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