Represent an issue as open: Mandarin discourse particle ba

Authors

  • Yu'an Yang University of Maryland, College Park

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v30i0.4832

Abstract

The Mandarin sentence final particle ba has been described as expressing uncertainty or soliciting agreement in declaratives ("weakening" an assertion, Han 1995, Li 2006 a.o.). However, ba-interrogatives appear to be "strengthening" a question to a demand: "you must answer this question," similar to the cornering effects associated with or not questions (Biezma 2009 a.o.). To account for this "weak" and "strong" contrast, some have postulated a lexical ambiguity: ba1 in declaratives and ba2 in interrogatives (Chao 1968, Zhu 1999). In this paper, I discuss new data showing that ba-declaratives are not always less forceful and ba-interrogatives are not always more forceful than their unmarked counterparts, which challenges current theories. I propose that, uniformly, the use of ba represents an issue as open. The "weak" and "strong" effects are results of ba interacting with the discourse context.

Author Biography

  • Yu'an Yang, University of Maryland, College Park

    PhD candidate

    Department of Linguistics

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Published

2021-03-02

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Section

Articles