Indefinite Wh In Mandarin Chinese

The phenomenon of indefinite Wh in Mandarin Chinese has been explained by scholars from different linguistic schools. Those scholars analysed indefinite Wh in different angles, some focused on corpus, others concentrated on syntactic analysis. Up to now, there is no article which combines corpus and analysis well. However, this imperfection provides us a new territory to explore.In the practical field, such as teaching of Chinese as a foreign language, the study of indefinite Wh shares the same value. Due to the fact that study of indefinite Wh stayed at a relatively static level, i.e. full of description while lack of induction or further explaination, the teaching effect of indefinite Wh is not so encouraging. We assume if there have detailed explainations, foreign students will learn it much easier. Conspicuously, this goal could only be achieved if we explore indefinite Wh more deeply.Therefore, considering the theoritical as well as practical importance of this study, I took it as my research thesis. In this paper, I discussed the characteristics of indifinite Wh in three aspects: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic. I try to find out some regularities from the discussion. In addition, I briefly outlined the exceptional examples of indefinite Wh and its fossilized usages.