[PPT] - SPEAKER COMMITMENT BY MANDARIN CONDITIONAL CONNECTIVES: PowerPoint Presentation

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SPEAKER COMMITMENT BY MANDARIN CONDITIONAL CONNECTIVES: DISTRIBUTIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE

28-30.05.2020 The 21st Chinese Lexical Semantics Workshop (CLSW2020) at the City University of Hong Kong Mingya Liu, Humboldt University of Berlin (mingya.liu@hu-berlin.de) & Yuting Wang, Nanjing University (wangyuting0205@hotmail.com)

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2.1. General picture on Mandarin CCs

ØMandarin possesses a variety of conditional markers.

uCCs

CCs occurring at the beginning of the antecedent differ in style and frequency, e.g.

Formal style: ru/ruo/ruruo/tang/tanghuo/tangshi/sheruo …
General: ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/jiashe/wanyi …

They are all used in hypothetical conditionals, therefore some studies consider them to be hypothetical markers.

(3)Ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/jiashe/wanyi mingtian xiayu, shiwai huodong hui quxiao. if tomorrow rain outdoor activity will cancel ‘If it rains tomorrow, the outdoor activities will be canceled.’

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←Focus

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uConditional Marker

Conditional marker at the end of the antecedent: de-hua

‘speaking of/ hypothetically speaking’

(4) Mingtian xiayu de-hua, shiwai huodong hui quxiao. tomorrow rain outdoor activity will cancel ‘If it rains tomorrow, the outdoor activities will be canceled.’

De-hua is not as independent as other CCs. It tends to co-occur with a CC at the beginning of the antecedent (ruguo…de-hua). Frequency of co-occurrence(Xie 2010): 79% in written materials; 50.9% in colloquial speeches.

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Chinese also features conditional markers in the consequent.

While English then can occur optionally in the consequent in combination with a CC in the antecedent, Mandarin name/jiu/ze‚ ‘then’ / adverbs hai/ye/you ‘still/also/again’ can

ccur with or without any CCs in the antecedent.

(5) Mei ren lai, women jiu hui jia. no person come we then go home ‘If no one comes, we will go home.’ (6) Yi ge ren haipa shibai, name ta yongyuan bu hui chenggong.

ne CL person fears failure then he/she forever not will succeed

'If a person is afraid of failure, he/she will never succeed.’ (7) You ren qu, women ye qu. have person go we also go ‘If someone goes, we will also go.’

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uSpecial CCs or adverbs to express counterfactual conditionals.

(Jiang 2000/2014/to appear, Ippolito & Su 2014)

Special CC: yaobushi ‘if not’:

(8) Yaobushi Luomiou ai Zhuliye, ta bu hui he xia duyao. if-not Romeo love Juliet he not will drink down poison ‘If Romeo hadn’t loved Juliet, he would not have drunk the poison.’ In contrast with CC+negation: (9)Yaoshi mingtian bu xiayu, shiwai huodong hui zhaochang juxing. if tomorrow not rain outdoor activity will as-usual hold ‘If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, the outdoor activity will be held as usual.’

Adverb: zao ‘early’:

(10) Zao zhidao ni mai le niunai, wo jiu bu mai le. early know you buy LE milk I not buy LE ‘Had I known that you bought milk, I would not buy it.’

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ØCCs can co-occur with each other:

ruguo-yaoshi; ruguo-wanyi; wanyi-yaoshi; jiaru-yaoshi Contrast: English if-when…; German wenn-falls ‘when if’… A priority order observed in Xie (2010): ruguo>yao>wanyi>yaoshi> jiaru/jiashe/jiaruo/jiashi/tangruo

(11) Ruguo ni yaoshi bu xiang qu, wo ye bu qu. if you if not want go I also not go 'If you don’t want to go, I will not go either.' (12) Ruguo wanyi mingtian xiayu, women jiu quxiao shiwai huodong. if if tomorrow rain we then cancel outdoor activity 'If it rains tomorrow, we will cancel the outdoor activity.’

However, the priority order proposed cannot predict some facts, such as jiaru-yaoshi, and wrongly predicts some facts, such as *wanyi-jiaru. We leave the issue to future studies.

