Exclusivity, contingency, exceptionality and (un)desirability: A corpus-based study of Chinese chufei (‘unless’) in spoken and written discourse
| Autor: | Yu Fang Wang, Hsun Ming Hsu, David Treanor, Jyun gwang Chen |
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| Rok vydání: | 2014 |
| Předmět: |
Linguistics and Language
Social Psychology Communication media_common.quotation_subject Event (relativity) Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Mandarin Chinese Language and Linguistics language.human_language Linguistics Action (philosophy) If and only if language Corpus based Psychology Function (engineering) Contingency Emphasis (typography) media_common |
| Zdroj: | Language & Communication. 37:40-59 |
| ISSN: | 0271-5309 |
| Popis: | The present study investigates Mandarin Chinese chufei (‘only if’ or ‘unless’) constructions in both spoken and written discourse. The results show that most chufei instances fall into the type q , chufei p in the spoken data, whereas the written data indicate the most common pattern to be chufei p , fouze (‘otherwise’) ∼ q . In the data, chufei can be viewed as a kind of predictive conditional, which predicts that if a desired action is/is not carried out or a desired condition is/is not fulfilled, the desired/undesired consequence would occur. In particular, chufei clauses have a recapitulative function in that they summarize what has come before. We demonstrate that speakers/writers express a particular stance of desirability versus undesirability toward a particular event through chufei constructions, based on their subjective evaluation of reality. As a marker of hypotheticality, chufei constructions are used to perform several discourse-pragmatic functions such as suggesting possibilities, giving supplementary information for emphasis or clarification, and conveying effects in expressing attitudes and opinions. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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