Zhiguo Xie, "When Modality Meets Comparison: The Distribution and Meaning of Epistemic Yào in Mandarin"

"When modality meets comparison: The distribution and meaning of epistemic yào in Mandarin."
Zhiguo Xie is Assistant Professor of Chinese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the Ohio State University. His research primarily focuses on Chinese syntax, semantics, and syntax-semantics interface.

"When modality meets comparison: The distribution and meaning of epistemic yào in Mandarin"

Professor Zhiguo Xie
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
The Ohio State University

Flyer: to be available later

Abstract:
The epistemic use of yào in Mandarin has typologically rare and interesting properties. First, its occurrence is restricted to certain explicit strict comparative constructions. Second, it cannot interact with negation. Third, it has a weak necessity quantificational force. I argue that epistemic yào is a modifier for strict comparative morphemes, a function that sets it apart from many other modal elements. The weak necessity quantificational force of the modal is encoded in its semantics, by making recourse to the notion of alternative modal base. The inability of epistemic yào to form scopal relation with negation arises from two factors: (i) its status as a strict comparative morpheme modifier, and (ii) competition between lexical items with (almost) identical semantics. Through studying epistemic yào, I bring to the forefront some hitherto unnoticed modal properties in natural language, and reveal new intra- and inter-linguistic variations in the distribution and meaning of modals.

Bio:
Zhiguo Xie is Assistant Professor of Chinese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the Ohio State University. His research primarily focuses on Chinese syntax, semantics, and syntax-semantics interface. He has worked on such topics as questions, modals, and degree expressions. His articles havee appeared in The Linguistic Review, Journal of East Asian Linguistics, Language and Linguistics, and other publications.