A Semantic-Pragmatic Analysis Of The Adverb Ke In Mandarin Chinese

The adverb ke is one of the most frequently used function words in modern Chinese,especially in spoken one.Due to its very complex meaning and different uses,it is hard to find its counterparts in other languages.This is the precise reason why the adverb ke has always been a hot topic in linguistic research.In earlier research,ke was seen as a modal adverb which expresses emphasis（e.g.Yang Huifen1993;Lv Shuxiang 1999）.Nevertheless,this view was challenged by many later researchers.For instance,regarding the word class that ke belongs to,some scholars such as Zhang Xueping（2005）proposed that ke can also be used as a degree adverb.Its semantic analysis is also mysterious.While some scholars treated ke as a topical focus sensitive operator（Liu Danqing&Tang Zhengda 2001）,others believed that its meaning core is one of the following:contrast（Luo Xiaoying&Shao Jingmin2006;Wang Yingxian 2015）and confirmation（Su Junbo&Yu Le 2018）etc.Up to now,there is still no consensus on these issues.In view of this,the research questions of this thesis are as follows:First,besides a modal adverb,can the adverb ke be used as a degree adverb?How can we distinguish the different uses of the adverb ke?Second,how can we interpret the different uses of the adverb ke in a formal way?Our findings are as follows:（1）Regarding the word class that the adverb ke belongs to,we argue that ke can only be a modal adverb and can’t serve as a degree adverb,hence agreeing with Yang Huifen（1993）and Lv Shuxiang（1999）.Nevertheless,our research further shows that the modal adverb ke can be further classified into three.Ke₁is an unstressed modal adverb,which is kind of overlapped with the adversative conjunction ke in meaning,but different in practical use.Ke₂is a stressed modal adverb rather than a degree adverb,which occurs in exclamatory sentences expressing the exclamation mood.Ke₃is the modal adverb expressing relief.It has the reading of‘finally’and can be view as the abbreviation of kesuan and kesuanshi.（2）As to the semantic interpretation of the different uses of ke,this thesis mainly focuses on ke₁and ke₂.For ke₁,we argue that it is neither a topical focus sensitive operator nor an emphasis operator,but a weak contrastive operator,which requires something contrastive in the context.However,unlike the adversative conjunction ke,it doesn’t require the contrastive clause to be overt.In declarative and exclamatory sentences,ke₁can be further interpreted as a counter-expectation marker,which expresses the information that deviates from either the speaker’s or the listener’s expectation.As to ke₂,based on Rett’s（2011）classification on exclamatives,we argue that ke₂-exclamatives are sentence exclamatives,whose meaning consists of a truth-conditional meaning and an expressive meaning.The contribution of ke₂is to shift a declarative sentence into an exclamative,thereby making the degree of the original sentence higher than the standard one.Adopting Miro’s（2007）semantic theory on wh-exclamatives,this thesis characterizes the meaning of ke₂-exclamatives in a formal way.We propose that their truth-conditional meaning be the proposition without ke₂,and the expressive meaning be speakers’emotional attitude toward the relevant degree.