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.