Cover not available
Part of
Particles in German, English, and Beyond
Edited by Remus Gergel, Ingo Reich and Augustin Speyer
[Studies in Language Companion Series 224] 2022
► pp. 323–354

Chapter 12
Mandarin exhaustive focus shì and the syntax of discourse congruence

| National University of Singapore
This paper describes three constraints that together govern the distribution of the exhaustive focus marker shì in Mandarin Chinese. First, I argue that shì is a sentential focus particle that is subject to a requirement to adjoin as low as possible within its clause or phase. Second, I show that shì requires a congruent Question Under Discussion (QUD). Third and finally, I show that there are certain reduced clauses where shì is completely disallowed, although other focus particles such as ‘only’ may appear. To explain this last restriction, I propose that reference to a QUD is mediated by a functional head in the clause periphery. Shì is thus unavailable in reduced clauses which do not project this high functional layer.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Shì semantics
  • 3.Shì is a sentential focus particle
  • 4.Shì requires a congruent QUD
  • 5.On the distribution of shì and the syntax of discourse congruence
    • 5.1Clauses which disallow shì
    • 5.2Proposal
    • 5.3The “one shì per clause” restriction
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 August 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.224.12erl
References (103)
References
Alxatib, Sam. 2020. Focus, evaluativity, and antonomy: A study in the semantics of only and its interaction with gradable antonyms. Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
AnderBois, Scott, Adridan Brasoveanu & Robert Henderson. 2015. At-issue proposals and appositive impositions in discourse. Journal of Semantics 32(1). 93–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Antomo, Mailin. 2012. Projective meaning and the licensing of embedded root phenomena. In Proceedings of ConSOLE XIX, 1–23.Google Scholar
. 2016. Marking (not-)at-issue content by using verb-order variation in German. In Ingo Reich & Augustin Speyer. (eds.), Co- and subordination in German and other languages, 21–54. Buske.Google Scholar
Bayer, Josef. 1996. Directionality and logical form: on the scope of focusing particles and wh-in-situ. Kluwer Academic Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. From modal particle to interrogative marker: A study of German denn, 13–28. Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bayer, Josef, Jans Häussler & Markus Bader. 2016. A new diagnostic for cyclic wh-movement: discourse particles in German questions. Linguistic Inquiry 47(4). 591–629. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beaver, David Ian & Brady Clark. 2008. Sense and sensitivity: How focus determines meaning. Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beck, Sigrid. 2006. Intervention effects follow from focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 14. 1–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beck, Sigrid & Shin-Sook Kim. 2006. Intervention effects in alternative questions. Journal of Comparative German Linguistics 9. 165–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bjorkman, Bronwyn & Hedde Zeijlstra. 2019. Checking up on (ϕ-)Agree. Linguistic Inquiry 50(3). 527–569. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Branan, Kenyon & Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine. 2020. Anti-pied-piping. Manuscript, National University of Singapore. [URL]
Büring, Daniel. 2019. Focus, questions, and givenness. InMalte Zimmermann, Klaus von Heusinger, Edgar Onea. (eds.), Questions in discourse, 6–44. Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Büring, Daniel & Katharina Hartmann. 2001. The syntax and semantics of focus-sensitive particles in German. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 19. 229–281. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Büring, Daniel & Manuel Križ. 2013. It’s that, and that’s it! Exhaustivity and homogeneity presuppositions in clefts (and definites). Semantics & Pragmatics 6(6). 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen. 2008. Deconstructing the shì...de construction. The Linguistic Review 25. 235–266. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chiu, Hui-Chun Bonnie. 1993. The inflectional structure of Mandarin Chinese: University of California at Los Angeles dissertation.
Coniglio, Marco. 2012. Modal particles, speaker-hearer links, and illocutionary force. In Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss. (eds.), Modality and theory of mind elements across languages, 253–296. de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Constant, Noah. 2011. Re-diagnosing appositivity: Evidence for prenominal appositives from Mandarin. In Carissa Abrego-Collier, Arun Kang, Martina Martinović & Chieu Nguyen. (eds.), Proceedings of CLS 47 , 47–61.Google Scholar
Coppock, Elizabeth & David Beaver. 2011. Sole sisters. In Proceedings of SALT 21 , 197–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crnič, Luka. 2011. Getting even: Massachusetts Institute of Technology dissertation.
