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Can I read The insignificance reading of Shenme revisited on EtoBox?
The insignificance reading of Shenme revisited by Zhuo Chen is a Arts and Humanities article available to read on EtoBox.
What is The insignificance reading of Shenme revisited about?
The insignificance reading of the wh-phrase shenme 'what' does not fit into the general analysis of Chinese wh-indefinites as polarity sensitive items and has been elusive to Chinese linguists. In this paper, we identify the degree reading of shenme as the source of its insignificance reading. Specifically, it is shown that the so-called insignificance reading is part of a more general phenomenon of negative strengthening that is not peculiar to shenme, but instead is common to all gradable degree expressions. Diachronic evidence in Chinese is given to support the existence of a degree-reading shenme, apart from the familiar entity-reading shenme. The proposed analysis is extendable to the manner-denoting zenme(yang) 'how' in Chinese and makes correct predictions on the availability of an insignificance reading for zenme(yang).
Who reads The insignificance reading of Shenme revisited?
It is typically read by researchers, students, and practitioners in Arts and Humanities.
- Author
- Zhuo Chen
- Publisher
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC
- Published
- 2021
- Language
- EN
- Field
- Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)