Yi wen zhuang yu “zen me” de jie du ji pu tong hua er tong dui qi de huo de

M.Phil.The Mandarin wh-adverbial zenme is ambiguous in that it can signal either a causal/reason question or a manner question. Previous studies on the distribution of the two readings of zenme have shown that the phrase is typically understood as questioning cause when appearing before modals and quantificational adverbs, and as questioning manner when following these elements. In a cartographic analysis (Tsai 1999, 2008), it is argued that causal zenme is a sentential adverb occupying a high position in the sentence periphery and manner zenme a VP adverb located in a VP adjunct position; causal zenme is an operator that undergoes LF movement, and manner zenme only functions as a variable. The cartographic account is insightful in pointing to a difference in scope between causal zenme and manner zenme. However, some of the arguments in support of the analysis need reconsideration, and other important scopal properties of zenme have been neglected, e.g. the interaction between zenme and adverbials that contain quantifiers, as well as final particles.In the first part of the thesis, we examine how zenme is interpreted with respect to various types of preverbal adverbials and quantificational expressions, as well as post-verbal elements such as aspect markers and the post-verbal modal. We argue that the distribution of zenme can be predicted if three assumptions are made: (a) causal zenme takes sentential scope, while manner zenme takes VP scope; (b) casual zenme cannot function as a variable; (c) a scope isomorphic principle that requires the scope order between logical expressions to be determined by their surface c-command relation.In the second part of the thesis, we explore the complex distributional pattern of zenme from the perspective of language acquisition. Longitudinal observations of children’s production of zenme suggest that children understand and produce both manner zenme and causal zenme by the age of three (Tang and Li 1991, Guo 2016), but experimental studies on how Mandarinspeaking children interpret zenme show that three-year-old children may misinterpret the premodal zenme as denoting manner (e.g. Li and Zhou 2018). Following this line of research, we conducted a cross-sectional experiment to investigate how four- to six-year-old Mandarinspeaking children interpret zenme, using a range of structures and syntactic positions that would induce either the causal or the manner reading, in the absence of a modal. Our results reveal three clear patterns. First, while adults assigned the causal reading to questions with zenme in a pre-subject position and zenme questions with sentence-final le, children generally preferred the manner reading of zenme. Secondly, both adults and children tended to assign a manner interpretation to zenme when it occurs in a construction marked by final de. Thirdly, neither children nor adults understood zenme as primarily causal in sentences marked by verbal -le, contrary to our prediction. These results are analyzed with reference to the treatment of final de as a nominal marker, the role of surprise/denial in the use of causal zenme, the aspectual meaning of sentence-final le, and the proposal that verbal -le is a resultative predicate.普通話的疑問狀語“怎麼”有兩種意思：它既可以用來問原因，也可以問方式。前人的研究顯示，“怎麼”問原因時通常出現在情態詞和量化副詞前面，問方式時則出現在這些成分的後面。基於這個觀察，Tsai (1999, 2008)提出一種製圖分析，認為問原因的“怎麼”位於句子高層的左邊緣位置，而問方式的“怎麼”位於動詞短語的附加語位置。這兩種不同類型的“怎麼”的語義類別也有所不同：問原因的“怎麼”是一個算子，需要進行邏輯形式上的移位；問方式的“怎麼”則相當于一個變元。製圖分析正確地指出了問原因的“怎麼”和問方式的“怎麼”在轄域上的不同，但用來支持這一分析的一些論據還需要重新評估；另外“怎麼”還有一些重要的轄域性質被忽略了，比如“怎麼”和含量化詞的狀語以及句末助詞的互動關係。本文的第一部份探討“怎麼”和各種動詞前狀語、量化成分，以及動詞後的體貌、情態成分的互動關係。本文認為，“怎麼”的分佈情況可以由三個假設來決定：（a）問原因的“怎麼”的轄域是整個句子，而問方式的“怎麼”的轄域是動詞短語；（b）問原因的“怎麼”不能用作變元；（c）轄域同構原則，即邏輯詞在表層結構的成分統領（c-command）關係決定了他們在邏輯形式的轄域關係。本文的第二部分研究“怎麼”的兒童語言獲得。兒童使用“怎麼”問句的歷時觀察表明，3 歲的兒童已經理解並能使用表示方式的“怎麼”和表示原因的“怎麼”（唐志東、李宇明 1991；郭秀麗 2016），但前人的實驗研究顯示，3 歲的普通話兒童會錯誤地將情態詞前面的“怎麼”理解為問方式 （Li and Zhou 2018）。沿著這個思路，我們採用控制實驗的方法測試了兒童對沒有情態詞的各種句法結構和位置中的“怎麼”作何解讀。實驗結果顯示，兒童傾向于將句子主語前面的“怎麼”，以及和句末“了”共現的“怎麼”理解為問方式，而成人卻理解為問原因；成人和兒童都將位於句末“的”字結構中的“怎麼”理解為方式；成人和兒童都不傾向把與表完成體的“了”共現的“怎麼”理解為問原因，這和文獻中的觀察不同。我們結合“的”字作為名詞化標記的特性，表原因的“怎麼”所帶的驚異/否定語氣，句末“了”的體貌意義以及動詞後綴“了”作為結果補語的分析，對實驗結果作出解釋。Kuang, Hang."October 2019."Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2020.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-169).Abstracts also in Chinese; appendixes include Chinese.Title from PDF title page (viewed on 20 May, 2021).Kuang, Hang