PDF《The function of DE in Chinese RCs》

2 De as a realis state marker in RCs The function of De in RCs reminds us of its function in emphatic sentences like '

他是昨天去的北京'

('

It is yesterday that he went to Beijing'

). De'

s function in emphatic sentences has been fully discussed in literature ([7], [9], among others). We agree on one prevailing viewpoint that De in emphatic sentences is a tense- aspect particle (cf. [7]), and in this paper we hold that De in RCs can mark the realis state of a event and such a function can be unified with De'

s function in emphatic sentences. 2.1 The (ir)realis look of the event in RCs We give a definition of '

realis'

in terms of time feature of the event. What has taken place and what is in existence are all realis events. '

What has taken place'

indicates those past events (这是我泡的茶.) and '

what is existing'

those in-progressing events (教1班的是王老师.) and changeable or unchangeable states and properties (穿橙色球衣的是荷兰队: changeable state;

我们系有三位姓王的老师: unchangeable property). Such a definition of the '

realis state'

covers all possible looks of the events expressed by bare VPs in RCs. This means that what expressed in RCs cannot be those which have not taken place or do not exist. Such a character of the event in RCs contrasts with that of the event expressed by bare VP in main clauses. In main clauses bare VPs can denote future events in question-answer contexts (A: 暑假你去哪儿? B: 我 去北京 .)or general/habitual situations in contrasting contexts (小王喝咖啡, 不喝茶.). The time features of the events in RCs are different, yet they have something in common. That is, they are all non-future events and are not events that exist in possible world. 2.2 The semantic translation of De in RCs1 Given that De marks realis state of the event in RCs, De can be treated as an event variable binder. After De'

s binding, the event variable gets its value and becomes a realis event. The semantic translation of De in (9a), for example, can thus be described as (9b). (9) a. 他们 偷的是一把雨伞. They steal DE is one ba-CL umbrella '

What he stole is an umbrella.'

b. De ({ e | they steal one umbrella in e }) (e'

) , where e and e'

are event variables. (9b) means: e'

such that they steal an umbrella in e'

and e'

exist. The realis state marker De operates on a set of events and singles out some subset of the events in which the event happened and the umbrella was stolen. Kratzer [2] argues that individual-level and stage-level predicates differ in argument structure, insofar as that stage-level predicates have an extra Davidsonian argument for space- time location, and individual-level predicates lack such an argument. In this paper we use '

e'

variable in De'

s semantic representation whether the VP is a stage-level one or an individual-level one. That means both stage-level predicates and individual-level predicates can provide an event variable for De to bind, which is different from the viewpoint in Kratzer [2]. Although individual-level predicates lack typical time features like having taken place or progressing, they do have the realis state which contrasts with the irrealis state of future events or events in possible world. Hence, we think they can supply a '

e'

variable for De to bind and get the value of '

realis'

.

3 The semantic functions of adverb Dou, Zong, Hai and Zhi Dou, Zong, Hai and Zhi are all strong semantic operators that have special effects on the interpretation of the sentence. Of these four, Dou and Zong are usually treated as A- quantifiers [4] and Hai and Zhi focus operators (Xu [8] mentions Zhi as a focus operator. We think Hai is also a focus operator.). Dou'