The Non-interrogative Use Of Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns used as non-interrogatively are high in frequency and various in performance. It is a phenomenon needs researching. In theory, it is valuable especially for pragmatic study, and in practice, it is valuable for teaching of Chinese as foreign language.This dissertation takes the three dimensional grammar as the guideline doing a deep research in the interrogative pronouns of "shui" and "shenme" used non-interrogatively. It includes 9 chapters and the contents can be summed as followings.The first chapter is the introduction. It defines the interrogative use and non-interrogative use of interrogative pronouns, and summarize the significance and points out the theory and methodology of this research.The second chapter is a comprehensive review of the non-interrogative use of interrogative nouns. The main achievement are displayed and the main problems existing are also pointed out.The third chapter researches the non-interrogative use of interrogative pronoun who. Generally speaking, its interrogative use can be divided into three types: nonspecific reference, so-and-so reference and specific reference. The marker of each type is showed, for example, "shui...dou/ye", "bulun...shui..." for non-specific reference.The fourth and fifth chapters classifies the non-interrogative use of the interrogative pronoun what as non-specific reference, so-and-so reference, specific reference, generic reference and empty reference and the respective markers aredescribed.The sixth chapter discusses the relationship between the non-interrogative use and presupposition, interrogative scope and focus.The seventh chapter investigates the evolution of interrogative use and points out that the evolution is a process of decline of objective meaning and the increase of the subjective meaning.The eighth chapter is a comparison of the non-interrogative use between Chinese and Korean.The ninth chapter is the conclusion of the dissertation.