Research On The Focus Performance Of Interrogative Pronouns In Modern Chinese

This master's thesis will explore the focus property of interrogative pronouns on the basic of previous research. Focus is a concept of pragmatic category, and it is part of the information that the speaker assumed not shared with others. According to prominent, contrastive features of focus,focus can be divided into natural focus and contrastive focus. Each sentence has at least one focus, if it contains more than one focus in the same sentence, they can be divided into "primary focus" and "secondary focus" according to the degree of emphasized. In longitudinal comparison of different sentences, when the focus component is emphasized by some specific syntactic, then the focus will be a "Strong focus". If it is not marked, it will be "weak-focus". In one simple sentence, it can have only one strong focus, and it often coincides with the main focus, we called this phenomenon as "Unique Strong Focus Principle". Interrogative sentences also comply with this principle, therefore interrogative questions often coincide with the center of focus phase. Especially in the interrogative sentences, interrogative pronouns naturally strip focus feature, and therefore the focus of the Special Question in question is interrogative pronouns. In the judge the focus of the Special Question, we usually look interrogative as a selection system, when the alternative set is closed, the focus of this sentence is contrastive focus, on the contrast it will be the natural focus. But we have to make the judgment according to the characteristics of vocabulary, syntax and function as well as a plurality of context, etc.In addition functions of "refer" and "expression of doubt" in questions, Interrogative pronouns also has a lot non-interrogative usages, we look this phenomenon as the loss and recession of the doubt function of interrogative pronouns. The reference usage of interrogative pronouns is a typical loss of doubt function. In this condition, they almost completely lose the function of "expression of doubt", and its referents are often blurred, so at this time they are no longer the focus of the sentence, and they just have the function of strengthening the tone of a sentence. When they are used in rhetorical sentence, the focus property of them has a great relationship with the asked degrees of these sentences. When the degree is high, the focus of the interrogative pronouns is strong; on the contrast, it will be weak.