Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: This paper offers a compositional take on two internally complex conditional connectives in Mandarin, zhi-yao ‘only-need’ and zhi-you ‘only-have’. While the former conveys the antecedent proposition’s minimal sufficiency , the latter conveys its necessity for the consequent proposition to come true. Both connectives will be treated as pairing an exclusive particle, zhi , with a modal, an assumption that is less controversial for the necessity modal yao than for you , which will be treated as a possibility modal. Accepting this treatment, however, we have two connectives that openly differ in modal force. While the surface order will be preserved for zhi-you , an inversion will be shown to lead to better results for zhi-yao . In both cases, a possible extension to monoclausal uses is considered.
Author: Alexander Wimmer
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,780
OpenAlex ID: W4297023056