Cover not available
Part of
Interfaces in Grammar
Edited by Jianhua Hu and Haihua Pan
[Language Faculty and Beyond 15] 2019
► pp. 245–282

Chapter 9
Focus, negation and event quantification in Chinese

How focus helps shape negation in natural language

| City University of Hong Kong

Chinese negators, bu and mei, translated as “not” in English, are assumed to be focus-sensitive indiscriminately. In this paper, I argue that unlike bu, mei does not lexically encode a dependency on the placement of focus, due to the failure of semantic focus to override its syntactic constraint. Syntax has made mei inherently a negative existential quantifier of situations. The role of focus in mei-sentences is to provide the backgrounded event description. Material within the TP scope of mei, excluding the focus, will be structurally mapped to the background part to set up its restrictive domain, and everything within its scope to the nuclear scope. Therefore, although falling under the same category, negators do not necessarily demonstrate the same focus dependency.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The problem of mei
    • 1.2Main ideas to be proposed in this paper
  • 2.Sentences as descriptions of events
    • 2.1Herburger’s (2000) event quantification analysis of focused quantifiers
  • 3.Mei and focus – an event-based account
    • 3.1The negation domain of mei
      • 3.1.1Mei as a situation negator: Syntactic attachment of mei to -you
      • 3.1.2Focus does not affect the syntactic relation of mei with you
    • 3.3Mei does not directly associate with focus
  • 4.Reanalyzing mei as a negative existential event quantifier
    • 4.1Dependency of mei on the non-focused part for backgrounded event description
    • 4.2Does the existential presupposition of events always exist in mei-negation?
    • 4.3Existential presupposition of at least one alternative to the focus
  • 5.Discussion: Information-structural characteristics of bu, mei(-you) and bu-shi
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.15.09lee
References
Bach, Emmon
1986 The algebra of events. Linguistics and Philosophy 9(1), 5–16.Google Scholar
Beaver, David I. and Brady Z. Clark
2003 Always and Only: Why not all Focus Sensitive Operators are Alike. Natural Language Semantics 11, 323–362. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Sense and Sensitivity: How Focus Determines Meaning. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonomi, Andrea and Paolo Casalegno
1993 Only: Association with Focus in Event Semantics. Natural Language Semantics 2, 1–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Li
2007 A Syntactic and Semantic Investigation into Chinese Negation Markers. Unpublished MPhil dissertation, City University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Chen, Li and Haihua Pan
2008 The aspectual selections of Chinese negation markers bu and mei. In Zhongguo Yuwen Zazhi She (ed.), Yufa Yanjiu he Tansuo 14, 61–78. Beijing: Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, David
1967 The logical form of action sentences. In Nicholas Rescher (ed.), The Logic of Decision and Action, 81-95.Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Eckardt, Regine
1998 Review of “in the event of focus”. GLOT International 3(9/10), 13–15.Google Scholar
Ernst, Thomas
1995 Negation in Mandarin Chinese. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 13, 665–707. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nick
1995 A-quantifiers and scope in Mayali. In Emmon Bach, Eloise Jelinek, Angelika Kratzer and Barbara H. Partee (eds.), Quantification in natural languages, 207–270. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai
1994 Restrictions on quantifier domains. Unpublished Ph.D diss., University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Geurts, Bart. and Rob. van der Sandt
1997 Presupposition and backgrounds. In P. Dekker and M. Stokhof (eds.), Proceedings of the Eleventh Amsterdam Colloquium, 37–42. University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
2004 Interpreting focus. Theoretical Linguistics 30(2004), 1–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herburger, Elena
2000 What Counts: Focus and quantification. Cambridge: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Miao-Ling
1996 Three Forms of Negation in Chinese. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 26(1/2), 161–174.Google Scholar
2001 Form and Meaning: Negation and Question in Chinese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R.
2001 A Natural History of Negation. Stanford, California: CSLI.Google Scholar
Hu, Jianhua
2007 Focus, Negation and Scope. Zhongguo Yuwen 2, 99–112.Google Scholar
2008 Mandarin object-taking intransitive constructions at the syntax-information structure interface. Zhongguo Yuwen 4, 396–409.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James
