| Polarity Sensitivity is a linguistic phenomenon that some expressions tend to occuronly in negative context or only in positive context. These expressions are labeled PolarityItems (PIs), which can be divided into Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) and Positive PolarityItems (PPIs) according to the preference they show for different polarity distribution. SincePolarity Sensitivity was first introduced by Klima (1964)50years ago, it has beensystematically studied from syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and cognitive perspectives, andsome mature theories concerned have been formulated based on western languages. Bycontrast, studies on Polarity Sensitivity in Mandarin Chinese are relatively rare. Mainlybased on Chinese data, in comparison with English, this dissertation makes an intensiveresearch of Polarity Sensitivity from semantic approach.First, based on former researches, the licensing contexts of PIs are divided intoveridical context and nonveridical context. The two contexts contradict each other. As fornonveridical context, it can be further distinguished as downward-entailing context,anti-additive context and antimorphic context. These contexts form the proper subsetrelation: nonveridical context downward-entailing context anti-additive context antimorphic (or anti-veridical) context. According to the distribution of PIs, NPI is definedas an expression that is anti-licensed by veridical operators; while PPI is defined as anexpression that is anti-licensed by antimorphic (or anti-veridical) operators, and both NPIsand PPIs can be further classified into four types: superweak, weak, strong and superstrong.Superweak NPI is licensed by nonveridical context, but anti-licensed by veridical context;weak NPI is licensed by downward-entailing context, but anti-licensed by nonveridical andveridical context; strong NPI is licensed by anti-additive context, but anti-licensed bydownward-entailing, nonveridical and veridical context; superstrong NPI is licensed byantimorphic (or anti-veridical) context, but anti-licensed by anti-additive,downward-entailing, nonveridical and veridical context. For a particular language, it maynot contain all the four types of NPI, but a cross-linguistic survey shows that all the fourtypes of NPI exist. Indefinite WH-phrases in Chinese are typical superweak NPIs which are licensed in nonveridical context;“any” in English is a typical weak NPI which is licensedin downward-entailing context; indefinite pronoun “renhe” in Chinese is a typical strongNPI which is licensed in anti-additive context; and Chinese minimizers and maximizers aretypical superstrong NPIs which are licensed in antimorphic (or anti-veridical) context.Since the dissertation mainly focuses on the NPIs, different types of PPI are left out withoutdiscussion.Second, the dissertation holds that the motivation of the phenomenon of PolaritySensitivity roots in licensees (PIs) rather than licensors (licensing contexts), that is, it is thelexical meaning of PIs that decides their distribution. There is a matching requirementbetween semantic property of each type of PI and its licensing context. Taking each type ofNPI for example, a superweak NPI WH-phrase is licensed by nonveridical context becauseof nondeterminacy of its referent; weak NPI “any” is licensed by downward-entailingcontext because of its pragmatic property “widening” and semantic property“strengthening”; strong NPI “renhe” is licensed by anti-additive context because thesememe “no matter” it contains has the meaning of “no exception”; superstrong NPIminimizers and maximizers are licensed by antimorphic (or anti-veridical) context becauseof the semantic property “nonexistence” they have.Lastly, the research reveals that a NPI in one language hardly finds its equivalent NPIin another language that has the same concept. Through inter-translation of NPIs betweenChinese and English，including that between Chinese WH-phrase “shenme”,“renhe” andEnglish “any”, that between Chinese and English NPI adverbs, and that between Chineseand English NPI idioms, we find that there is no one-to-one correspondence between NPIsin the two languages. They diverge in many respects such as connotation, form anddistribution. A certain type of NPI in one language may be another type of NPI in the otherlanguage, or may not be a NPI at all in that language. In other words, the degree ofcorrespondence between NPIs in the two languages varies from one type to another, forexample, Chinese WH-phrase “shenme”,“renhe” and English “any” are similar to someextent in distribution, while Chinese and English NPI idioms are quite different indistribution. |
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