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2.2. Distribution of CCs* in different conditionals

Indicative conditionals
Premise conditionals
Counterfactual conditionals
Optatives conditionals
Biscuit conditionals
Co-occurence with Quantifying adverbs
Co-occurence with Polarity items

* CCs here only include the general ones occurring at the antecedent-initial

position

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2.2.1 Indicative conditionals

Most of Mandarin CCs can occur in indicative conditionals, but it is odd to use CCs with jia- ‘hypothetically’, e.g. jiaru/jiashe/jiaruo in contexts where there is supporting evidence for the truth of the antecedent. [Scenario: Teacher A and B are monitoring an exam, and Zhangsan is a student in the classroom taking the exam. Students are not allowed to use mobile phones during the exam.] (13) A: Zhangsan gangcai zai kan shouji. Zhangsan just now be look mobile phone ‘Zhangsan was looking at the mobile phone’ B: Ruguo/yaoshi/wanyi/??jiaru Zhangsan zuobi, women yao zuzhi ta. if Zhangsan cheat we will stop him ‘If Zhangsan is cheating, we will stop him.’

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2.2.2 Premise conditionals

Wanyi and jia-CCs are odd in premise conditionals.

In the same scenario with (13): (14) A: Zhangsan zai zuobi! Zhangsan at cheat ‘Zhangsan is cheating’ B: Ruguo/yaoshi/??wanyi/??jiaru Zhangsan zuobi, women yao zuzhi ta. if Zhangsan cheat we will stop him ‘If Zhangsan is cheating, we will stop him.’

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2.2.3 Counterfactual conditionals

Wanyi cannot be used in counterfactual conditionals. (15) Ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/*wanyi wo shi nande, wo hui liu

huzi. .

if I am male, I will grow beard 'If I were a man, I would get a beard.’

Conditional markers in the consequent also have limited distributions in counterfactual conditionals.

(16) Yaobushi zuotian ni qu, wo ye/*jiu bu hui qu de. if-not yesterday you go I also/ then not will go ‘If you hadn’t gone yesterday, I wouldn‘t have gone either.’

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2.2.4 Optatives conditionals

Similar with counterfactual conditionals, wanyi is the only CC that cannot be used in optative conditionals. However, the consequent with jiu is obligatory, unlike English.

(17) Ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/*wanyi ta hai huozhe jiu hao le! If he still alive then good LE 'If only he were alive !’ Following Grosz (2012), we assume that (17) has no descriptive but presuppositional content: ‘he is not alive’ & expressive content: ‘the speaker desires that he be alive’

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2.2.5 Biscuit conditionals

English Biscuit conditionals: If you are hungry, there are biscuits on the table. Most CCs can be used in biscuit conditionals, except for jia- CCs, and Conditional markers e.g. jiu,ye cannot be used in the consequent.

(18) Ruguo/yaoshi/wanyi/?jiaru ni e le, zhuozi shang (*jiu/ye) you binggan. if you hungry table on then/also have biscuit 'If you are hungry, there are biscuits on the table.'

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2.2.6 Co-occurrence with quantifying adverbs

German CC falls cannot co-occur with quantifying adverbs, for

example immer ‘always’ (Zaefferer 1991).

(19) Immer wenn/*falls Steffi gewinnt, wird gefeiert. (Always wenn/falls Steffi wins, it will be celebrated.)

The same goes for wanyi, for example after meici ‘every time’:

(20) Meici ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/*wanyi shangdian dazhe, ta jiu qu mai dongxi. every-time if store discount he then go buy thing 'Every time the store is on sale, he goes shopping.'

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2.2.7 Co-occurrence with polarity items

Most CCs license negative polarity items (NPIs), except for

yaobushi (cf. Ippolito & Su 2014, in which they analyze bu as a negative clitic, different from normal negation ).

(21) Ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/wanyi ni kanjian renhe ren, lai gaosu wo. if you see any person come tell me 'If you see any person, come and tell me.'

(22) *Yaobushi wo kanjian renhe ren, wo bu hui lai gaosu ni de. if-not I see any person I not will come tell you DE ‘If I had not seen anyone, I wouldn’t come to tell you.’

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Section 3: Analysis

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ØCCs and speakers commitment:

Not much discussion in previous literature.

Chao (1968) claims that Mandarin CCs differ in terms of

hypothetical probability about the condition.

Lü (2004) argues that these words do not differ in this aspect.

The distributional observations suggest that they might differ in this aspect.

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3.1. wanyi

Diachronic development (Luo & Xu 2012):

Num-phrase wan-fen-zhi-yi

(lit. ‘ten thousand-portion-of one’, i.e. ‘1/10000’)

NP: ‘unexpected change with extremely low possibility’
Adverb: ‘possibly/probably’
Conditional marker: ‘if’

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↓ ↓ ↓

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In modern Mandarin, wanyi is polysemous, possibly a result of

several stages of grammaticalization.

