고려대학교 행정학과

김지영 (고려대학교 언어정보연구소). 2007. Mandarin Questions in Focus. Language Information. Volume 8. 33-50.

  This paper analyzes Mandarin shi-questions, a construction where interrogative and focus constructions co-exist. The proposed account combines Rooth (1985), widely viewed as the standard proposal for focus, with Hamblin’s (1973) influential proposal for interrogatives. Although developed independently of each other, both Hamblin (1973) and Rooth (1985) make crucial use of alternatives, i.e., variants of what an expression explicitly says. As the intersection of these two phenomena, Mandarin shi-questions call for an integration of Hamblin (1973) and Rooth (1985). Following the same strategy that Hamblin employed in adapting his insight to Montague Grammar, I develop a semantic system capable of handling hybrid constructions like shi-questions. Not only is such a fusion desirable and possible, but it has the added advantage of explaining the restriction on the placement of wh-expressions in shi-questions. The reason wh-expressions in shi-questions must occur in the focused position, according to the proposal developed here, is because of their lexical property: unlike run-of-the-mill nouns or noun phrases, wh-expressions are banned from expressions whose truth is taken for granted.

Keywords: Focus, questions, alternative semantics, interrogatives.