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Speaking the unspeakable in Chinese

Speaking the unspeakable in Chinese. Haiyong Liu , The Humanities Center Wayne State University. Conterfactual (CF): Grammatical constructions that express or make reference to situations that are ‘contrary to fact’ ( Iatridou 2000) e.g. 1. I wish I was an astronaut.

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Speaking the unspeakable in Chinese

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  1. Speaking the unspeakable in Chinese Haiyong Liu , The Humanities Center Wayne State University

  2. Conterfactual (CF): Grammatical constructions that express or make reference to situations that are ‘contrary to fact’ (Iatridou 2000) e.g. 1. I wish I was an astronaut. 2. If I had been to the moon, I would have seen it.

  3. “fake past tense” in many Indo-European and other languages Farsi: ontic / factual 3. Man yekfazanavard-am. I a astronaut-be ‘I am an astronaut.’ counterfacutal/ subjunctive 4. Kaashki man yekfazanavard bud-am wishing I a astronaut Past-be ‘I wish I was an astronaut.’

  4. Japanese5.MosiJohngaimasoko-nii-ta ra, soodansi-ta daroo.If John now there at.be Past discuss Past maybe‘If John were there now, (I would) talk to him.’ The exclusion operator can also be realized as imperfect in French conditional clauses or as past subjunctive in German and Italian, generally by means of verbal inflection in Indo-European languages.

  5. Why Past tense? Creates another world reserved for counterfactual reasoning, an exclusion operator that excludes the utterance or actual world (Iatridou 2000)

  6. Exclusion operator can also be another place, spatial exclusion. Burmese 6. - 7. 6. Meichau khe re. snake scare Displacement Declarative ‘(I) scared a snake (somwhere else before I came here.) 7. Shei au khe yin, neikaun la ge lein-me. medicine drink if stay good come KheSubjuctive. ‘If he took the medicine, he would have gone better.’

  7. But not every language has tense. Chinese: 8. Woshilaoshi. I be teacher ‘I was a teacher.’ or ‘I am a teacher.’ 9. Woyiqian/xianzaishilaoshi. I before/now be teacher ‘I was a teacher before.’/‘I am a teacher now.’ Not verbal morphology, but adverbs more reliable for time reference (Vlach 1993)

  8. Ambiguous between factual and counterfactual 10. Woxiwangwoneng bang ni. I hope/wish I can help you ‘I hope I can help you.’ Or ‘I wish I could help you.’ 11. Yaoshimingtianxiayu, wojiubulai. if tomorrow rain I then not come ‘If it rains tomorrow, I won’t come.’ Or ‘If it would rain tomorrow, I would not come.’

  9. Bloom (1981): The lack of a linguistic means to mark counterfactualityin Chinese influences the cognitive behavior of speakers of Chinese: they are less likely to reason counterfactually. His test result evidences weak form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: language influences thought and linguistic differences entail corresponding cognitive difference.

  10. Design problems and other possible explanations: • Chinese students are not used to elaborating on paradoxical questions: if all circles were large and this small triangle ‘ ‘ were a circle, would it be large? • Chinese culture tends to be more practical: If the Hong Kong government were to pass a law requiring that all citizens born outside Hong Kong make weekly reports of their activities to the police, how would you react? • Chinese questions were (poor) translations of their English counterparts, e.g. leaving out all the modal verbs. • Uncontrolled subjects

  11. Au (1983) challenges Bloom’s translation test method and linguistic determinism; rewrites the text and concludes there is no convincing evidence that the lack of a distinct counterfactual marker in Chinese hinders counterfactuality reasoning.

  12. Yeh and Gentner (2005): English speakers do have some accuracy advantage when specific contextual information was required to detect CF, but not on other CFs.

  13. Wu (1989):Context: (context- vs. grammar- oriented)12. Ta meidianrou, haoxiangchisu. he not order meat as.if vegetarian‘He didn’t order meat, as if he was a vegetarian.’ / ‘It looks like he is a vegetarian.’Lexical items for CF:13. Woyiweini qu. I had.thought you go ‘I had thought you would go.’14.Yaobushinizhaowo, wojiuqu le.if.not.for you seek I I then go Perfective.‘If you hadn’t asked for me, I would have gone.’

  14. Syntactic tools? Conditionals (Bhatt & Pancheva 2006)Hypothetical:15. If you are late, I will get upset. (‘then’ allowed)Relevance:16.If you are thirsty, there is water. (no ‘then’ is used)Factual:17. If he is smart, why didn’t he find a job. (involves presupposition)

  15. Conditionals commonly used in CFs (Bhatt & Pancheva 2006) 18. Had I cooked, I wouldn’t have been here. (inversion only for CF conditionals *Do I cook… vs. If I cook, I will not…) 19. If not for Mary going to the store, I wouldn’t have salsa. (Henderson 2010) Slovenian (no past tense but special) 20. Da imam, bi ti posodil. that I.have would to.you lend ‘If I had it, I would lend it to you 21. Chinese Yaobushi (if not be: if not for)

  16. (ambiguous wrt world’s knowledge and context)22.Yaoshiwoshini /laoshi… if I be you / teacher ‘If I were the teacher/I am the teacher…’(ambiguous b/w future and CF)23.Yaoshimingtianxiayu… if tomorrow rain ‘if it would rain / rains tomorrow…’(CF not ambiguous: past reference in hypothetical conditional)24.Yaoshizuotianxianyu, wojiubuhui qu. if yesterday rain I then not will go‘if it had rained yesterday, I would not have gone.’(not CF not ambiguous: past reference in relevance conditional )25.Yaoshizuotianxiayu, qixiangtaihuijilu.if yesterday rain weather.station would record‘if it rained yesterday, the weather station will have a record.’

