A Syntactic Approach To A-not-A Questions And Its Correlates In Tujia Language

A-not-A question is a special type of question in Tujia language.And there are some differences between A-not-A questions which contain modal verbs in Tujia language and A-not-A questions which contain modal verbs in mandarin.In Tujia language,its form is‘V+V+Neg+V_Modal,',but in mandarin is‘V_modal+Neg+V_modal+V'.Thus,in Tujia language,the usual verb is reduplicated and in mandarin,the modal verb is reduplicated.Besides,many scholars study A-not-A questions,like Huang?1991?proposes a modular approach to A-not-A questions and Ann Law?2013?elaborates A-not-A questions on the feature checking theory.Researches on A-not-A questions are always the focus of linguistics.Hence,by researching A-not-A questions and its correlates,this thesis aims to classify A-not-A questions and its correlates and explain the derivation mechanism of A-not-A questions in Tujia language.This thesis mainly concentrates on two questions.First,we will have a classification of A-not-A questions and its correlates in Tujia language.Second,the derivation mechanism of A-not-A questions which contain modal verbs in Tujia language.In the remainder of this thesis,efforts are made on defining,describing,comparing and classifying of A-not-A questions,yes-no questions and alternative questions.To make a clear distinction of A-not-A questions with other questions,we also describe conjecture and rhetorical questions and the Q-particles in the end of these questions.For the second question,we manage to explain the derivation mechanism of A-not-A questions from the word order,the types of A-not-A questions and the grammatical functions of modal verbs in Tujia language.The major findings of this paper are:firstly,in Tujia language,A-not-A questions belong to alternative question.And the sentence final Q-particle‘sa²¹'is used in the end of the conjecture questions to express conjecture mood.‘xa⁵⁵'is used in the end of the rhetorical questions to express interrogative mood,the speaker looks forward to a confirmation from the responder.Secondly,we propose a new derivation mechanism of A-not-A questions which contain modal verbs in Tujia language.On account of the weak grammatical functions of modal verbs,the reduplication happens under the NegP.And after the reduplication process,there are two VP under NegP.The NP in the first VP moves to[Spec,NegP],and the NP in the second VP undergoes AE?anaphora process?.Therefore,it derives the special‘V+V+Neg+V_Modal'form in Tujia language.As a minority language,Tujia language has its unique sentence pattern and grammatical features.We hope by data collecting and syntactic analysis,we can have a better understanding of Tujia language.