Study On The Non-in Ter Rogative Use Of Chinese WH-word Shenme

The non-interrogative use of interrogative pronoun plays an extreme important role in the field of modern Chinese syntactic research and one of the wh-words shenme has attracted more and more scholar's attention.Under the frame of Transformational Generative Grammar,this study mainly explores the syntactic condition and interpretation of the non-interrogative use of shenme from the aspect of syntax,semantics and pragmatics.The similarities and differences between renhe and shenme also have been analyzed.Chinese wh-words are polarity items.Shenme can either be the NPI or the FCI under certain licensing conditions.As NPI,shenme can only appear in typical polarity licensing conditions that are negative,yes-no question and conditionals.In these licensing conditions,the licensors are negative operator bu/bie,question marker ma and conditional operator ruguo/yaoshi respectively.Moreover,NPI shenme must be c-commanded by its licensor at S-structure.In addition to the syntactic constraints,it should obey semantic conditions in which the truth values of those propositions are negated,non-fixed or asserted uncertainty.And it can obtain existential reading and insignificance reading.When shenme is FCI,it appears in 'dou' strucure and 'wulun...dou' structure.If FCI shenme intends to acquire universal meaning,it must be equipped with the occurrence of dou,otherwise,the universal reading will be absent.In 'wulun....shenme dou' structure,wulun functions as an adverb to license shenme from semantic aspect.What's more,partial reading has been generated in certain pragmatic contexts.At the same time,the appearance of dou is not random but restricted to syntactic conditions such as preceding to verb,only one dou in per clause and plural NP.Besides,this study compares shenme with renhe to find out their similarities and differences since they can replace each other under many circumstances.Through the comparison,they both have the existential reading and universal reading.However,the syntactic position is quite different.As NPI,shenme-NP cannot appear in subject position,but renhe can in negation.Bare shenme can locate in subject or object.Besides,renhe can be followed by one-CL-noun to emphasize the individuality.Considering context,renhe is restricted to veridical context.But shenme under the licensing of dou can appear in veridical context and episodic positive context to obtain partial reading.To sum up,the non-interrogative use of shenme has intimate relation with semantics,syntax and pragmatics.Lacking any part of them will result in inaccurate conclusion.