On the syntax of rhetorical questions: evidence from Cantonese

Tang, Sze-Wing

doi:10.1007/s10831-022-09241-7

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Iatridou and Zeijlstra (2013) and van der Wouden (1994) indicate that in English, Dutch, German, and many other languages, there are need-type modals that must take scope under negation, which are generally taken to be NPIs. It is not surprising that sai2 in Cantonese, as a deontic modal, is also an NPI (see also Tang 2022a). In this section, I demonstrate that sai2 should be analyzed as an NPI.…”

Section: Saias An Npimentioning

confidence: 64%

“…( Based on corpus data, Špago (2016) finds that polarity item is one of the syntactic indicators of rhetorical questions such that questions with polarity item are rhetorical in most cases. It is reasonable to say that sai2's NPI property makes rhetorical force obligatory, in the sense that only in rhetorical contexts, a covert negative operator is placed at the sentence-initial position (along the lines with the hypothesis proposed by Han 2002;Nakashima 2018;Pan 2019;and Tang 2022a), and sai2 can be licensed by it. In fact, some NPIs ( jam6ho4 in (15)) and NPI minimizers (bun3-CL in ( 16)) can only be licensed under the rhetorical and negative context (instead of in questions) if no c-commanding negator appears in the sentence.…”

Section: Obligatory Rhetorical Forcementioning

confidence: 99%

“…See alsoTang (2022a) for a slightly different analysis of the position of negative operator in rhetorical questions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rhetorical Questions and Polarity Licensing: On Cantonese Modal Sai2

Choi

2022

Studies in Chinese Linguistics

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This paper investigates the deontic modal sai2 in Cantonese. I argue that sai2 is an NPI and a negative operator is induced at the sentence-initial position by the SFPs me1 or aa4 in rhetorical questions. In SAI sentence, sai2 must syntactically agree with the negative operator for licensing, and minimality and locality effects are found in such agreement. This study may provide evidence of a syntactic approach to NPI licensing and rhetorical questions.

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Section: Saias An Npimentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Obligatory Rhetorical Forcementioning

confidence: 99%

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Rhetorical Questions and Polarity Licensing: On Cantonese Modal Sai2

Choi

2022

Studies in Chinese Linguistics

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The commitment of rhetorical questions

Hill,

Miyagawa

2024

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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Rhetorical questions have received a detailed treatment in semantic studies that defined them in terms of common ground updating, assertion and lack of information seeking. How these semantic traits interact with the syntactic derivation of a rhetorical question has been less debated in the literature (with some notable exceptions). This paper adopts the findings of the semantic studies and considers them from a syntactic perspective: to what degree does syntax contribute to the interpretation of an interrogative clause as a rhetorical question? The paper focuses on data where the switch from a heuristic to a rhetorical reading of interrogatives is forced by the insertion of certain lexical items, and analyzes these items within a framework that maps conversational pragmatics to syntax. In particular, the proposal is that the interaction of the question clause typing feature with an evidential feature in the Commitment Phrase (i.e., the projection that relates speaker/addressee to the proposition) has the effect of an assertion that overrides the addressee-orientedness of the interrogative clause.

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On the syntax of rhetorical questions: evidence from Cantonese

Cited by 2 publications

References 34 publications

Rhetorical Questions and Polarity Licensing: On Cantonese Modal Sai2

Rhetorical Questions and Polarity Licensing: On Cantonese Modal Sai2

The commitment of rhetorical questions

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