  17. Present CF depends on context and lexical items (no syntactical tools)Past CF = past reference + hypothetical conditional1. Hypothetical requires clear causal relationship?2. Past reference might be more reliable than past tense when it comes to detecting past CF? 3. Moderate Iatridou (2000)’s past tense as exclusion moderator to past time reference, to include tenseless languages?4. Past counterfactual more common than other counterfactuals?

  18. Past tense in conditional doesn’t guarantee CF 26. If he took the syrup, he will get better(future less vivid, not CF). 27. If he took the syrup, he would be taller. (present counter-factual)

  19. After past reference, specialized complementizer? • (Nevins 2002): exclusion operator can also be semantics of conditional complementizer • Yaobushi (if-not-be) (Ippolito & Su 2009): negation, as required by the exhaustivity of the antecedent, with the factive expression for the fact,is sufficient and necessary for CF in the consequent 28. Yaobushinizhaowo, wojiuqu le.if.not.foryou seek I I then go Perfective.‘If you hadn’t asked for me, I would have gone.’

  20. Yaobushi past, present, or future CF? 29. Yaobushini bang wo, wojiu (bu) huishibai. (past CF) if.not.for you help I I then (not) will fail ‘Without your help, I would (not) have failed.’ 30. Yaobushini, wozuotian/xianzai (*jiu) (bu) hui hen kaixin. if.not.foryou I yesterday/now (then)(not)will very happy ‘If not for you, I would (not)(have been) be very happy.’ (past/present CF, not a hypothetical conditional, stativepredicate? no need for past reference as exclusion operator) 31. Yaobushini bang wo, woxianzaijiuhuizailangfeishijian. if.not.for you help I I now then will be wasting time. ‘If not for your helping me, now I would be wasting time.) (present CF, a hypothetical conditional, dynamic predicate?)

  21. Cai: a negative focus adverb 32. Yaobushini , wocaibuhuishibai. (past CF) if.not.for you I not.untilnot will fail ‘If not for you, I would not have failed.’ 33. *Yaobushini bang wo, wocaihuishibai. if.not.for you help I Inot.untilwill fail (negation required) 34. Yaobushiqueqian, woxianzaicaibuhuixuexi ne. if.not.forno.money I now Cai not will study Progr. ‘If not for lacking money, I would not study now.’ (present CF)

  22. Cai: not until. 37. Wolai le. Womeilai (*le).Wosandiancailai (*le) I come Perf. I not come I 3.o’clock Caicome ‘I have come.’ ‘I didn’t come.’ ‘I didn’t come until 3.’ • But negative + negative, we should get an affirmative sentence.

  23. Why cai requires a negator? 35. *Yaobushini bang wo, wocai *(bu)huishibai. if.not.for you help I Inot.until *(not) will fail (negation required) 36. Yaobushini bang wo, wojiu(bu) huishibai. if.not.for you help I Ithen (not) will fail ‘If not for your helping me, I would have failed.

  24. The use of cai sounds emphatic: by no means • Cai has the exhaustive interpretation: not until the counterfactual condition; and as Ippolito& Su (2009) argues: exhausitivity must license a negatorin order to be interpreted as CF in the antecent.

  25. Conclusions: • Chinese has syntactic tools for counterfactual interpretation, in addtion to lexical and contextual tools • Hypotheical conditional + Past reference (exclusion operator) • Specialized complementizer: yaobushi • Yaobushi…cai + bu + modal, negatorlicensed by exhaustivity in caias the negator in ‘if not for’ in English and yaobushi: if not be’ in Chinese.

  26. Au, T. (1983) Chinese and English counterfactuals: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis revisited. Cognition 15: 155-181Bhatt, R. & RoumyanaPancheva (2006) Contionals. In The Blackwell Companion to Syntax (M. Gibson & T. Friedman, Eds) Vol. 1 638-687Bloom. A. (1981) The linguistic shaping of thought: a study in the impact of language on thinking in China and the West. Hillsdale, NY: Erlbaum Associates. Yeh. D. & D. Gentner (2005) Reasoning counterfactually in Chinese: picking up the pieces. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 2410-2415Iatridou, S. (2000) The grammatical ingredients of coutnerfactuality. Linguistics Inquiry, Vol. 31:2: 231-270Vlach, F. (1993) Temporal adverbials, tenses and perfect. Linguistics and Philosophy, 16(3): 231-283)Wu, Z. (1989) Exploring counterfactuals in English and Chinese. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts

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