Wanyi as Noun

(23) a. Che li yao fang miehuoqi, yifang wanyi. car in need put extinguisher avoid unexpected-change ‘Put a extinguisher in the car to avoid unexpected change.’

b. Bu pa yi wan, jiu pa wanyi.

not worry ten thousands just worry unexpected-change ‘Not worry about ten thousands (things), just worry about unexpected changes.’

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Wanyi as Adverb:

(24) a. Tuzi duo zai dong li bu chu lai, pa wanyi yudao huli. rabbit hide in cave in not out come worry possibly meet fox ‘The rabbit hided in the cave, worrying possibly meeting the fox.’

b. Jiagu

diba, fangzhi wanyi fasheng yiwai. reinforce dam prevent possibly happen accident ‘Reinforce the dam to prevent accident from happening possibly’

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ØCorpus study*

The conditional antecedents modified by wanyi typically have

negative connotations.

When the antecedent is desirable, it adds a meaning to the

sentence that the speaker takes the antecedent as highly unlikely.

It is odd to use wanyi for a conditional antecedent that is both

desirable for the speaker and likely (based on e.g. speaker’s or world knowledge).

*BCC (http://bcc.blcu.edu.cn/lang/zh)

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(25) a. Wanyi duizhang buxing shoushang, women zhi neng quxiao bisai. if captain unfortunately hurt we only can cancel game ‘If the captain, unfortunately, get injured, we can only cancel the game.’

b. Wanyi dedao le zhenai, yiding yao haohao zhenxi.

if get LE true-love must will greatly cherish ‘If you got true love, you should cherish it greatly.’

c. #Wanyi wo zhaodao haochi de canting, wo jiu qing pengyou chifan.

if I find tasty DE restaurant I invite friends eat ‘If I find a good restaurant, I will then invite our friends to eat there.’

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Negative attitude Low possibility Neither negative nor with low possibility

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Based on the data above, we argue that wanyi has an attitudinal meaning

at the doxastic or bouletic dimension:

(26) Wanyi mingtian xiayu, women keyi dai zai jiali. if tomorrow rains, we can stay at home ‘If it rains tomorrow, we can stay at home.‘

a. at-issue meaning: pàq
b. non-at-issue meaning: λp.¬likely/desirable(p,x)
Non-at-issue meaning is not cancellable:

(27) Wanyi mingtian tian hao, #wo juede hen keneng, women keyi chumen. if tomorrow weather good I feel very likely we can go-out ‘If the weather is good tomorrow, which I believe to be very likely, we can go out.’

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2. Cancel low possibility
1. Cancel

negative attitude

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(28) Wo renwei mingtian hui xiayu. I think tomorrow will rain Wanyi xiayu, #wo juede ting hao de, women jiu dai zai jia-li. if rain I think very good we then stay at home-in ‘I think it will rain tomorrow. If it rains, which find pretty good, we will stay at home.’

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2. Cancel negative attitude
1. Cancel low possibility

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ØNon-at-issue meaning & distribution in conditionals:

Putting the factor of desirability aside, we will first focus on the speaker’s epistemic commitment.

Wanyi is bad in premise conditionals: clash between implicature vs.

presupposition

Wanyi is bad in counterfactual conditionals/optatives: redundancy

between implicature and presupposition

Wanyi is bad with quantifying adverbs: clash between implicature
vs. presupposition

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ØWhy are jia- CCs bad in some conditionals?

We propose tentatively that jiaru (literally ‘hypothetically if’) presupposes the lack of objective evidence for the truth of the antecedent.

It is odd in contexts where there is positive or certain evidence for the

antecedent, due to presupposition failure.

It is fine in counterfactuals conditionals/optatives as counterfactuality

(i.e. by the counterevidence for the antecedent) is compatible with its presupposition.

It is odd in biscuit conditionals (or, speech act conditionals), as the

speech act presupposes its relevance. This awaits future investigations.

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Section 4: Experiment

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4.1. Experiment of Speaker commitment of CCs in German

Liu (2019): certain CCs indicate a lower degree

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speaker commitment, such as German falls in comparison with wenn, and so did some NPIs such as ever/at all and their counterparts in German.

