Doubt Uncertain Polarity Sensitive Characteristics Of The Word Exploration

In this paper, we will study the polarity sensitivity (that is, distribution of context) of Chinese WH-words (such as indefinite pronoun "what" and "who", "which" and indefinite adverb "how", "how much", etc.), in purpose to seek the restrictions or factors which influence the distribution of WH-words. Polarity refers to the tendency of modal proposition to positive or negative contexts. Polarity sensitivity words are generally divided into negative polarity sensitive words(NPWs) and positive polarity sensitive words(PPWs). NPWs typically distribute in denial sentences, and the distribution of PPWs is typically in the affirmative sentence. WH-words are bipolar items, but different from non-polar terms, their distribution is restricted, which can only be found in negative contexts and some positive contexts. Polarity sensitivity is a property of natural language. There is a common feature of polarity-sensitive words, namely, responsiveness. Which means if the polarity sensitive words have an appropriate permission in the same structure, the former can be licensed by the latter. In this paper, the combination of semantic and context is advocated, we will focus on the virtual and free-choice meaning of WH-words, and analyze the permission reasons by various syntactic contexts. The virtual meaning of WH-words refers to the virtual object which is not to be determined, equivalent to "a" or "some". We conclude the context which meets the requirements of its virtual meaning as virtual context, including the negative sentences, conditionals, questions, inference intensional verbs or adverb speculation followed by the components, inference "le". Non-virtual context can not license the WH-words which have virtual meanings. The free-choice meaning of WH-words provides the right to listener that he can choose one or some samples from the sample space, equivalent to "no matter which one or some". We name the context which meets the free-choice meaning of WH-words as free-choice context. These contexts include negation, concessions adverbial clauses, conditionals, following by the" dou ", directive intensional verbs and other contexts. Non-free-choice contexts can not license the WH-words without free-choice meaning, such as affirmative episodic sentences. In this paper, the study of WH-words' distribution is based on the original meaning of WH-words, which can make up the deficiencies of traditional methods that all efforts were concentrating on the structure of sentences or the licensers with logic and semantic meanings. First, it explains why the same sentence (such as negative and conditional sentences, questions, etc.) can not only license virtual meaning, but also license the free-choice WH-words. Although the structures are same, the reasons of permission are different, which is overlooked by previous researchers. Second, it can summarize the common characteristics of the permission contexts, and explain all kinds of the permissional context with WH-words. Third, it can avoid excessive risks, and explain the counter-examples reflected in Jo-Wang Lin's (1998) theory. Fourth, it can solve the fundamental problems of polarity words with sensitivity, namely, why the polarity words can be licensed by some context. Fifth, from coordination between the semantic and contextual interpretation, the explanation is closer to the speech by language sense, and reach a better explanation of the function and semantics of WH-words in the contextThe first chapter introduces the bi-polarity sensitivity of Chinese WH-words.The second chapter reviews some theory about the WH-words from Chinese and foreign scholars in recent years.Chapter III, focuses on the core meanings of WH-words, virtual and free-choice meaning, and combine with syntax, pragmatic relations to interpret the bi-polarity sensitivity of Chinese WH-words. Generally speaking, when WH-word is used as a NPW, it has an existential meaning. And when it is used as a free-choice word, it gives an expression of universal quantification. They failed to explain the significance of the derivation process and ignored the WH-words can be derived diverse meanings in volatile-rich contexts. This chapter combines the semantics and context of WH-words under the relevance theory, analyzes derived meanings such as the existential meaning, universal quantification meaning, scalar meaning, extensional meaning and reduced domain meaning.Chapter IV, comparing bare WH-words and "renhe", we find that "renhe" only has free-choice meaning, and bare WH-words have both virtual meaning and free-choice meaning. Their difference can be reflected on the word "dou". Because of their semantic differences, the distributions of their contexts are also different.Chapter V, interprets some ambiguity phenomena of WH-words, and reflects the multi-meanings of WH-words.Chapter VI, re-analyzes the semantic map of indefinite words proposed by Haspelmath (1993/1997), and further improves the rationality of using the core semantic interpretation of WH-words to explain the polarity sensitivity.Chapter VII, draws the conclusions.