The Relativity And Constructional Integration Between The Categories Of Negation And Question Of The Contemporary Chinese

The relativity of the categories of negation and question is systematically studied from two aspects in this paper, which consists of ten chapters. Firstly, it examines the semantic relativity between these two categories through a thorough and systemic study of the interrogative sentences, such as WH-questions, yes-no questions and alternative questions etc., which indicate negation; Secondly, it investigates their constructional integration. Through a study of the characteristics of co-occurrence of interrogative pronouns and negatives, it analyses the negative questions and negative declarative sentences containing interrogative pronouns and negatives and explores their constructional integration in the contemporary Chinese from both macro and micro point of view.Chapterâ… mainly summarizes and comments on the researches which have already been done, and raises the study issues and the theories adopted.In the first part of this paper, which is from Chapterâ…¡to Chapterâ…¥, it examines the semantic relativity between the categories of negation and question.The negative uses of WH-questions such as "shenme", "shui","nar" were discussed in detail and the close relationship between WH-questions and negation under some conditions was also analyzed in Chapterâ…¡.The position of "shenme" is quite flexible in the negative WH-questions, which is required to keep the balance of the whole sentence. Of course, different positions of "shenme" indicates different negative meanings. In the negative WH-questions containing "shui", the use of "shuizhi..." plays the role of connection and it connects the current situation or the ideally expected opposite situation mentioned in the sentences previously stated. While the use of "shuijiao..." usually appear as a follow-up sentence, which is aimed at the reaction in line with the information of the speakers. Therefore, it is a non-independent sentence at the answering position. In the negative WH-questions with "na", the combination of "na + verb" has become the discourse tag after lexicalization, and this format curling phenomenon of a change from indicating questions to indicating negative semanteme stems from the frequent negative usage of "na + verb". This explains the cause of lexicalization's format curling and reflects the consistency between the negative function to proposition true value of questions and negative sentences. It is this consistency that establishes the inner link between questions and negations.The negative uses of marked and unmarked yes-no questions were investigated. Furthermore, semantic association of yes-no questions and negation was systematically examined in Chapterâ…¢. Yes-no questions often indicate negation by using some special words, intonation and tone. We name the former marked yes-no questions and the latter unmarked yes-no questions. Questions with "ma" at the end are mostly marked one as represented by negations. The reason why it often indicates negations is mainly because that the question with "ma" is an advanced grammaticalization structure, which easily brings about incidental meanings such as negations.In Chapterâ…£, the negative uses of alternative questions were surveyed. It has three kinds: to negate the former part of the sentence, to negate the latter part of the sentence and to negate the whole sentence. The disjunction in last kind has a kind of common nature and the speaker negates the disjunction in order to negate this nature. The disjunctions provided by other two kinds are often closed disjunctions with two values, which are logically discrepant.Chapterâ…¤investigates the relative mechanisms of questions (WH-questions. yes-no questions and selective questions) and negations. It also explores the production process of questions indicating negations in terms of their overall character. The negative use of WH-questions is a result of the combination of interrogative pronoun and the format of WH-questions. Its semantic mechanism is the semantic character of interrogative pronoun; Syntactic mechanism stems mainly from the rhetorical questions; Pragmatic mechanism is the subjectivity to leave a self mark in the sentences. The productive mechanism of the negative use of yes-no questions stems from the non-negation of the proposition. Because the truthfulness between negative yes-no questions and true questions are different, basically it tends to both literally indicate questions and belief in the opposite proposition. As for the alternative questions, the rhetorical tone plus disjunction syntactic structure become the mechanism of negative sentences.Questions changed from questions to negations belonging to a gradually changing process: first it changes from genuine question to subjective non-neutral question, and then from suspicion to negation. In the first process, the speaker's level of belief, which is caused by the speakers' subjective express requirement, plays a leading role. If the question degree decreases and the doubt factor increases, the questions will change from neutral questions to subjective non-neutral questions. In the second process, the rhetorical questions play a leading role. In a rhetorical question, the reference frame in the pragmatic appropriateness of the question part does not come into existence, therefore the pragmatic appropriateness of the question part in the interrogative syntagma greatly decreases, which provide possibility for the questions' functions to change from questioning to negation.On the basis of relativity between the question and negation, the variability between the negation with interrogative orientation and generalized negative sentence is investigated from the following aspects in Chapter VI, such as pragmatic value, the degree of dependence on the context, negative scope and the position of focus, the negative object and the function of syntax. The negative scope in the generalized negative sentence is quite convergent, while the negative position of interrogative pronoun is more flexible. According to the variability of the syntactic function, we illustrate that the function of the negation with interrogative orientation which is used as estimation, evaluation and expressing subjective emotion is mainly on the utterance-level and becomes subdued even disappeared when it comes into the syntactic level. It is useful for us to recognize the relativity between the question and negation if we know about this kind of variability.It is the second part of the dissertation from Chapterâ…¦to Chapterâ…¨. Through the research towards the constructional integration of the question and negation, we take an in-depth investigation about the relativity between the question and negation. This is another important reflection of relativity except the semantic relativity between the question and negation.The function of Chapterâ…¦is theoretically prepared for the Chapterâ…§and Chapterâ…¨in which we will explore the integration of question and negation. According to the definition of the constructional integration, the conditions of integration were reduced to four principles including the iconicity or criteria of relevance, the principle of emergent meaning, the principle of psychological mechanism and the principle of economy. Surrounding the four principles, we analyze the question and negation that possess the pragmatic motivation and mechanism of integration. Orientation of question and semantic uncertainty of negation provide the basis of integration for question and negation.In Chapterâ…§, the constructional integration of interrogative sentence in the form of negation named as negative question is analyzed. Comparing with the interrogative sentence in the form of affirmation, negative question possesses asymmetry when it is used. According to the important phenomenon that the rhetorical question is always used in the negative sentence, we treat the negative question as the constructional integration of question and negation. The emergent meaning of negative question is the illocutionary meaning which expressed by the rhetorical question including reminding, inducement, suggestion, emphasizing and so on. This kind of integration shows the salience of image of addresser's subjective psychology and conveys addresser's subjective evaluation towards the event.On the basis of the investigation which is the regulation of linear co-occurrence about the interrogative pronoun and negative word in the declarative sentence and the semantic change of interrogative pronoun in the negative sentence. It is considered that the structures of negative declarative sentences that contain interrogativepronouns such as (i)"......ye/dou bu/mei VP " and (ii)" bu/mei......shenme NP " areconstructional integration of question and negation in Chapterâ…¨. The interrogative pronoun in the structure (i) possesses explicit effect, indicating the arbitrary. According to the psychological mechanism of integration, the addresser actually negates the complex proposition which gives an example from the positive and negative aspects hypothetically and shows the salience of addresser's determined attitude towards the event. The interrogative pronoun in the structure (ii) is non-specific and still possesses a little semantic meaning about degree or quantity. Therefore, its function is alleviated and negative. It means the addresser ease to express something comparatively in order to keep the room for convolution.Chapterâ…©summarizes the whole dissertation.In brief, this dissertation adopts theory of semantic-functional grammar, and also draws some research methodologies from cognitive grammar and systematic-functional grammar, and follows some principles related to the combination of synchronic and descriptive, form and meaning, induction and deduction, static and dynamic state, description and explanation in order to do thorough researches on the relativity and constructional integration between the categories of negation and question of the contemporary Chinese. The dissertation also does the summary of regularity based on the extensive investigation of language materials and careful description, and tries to offer a better explanation from the perspectives of semantics, pragmatics and cognition.