Employing the downward entailing hypothesis as its analytical foundation, this book argues that downward entailment is the only licensor for different kinds of Chinese polarity items, and non-veridicality is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition and thus offers inferior explanatory power compared with the former.

Li Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her research interests lie in syntax, formal semantics and psycholinguistics.

Ackonwledgemetns

List of abbreviations

Chapter 1 Polarity Theories and Polarity Phenomena

Chapter 2 Non-veridicality Approach and the Challenge from Dou Sentences

Chapter 3 Tripartite Structure and Dou

Chapter 4 Downward Entailment Approach

Chapter 5 Dou as a Necessity Operator

Chapter 6 The Non-uniformity of Chinese Polarity Items

Chapter 7 Conclusions

References

Index