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Polarity particle responses as a window onto the interpretation of questions and assertions Abstract: This article provides an account of the distribution and interpretation of polarity particles in responses, starting with yes and no in English, and then extending the coverage to their crosslinguistic kin. Polarity particles are used in responses to both declarative and interrogative sentences, and thus provide a window onto the semantics and discourse effects of such sentences. We argue that understanding the distribution and interpretation of polarity particles requires a characterization of declaratives and interrogatives that captures a series of challenging similarities and differences across these two sentence types. To meet this challenge we combine and extend insights from inquisitive semantics, dynamic semantics, and commitment-based models of discourse. We then provide a full account of the English data that leads to a typology of polarity particles and a series of crosslinguistic predictions. These predictions are checked against data from Romanian, Hungarian, French, and German, languages that contrast with English in that they have ternary polarity particle systems, and contrast with one another in further subtle ways.* Keywords: polarity particles, questions, assertions, inquisitive semantics, dynamic semantics, commitment-based discourse models, crosslinguistic semantics Authors: Floris Roelofsen Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation University of Amsterdam Donka F. Farkas Stevenson College University of California Santa Cruz （本文刊于Language第91卷2015年第2期359-414页） 摘 要： 本文以英语中yes与no为例，分析了作为答语时极性小品词的分布及解读情况，进而将其扩展到英语的其他亲属语言中。极性小品词在对陈述句与疑问句回答的同时，也成为窥视这些句子语义解读及话语影响的一个窗口。我们认为，要理解极性小品词的分布及解读，首先需要对陈述句与疑问句这两种句式之间一系列的共性与差异进行描述，这一工作颇具挑战性。面对这一挑战，我们结合请求语义学（inquisitive semantics）、动态语义学、基于承诺的话语模型三者的研究，在此基础上对已有观点进一步雕琢拓展，对英语的语料作出了较为全面的解释，这些解释也为极性小品词的类型学研究提供了帮助，得到一系列的跨语言预测规律。同时，我们依据罗马尼亚语、匈牙利语、法语、德语中极性小品词的表现来对这些预测规律进行检验，这些语言的极性小品词系统与英语不同，呈现三分的局面，而这些语言的极性小品词系统内部仍旧存在细微差异。 关 键 词： 极性小品词 问句 断言 请求语义学 动态语义学 基于承诺的话语模型 跨语言语义学 作者简介： Floris Roelofsen 阿姆斯特丹大学逻辑、语言和计算学院 Donka F. Farkas 加利福尼亚大学圣克鲁兹校区 （编译：王婷婷） (责任编辑：admin) |