De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P., Malte Zimmermann, Edgar Onea & Anna-Christina Boell. 2015. Contradicting (not-)at-issueness in exclusives and clefts: An empirical study. In Proceedings of SALT 25 , 373–393. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Del Gobbo, Francesca. 2014. Appositives in Mandarin Chinese and cross-linguistically. In Li, Simpson &Tsai. (2014). 73–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Destruel, Emilie. 2015. A cross-linguistic study of the not-at-issueness of exhaustive inferences. In Florian Schwarz. (ed.), Experimental perspectives on presuppositions, 135–156. Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. 1996. Focus, pragmatic presupposition and activated propositions. Journal of Pragmatics 26(4). 473–523. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emonds, Joseph. 1970. Root and structure-preserving transformations: Massachusetts Institute of Technology dissertation.
. 1979. Appositive relatives have no properties. Linguistic Inquiry 10(2). 211–243.Google Scholar
Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka. 2007. A new syntax-semantics for the Mandarin bǐ comparative: University of Chicago MA thesis.
. 2014. Alternative questions through focus alternatives in Mandarin Chinese. In Andrea Beltrama, Tasos Chatzikonstantinou, Jackson L. Lee, Mike Pham & Diane Rak. (eds.), Proceedings of the 48th meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 48), 221–234.Google Scholar
. 2015a. In defense of Closeness: focus-sensitive adverb placement in Vietnamese and Mandarin Chinese. Manuscript, McGill University. [URL]
. 2015b. Minimality and focus-sensitive adverb placement. In Thuy Bui & Deniz Özyιldιz. (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 45 , vol. 1, 193–202.Google Scholar
. 2016. Encoding QUD congruence in Mandarin Chinese. Presented at Theoretical Linguistics at Keio 2016.Google Scholar
. 2017a. Two disjunctions in Mandarin Chinese. Manuscript, National University of Singapore. [URL]
. 2017b. Vietnamese focus particles and derivation by phase. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 26(4). 325–349. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka & Hadas Kotek. 2018. Focus association by movement: Evidence from Tanglewood. Linguistic Inquiry 49(3). 441–463. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka & Keely New. 2021. A variably exhaustive and scalar focus particle and pragmatic focus concord in Burmese. Semantics & Pragmatics 14(7). DOI logo. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ernst, Thomas. 2002. The syntax of adjuncts. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Francis, Naomi Clair. 2019. Presuppositions in focus: Massachusetts Institute of Technology dissertation.
Glass, Lelia. to appear. The negatively biased Mandarin belief verb yǐwéi. Studia Linguistica.
Grano, Thomas. 2015. Control and restructuring. Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017. Finiteness contrasts without Tense? A view from Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 26. 259–299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gutzmann, Daniel & Katharina Turgay. 2019. Secondary content: An introduction. In Daniel Gutzmann & Katharina Turgay. (eds.), Secondary content: The semantics and pragmatics of side issues, 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2002. Anchoring to speaker, adverbial clauses and the structure of CP. In Georgetown University Working Papers in Theoretical Linguistics, vol. 2, 117–180.Google Scholar
. 2006. Argument fronting in English, Romance CLLD and the left periphery. In Raffaella Zanuttini, Hector Campos, Elena Herburger & Paul H. Portner. (eds.), Cross-linguistic research in syntax and semantics: negation, tense and clausal architecture, 27–52. Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
. 2012. The syntax of MCP: Deriving the truncation account. In Lobke Aelbrecht, Liliane Haegeman & Rachel Nye. (eds.), Main clause phenomena: New horizons, 113–134. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane & Virginia Hill. 2013. The syntactization of discourse. In Raffaella Folli, Christina Sevdali & Robert Truswell. (eds.), Syntax and its limits, 370–390. Oxford. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hole, Daniel & Malte Zimmermann. 2013. Cleft partitionings in Japanese, Burmese, and Chinese. In Katharina Hartmann & Tonjes Veenstra. (eds.), Cleft structures, 285–317. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horn, Laurence Robert. 1969. A presuppositional analysis of only and even. In Robert I. Binnick, Alice Davison, Georgia M. Green & Jerry L. Morgan. (eds.), Papers from the fifth regional meeting, 98–107. Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Huang, Cheng-Teh James. 1982a. Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar: Massachusetts Institute of Technology dissertation.
