Semantico-pragmatic aspects of the metalinguistic uses of comparatives in Mandarin Chinese and English
Abstract
This dissertation examines a group of Metalinguistic Comparatives (MCs) in Mandarin Chinese, exploring what they suggest about the universality of comparatives. I show that Chinese MCs encode a more fine-grained scalarity of the subjective attitude conveyed, which varies in orientation, i.e., positive or negative, and strength, i.e., subtle or strong. By analyzing their uses in conversational settings, I claim that MCs are pragmatical devices for speakers to reject or rectify an utterance. In examining the shared Chinese ‘than’ marker in both Negative MCs (NegMCs) and Rhetorical Comparatives (RCs), I show that both subtypes are comparatives with a contrastive and negative sense, rather than a description of a degree-differential ordering relation. Furthermore, I propose a Logic Convertibility analysis for comparatives, showing a comparative is logically equivalent to the negation of the flipped inequality relation, i.e., (d1 d2) NOT (d2 d1), which builds the foundation for an implied negative inference to be retrieved. Finally, I suggest English comparatives are pragmatically ambiguous in that they descriptively encode a degree-differential inequality relation but can simultaneously produce a metalinguistic reading, i.e., to convey an evaluative attitude.