Is Mandarin Chinese a Truth-Based Language? Rejecting Responses to Negative Assertions and Questions
Li, Feifei (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Catalana)
González-Fuente, Santiago (Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Prosodic Studies Group)
Prieto, Pilar (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats)
Espinal, M. Teresa (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Catalana)

Date:	2016
Abstract:	This paper addresses the central question of whether Mandarin Chinese (MC) is a canonical truth-based language, a language that is expected to express the speaker's disagreement to a negative proposition by means of a negative particle followed by a positive sentence. Eight native speakers of MC participated in an oral Discourse Completion Task that elicited rejecting responses to negative assertions/questions and broad focus statements (control condition). Results show that MC speakers convey reject by relying on a combination of lexico-syntactic strategies (e. g. , negative particles such as bù, méi(yǒu), and positive sentences) together with prosodic (e. g. , mean pitch) and gestural strategies (mainly, the use of head nods). Importantly, the use of a negative particle, which was the expected outcome in truth-based languages, only appeared in 52% of the rejecting answers. This system puts into question the macroparametric division between truth-based and polarity-based languages and calls for a more general view of the instantiation of a speech act that integrates lexical and syntactic strategies with prosodic and gestural strategies.
Grants:	Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación FFI2014-52015-P Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación FFI2015-66533-P Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014-SGR-1013 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014-SGR-925
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Truth-based language ; REJECT ; Disagreement ; Negative propositions ; Mandarin Chinese
Published in:	Frontiers in psychology, Vol. 7 (december 2016) , ISSN 1664-1078

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01967
PMID: 28066292

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