the lian…dou ('including…all') EVEN construction. Within the framework of Dynamic Syntax (Kempson et al., Dynamic syntax: the flow of language understanding, Blackwell, 2001; Cann et al., The dynamics of language, Elsevier, 2005) which allows for interaction between syntactic, semantic and pragmatic information, we demonstrate that the total negation is actually derived from the interaction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics, rather than being determined by purely syntactic means.

Multiple Occurrences of the Chinese Reflexive in a Clause: At the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface

“…Dynamic Syntax (DS) is a parsing-directed grammar formalism to represent the semantic interpretation for a natural language string, which is built up following the left-right sequence of the words in context (Kempson et al, 2001;Cann et al, 2005). The process is goal-driven, which begins with the initial and universal requirement to establish the propositional content of utterances in context (Yang & Wu, 2021). "The concept of process is central, with syntax construed as the process by which semantically transparent structure is incrementally built up" (Cann et al, 2007, p.337).…”

“…Second, parsing is a manipulation process of partial information, which extends incomplete specifications from semantics and pragmatics to syntax. The interaction between the three types of action will further develop and update the underspecifications both in content and structure to the complete propositional content conveyed by the utterance in context (Yang & Wu, 2021).…”

“…means that the requirement must be satisfied. According to Yang and Wu (2021), in parsing the string of Lisi xihuan Mali 'Lisi likes Mali', we first need to build a root node to represent the whole proposition of this sentence, that is, ? ( ) Ty t , as can be shown in (i).…”

“…( ) Ty t , as can be shown in (i). In order to satisfy the requirement, we mainly rely on the following sources (see also Yang & Wu, 2021). In accordance with Yang and Wu (2021), First, computational rules govern general tree-constructional processes, such as moving the pointer, introducing and updating nodes.…”

“…In sentence Lisi xihuan Mali 'Lisi likes Mali', the first word Lisi will be parsed in line with the incrementality in communication. The lexical actions for the word Lisi consists of a set of actions which are initiated by a trigger and a failure statement to abort the parsing process if the conditional actions fails (Yang & Wu, 2021), as listed below: 4 (13) Lexical entry for Lisi: are concrete marks to distinguish daughters decorated with argument and functor. The lexical actions can further manipulate the movement of the pointer.…”