. 1982b. Move wh in a language without wh movement. The Linguistic Review 1. 369–416. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1988. Shuo ‘Shi’ he ‘You’ [On ‘be’ and ‘have’ in Chinese]. The Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academica Sinica 59(1). 43–64.Google Scholar
. 1991. Modularity and Chinese A-not-A questions. In Carol Georgopoulos & Roberta Ishihara. (eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to linguistics: Essays in honor of S.-Y. Kuroda, 305–332. Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huang, Nick. 2018. Control complements in Mandarin Chinese: implications for restructuring and the Chinese finiteness debate. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 27. 347–376. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Joachim. 1983. Fokus und Skalen: Zur Syntax und Semantik der Gradpartikeln im Deutschen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1986. The syntax of focus and adverbials in German. In Werner Abraham & Sjaak de Meij. (eds.), Topic, focus, and configurationality, 103–128. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jin, Dawei. 2020. Copula functions in a cross-Sinitic perspective. Folia Linguistica 54(1). 89–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kadmon, Nirit & Aldo Sevi. 2011. Without ‘focus’. In Formal semantics and pragmatics: Discourse, context, and models. The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, 1–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 1991. A compositional semantics for multiple focus constructions. In Proceedings of SALT 1 , 127–158. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. to appear. Layers of assertive clauses: Propositions, judgments, commitments, acts. In Jutta Hartmann & Angelika Wöllstein. (eds.), Propositionale argumente im sprachvergleich: Theorie und empirie, Gunter Narr Verlag.
Landau, Idan. 2001. Control and extraposition: The case of super-equi. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19. 109–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Haoze & Candice Chi-Hang Cheung. 2015. Focus intervention effects in Mandarin multiple wh-questions. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 24. 361–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Kening. 2008. Contrastive focus structure in Mandarin Chinese. In Proceedings of NACCL 20 , vol. 2, 759–774.Google Scholar
Li, Yen-Hui Audrey & Shi-Zhe Huang. 2009. Looking into clauses. In Yun Xiao. (ed.), Proceedings of NACCL 21 , vol. 2, 436–463.Google Scholar
Li, Yen-Hui Audrey, Andrew Simpson & Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai. (eds.). 2014. Chinese syntax in a cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lin, Jo-Wang & Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai. 2014. Restricting non-restrictive relatives in Mandarin Chinese. In Li et al.. (2014). 100–127. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liu, Ying & Yu’an Yang. 2017. To exhaust, or not to exhaust: An experimental study on Mandarin shi-clefts. In Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine. (ed.), Proceedings of GLOW in Asia XI, vol. 2, 103–117. Cambridge, MA: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1996. The focus and scope of only. In Barbara Hall Partee & Petr Sgall. (eds.), Discourse and meaning: Papers in honor of Eva Hajičová, 171–193. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Marie-Christine & Uli Sauerland. 2009. A pragmatic constraint on ambiguity detection. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 27(1). 139–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2022. Syntax in the treetops. MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nurse, Derek. 2006. Focus in Bantu: Verbal morphology and function. In Zas papers in linguistics, vol. 43, 189–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pan, Victor Junnan & Waltraud Paul. 2018. The syntax of complex sentences in Mandarin Chinese: A comprehensive overview with analyses. Linguistic Analysis 42. 63–161.Google Scholar
Paul, Waltraud. 2014. Why particles are not particular: sentence-final particles in Chinese as heads of a split CP. Studia Linguistica 68(1). 77–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paul, Waltraud & John Whitman. 2008. Shi... de focus clefts in Mandarin Chinese. The Linguistic Review 25. 413–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Potts, Christopher. 2005. The logic of conventional implicatures. Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
von Prince, Kilu. 2012. Predication and information structure in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 21. 329–366. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reis, Marga. 2005. On the syntax of so-called focus particles in German: A reply to Büring and Hartmann 2001. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 23. 459–483. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Craige. 1996/2012. Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In Jae-Hak Yoon & Andreas Kathol. (eds.), Papers in semantics, vol. 49 OSU Working Papers in Linguistics. DOI logo. Reprinted in Semantics & Pragmatics 5(6), 1–69, 2012.Google Scholar
. 2011. Only: A case study in projective meaning. In Formal semantics and pragmatics: Discourse, context, and models, 1–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1985. Association with focus: University of Massachusetts, Amherst dissertation.
. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1. 75–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1999. Association with focus or association with presupposition? In Peter Bosch & Rob van der Sandt. (eds.), Focus: Linguistic, cognitive, and computational perspectives, 232–244. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, John Robert. 1970. On declarative sentences. In Roderick A. Jacobs & Peter S. Rosenbaum. (eds.), Readings in English transformational grammar, 222–272. Waltham, MA: Ginn and Company.Google Scholar
Shi, Dingxu. 1994. The nature of Chinese emphatic sentences. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 3. 81–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shyu, Shu-ing. 1995. The syntax of focus and topic in Mandarin Chinese: University of Southern California dissertation.
Simons, Mandy, Judith Tonhauser, David Ian Beaver & Craige Roberts. 2010. What projects and why. In Proceedings of SALT 20 , 309–327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smeets, Liz & Michael Wagner. 2018. Reconstructing the syntax of focus operators. Semantics & Pragmatics 11(6). 1–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Speas, Peggy & Carol Tenny. 2003. Configurational properties of point of view roles. In Anna Maria Di Sciullo. (ed.), Asymmetry in grammar, volume 1: Syntax and semantics, 315–344. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taglicht, Josef. 1984. Message and emphasis: on focus and scope in English. Longman.Google Scholar
Tancredi, Chris. 1990. Not only EVEN, but even ONLY. Manuscript, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Teng, Shou-Hsin. 1979. Remarks on cleft sentences in Chinese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 7(1). 101–113.Google Scholar
Tham, Shiao Wei. 2008. The semantic category of the subject NP in Mandarin specificational copular sentences. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17(1). 61–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 1994. On nominal islands and LF extraction in Chinese. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 12. 121–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2004. Tán ‘zhǐ’ yǔ ‘lián’ de xíngshì yǔyì [On the formal semantics of only and even in Chinese]. Zhongguo Yuwen 2. 99–111.Google Scholar
Wei, Wei Haley & Yen-Hui Audrey Li. 2018. Adverbial clauses in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistic Analysis 42(1–2). 163–330.Google Scholar
Wiltschko, Martina. 2017. Response particles beyond answering. In Order and structure in syntax, vol. 1, 241–279. Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Wiltschko, Martina & Johannes Heim. 2016. The syntax of confirmationals: A neo-performative analysis. In Gunther Kaltenböck, Evelien Keizer & Arne Lohmann. (eds.), Outside the clause, 305–339. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Jie. 2010. The positioning of Chinese focus marker shi and pied-piping in logical form. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 38(1). 134–156.Google Scholar
Yang, Barry Chung-Yu. 2008. Intervention effects and the covert component of grammar: National Tsing Hua University dissertation. DOI logo
. 2012. Intervention effects and wh-construals. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 21(1). 43–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yang, Chun-Jung & Mao-Chang Ku. 2010. On the cleft construction in Mandarin Chinese. In Lauren Eby Clemens & Chi-Ming Louis Liu. (eds.), The proceedings of the 22nd North American Conference of Chinese Linguistics (NACCL 22) and the 18th annual meeting of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics (IACL 18), vol. 2, 417–429.Google Scholar
Zhang, Niina Ning. 1995. A-not-A and S-not. In Toronto working papers in linguistics, vol. 14, 159–175.Google Scholar
Zhu, Yao. 1997. The focus-marking function of shi in Mandarin Chinese: Univeresity of Minnesota dissertation.