1988 Wo pao de kuai and Chinese phrase structure. Language 64, 274–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1990 On ‘be’ and ‘have’ in Chinese. (Shuo shi he you) In Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 59, 43–64.Google Scholar
Huang, Shuan-Fan
1981 On the scope phenomena of Chinese quantifiers. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 9(2), 226–243.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray
1972 Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Joachim
1983 Fokus und Skalen. Tubingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika
1991 The representation of focus. In A. von Stechow and D. Wunderlich (eds.), Semantik/Semantics: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research, 804–882. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred
2006 Association with focus phrases. In Valéria Molnár and Susanne Winkler (eds.), Architecture of Focus, 105–136. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, Peppina Po-lun
2010 Focus Association in Chinese – with Focus or Focus Phrases. Contemporary Linguistics 12(1), 1–13.Google Scholar
2016 Non-uniformity of Chinese Negators mei(you) and bu towards Focus. Contemporary Linguistics 18(3), 368–386.Google Scholar
Lee, Peppina Po-lun and Haihua Pan
2001 Chinese Negation Marker Bu and Its Association with Focus. Linguistics 39–4, 703–731.Google Scholar
Li, Charles and Sandra A. Thompson
1981 Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-wang
2003 Aspectual selection and negation in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 41–3, 425–259.Google Scholar
Liu, Xunning
1988 Xiandai hanyu ciwei ‘le’ de yufa yiyi. Zhongguo Yuwen 5, 321–330.Google Scholar
Lü, Shuxiang
1985 Interrogation, Negation and Affirmation. Zhongguo Yuwen 1985(4), 241–250.Google Scholar
Pan, Haihua and Lee, Peppina Po-lun
2005 Focus and Negation in Chinese. In Shao, Jingmin and Jingguang Lu (eds.), Hanyu Yufa Yanjiu de Xintuozhan, 97–127. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Education Press.Google Scholar
Parsons, Terence
1990 Events in the Semantics of English: A study in subatomic semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara H.
1995 Quantificational structures and compositionality. In E. Bach, E. Jelinek, A. Kratzer and B. H. Partee (eds.), Quantification in natural languages, 541–601. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats
1985 Association with Focus. Ph.D.diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, distributed by GLSA, Amherst.Google Scholar
1992 A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1, 75–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1996 Focus. In S. Lappin (ed.), The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory. London: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
von Stechow, Arnim
1991 Focussing and backgrounding operators. In W. Abraham (ed.), Discourse Particles, 37–84, Amsterdam, John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Teng, Shou-Hsin
1973a Scope of Negation. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 1(3), 475–478.Google Scholar
1973b Negation and Aspects in Chinese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 1(1), 14–37.Google Scholar
1974 Negation in Chinese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 2(2), 125–140.Google Scholar
Wang, William S.-Y.
1965 Two aspect markers in Mandarin. Language 41, 457–470, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, Yufang
2008 Beyond negation – the roles of meiyou and bushi in Mandarin conversation. Language Sciences 30, 679–713. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xiao, R. Z. and A. M. McEnery
2005 Negation in Chinese: A corpus-based study. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 36(2), 274–330.Google Scholar
Xiong, Zhongru
2005 Fouding, Jiaodian jiqi jufa yunhan. [“Negative focus and its syntactic implications]”. Zhongguo Yuwen 4, 300–307.Google Scholar
Xu, Dan
1999 Syntactical distribution of negative markers in Mandarin Chinese. Cahiers de Linguistique de I’NALCO 1–2, 71–79.Google Scholar
Xu, Jie and Li Yingzhe
1993 Jiaodian he liange feixianxing yufafanchou: “fouding”, “yiwen”. [Focus and two non-linear syntactic scopes: negation and interrogatives]. Zhongguo Yuwen 233, 81–92.Google Scholar
Yeh, Ling-Hsia
1995 Focus, metalinguistic negation and contrastive negation. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 23(2), 42–75.Google Scholar
Yuan, Yulin
2000 Lun fouding de jiaodian, yushe he xiayuqiyi. [Negative sentence: its focus, presupposition and scope ambiguity]. Zhongguo Yuwen 2, 99–108.Google Scholar
2005 Shixi zhongjieyuzhong gen “meiyou” xiangguan de pianwu. [An analysis of the interlingual errors with respect to meiyou]. Shijie Hanyu Jiaoxue 72, 56–70.Google Scholar