| Rhetorical question is one of the most important sentence types in Chinese. Though it takes the form of interrogative sentence, the aim of a rhetorical question is not asking for information but expressing the speaker's negative attitude. This semantic change makes the interrogatives change as well. In rhetorical questions, interrogatives are not the sentence focuses any more whose meanings and functions also show some degree of grammaticalization.This paper chooses "Zenme" rhetorical question, one kind of highly-used rhetorical question in Chinese, as its study subject, and according to meaning mainly and form as well, divides it into 8 types. Based on the results of transforming and exchanging with other forms, the different degree of grammaticalization between these eight types are investigated, and then the causes behind these phenomena are explained by considering structure, meaning and function. This paper also studies the distinction between "Zenme 1", which questions the way to reach the action, and "Zenme2", which questions the reason to perform the verb. And it is pointed out that the source of this distinction is their semantic differences.The last part of this paper provides some advices on rhetorical questions teaching, and tries to exploit the existing problems in learning study.
|
PDF Full Text Request