Mandarin exhaustive focus shì and the syntax of discourse congruence

Abstract

This paper describes three constraints that together govern the distribution of the exhaustive focus marker shì in Mandarin Chinese. First, I argue that shì is a sentential focus particle that is subject to a requirement to adjoin as low as possible within its clause or phase. Second, I show that shì requires a congruent Question Under Discussion (QUD). Third and finally, I show that there are certain reduced clauses where shì is completely disallowed, although other focus particles such as ‘only’ may appear. To explain this last restriction, I propose that reference to a QUD is mediated by a functional head in the clause periphery. Shì is thus unavailable in reduced clauses which do not project this high functional layer.

Language Contact in Singapore Mandarin Xiangxin ‘Believe’ in Local Newspapers

“…Language contact situations provide a fertile incubating ground for language change, whether in the intermingling of lexicons or in the evolution of both lexical and grammatical entities. Reflecting this reality, the local languages of the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society of Singapore have been studied both for their structural properties (Lu 2001(Lu , 2002(Lu , 2018Chew 2002;Erlewine 2018) and for the insights they provide into language change (Ho & Platt 1993;Bao 2015). Both threads of inquiry will be evident in this work, which is concerned with the use of the word xiangxin 'believe' in standard written Singapore Mandarin (henceforth, SgM), and how it contrasts with xiangxin 'believe' in the standard written Mandarin in Mainland China (henceforth, MlM).…”