2*2 factorial design: CC (wenn vs. falls) * NPI (absent vs. present)
Different CCs:

more commitment <...wenn,...falls,....>less committed

CCs with/without NPI:

more commitment <...jemals/überhaupt,...jemals/überhaupt....>less committed

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4.2. Experiment on Mandarin CCs

Design: 4*2 factorial design

CC: yaoshi, ruguo, jiaru, wanyi; NPI: renhe; renhe

Scales to be validated :

CC: more committed <yaoshi/ruguo, jiaru, wanyi>less committed NPI: more committed <renhe, renhe>less committed

Stimuli: 32 items, 48 fillers, e.g.

(29) S1: Xiaotang zheng zai chi zaocan. (‘Xiaotang is having breakfast.’) S2: Ta xiang: “ruguo/yaoshi/jiaru/wanyi wo xiawu you (renhe) shijian, wo jiu he pengyou qu he kafei.” (‘He thinks, “If I have (any) time in the afternoon, I will go have a coffee with my friends.”’) S3: Xiaotang renwei ta xiawu you shijian ma? (‘Does Xiaotang think that he has time in the afternoon?) S4: Xiaotang zheng zai chi wucan ma? (‘Is Xiaotang having lunch?’)

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Subjects read scenarios presented sentence by sentence:

üS1 sets the context; üS2 contains a conditional sentence with 8 combinations; üS3 asks the subjects to rate the degree of the protagonist’s

commitment to the antecedent on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = ‘certainly not’, 5 = ‘certainly yes’).

üS4 is a comprehension question (with a yes/no answer) for

attention check.

The experiment was set up with Ibex Farm

(spellout.net/ibexfarm/).

Subjects: 56 undergraduate students at Nanjing University

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Results:

no effect of NPI
The t-tests show that 1) neither jiaru nor yaoshi differed from ruguo, 2)

wanyi and yaoshi did not differ, but 3) wanyi differed significantly from ruguo (p=0.001) and from jiaru (p=0.04).

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the experiment, with standard deviations/errors (SD/SE)

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Condition CC Rating SD SE 1 ruguo 3.32 0.81 0.06 2 jiaru 3.29 0.87 0.06 3 yaoshi 3.28 0.79 0.05 4 wanyi 3.10 0.92 0.06

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In this paper, we provide an overview of Mandarin CCs.
Based on their distribution, we argue that they differ in

terms

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speaker commitment at the non-at-issue dimension.

We report on a rating study, which shows that wanyi

expresses a lower degree of speaker commitment than ruguo and jiaru, but not from yaoshi. While these results are inconclusive, they show that CCs can differ in lexical pragmatics.

5. Conclusion

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Selected References

Chao, Y. R. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Giannakidou, A. (2014). The prospective as nonveridical: polarity items, speaker commitment, and projected truth. In D. Gilberts and J. Hoeksema (Eds.). The Black Book. Festschrift for Frans Zwarts, 101-124 Giannakidou, A. and A. Mari. (2015). Future and universal epistemic modals: reasoning with nonveridicality and partial knowledge. In Tense, mood, and modality: new answers to old questions. New York: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Ippolito, M. and J. Su. (2014). Counterfactuals, negation and polarity. In

L. Crnĭc and U. Sauerland (Eds.), The Art and Craft of Semantics: A

Festschrift for Irene Heim, 225-243. Cambridge: MITWPL.

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Jiang, Y. (2000). Counterfactual interpretations of Chinese conditionals. [Studies and Explorations on Syntax (Chinese)] 10, 257-279. Jiang, Y. (2014). On the lexical meaning of conditional connectives in

Chinese. In X. Su and T. He (Eds.): CLSW 2014, LNAI 8922, 43-54.

Kratzer, A. (1986). Conditionals. Chicago Linguistics Society 22(2), 1- 15. Kratzer, A. (1991). Conditionals. In A. von Stechow and D. Wunderlich (Eds.), Semantics: an international handbook of contemporary research, 651–656. Berlin: De Gruyter. Liu, M. (2019). The Elastic Nonveridicality Property

f
Conditionals. Linguistics Vanguard 5(s3).

Luo, Y. and H. Xu. (2012). On the Grammaticlization of “wanyi” and Related Issues. Central China Academics 2: 273-285. Lü, S. (2004). The Complete Works of Lü Shuxiang. Beijing: Shangwu Yingshuguan. Xie, Xiaoming(2010) A Research on Continuous use of hypothetical

conjunctions. Chinese Linguistics(2): 29-36.

Zaefferer, D. (1991). Conditionals and unconditionals: Cross- linguistic and logical aspects. In Semantic Universals and Universal Semantics, 210-236. Foris Publications.

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