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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
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