Is mandarin chinese a truth-based language? Rejecting responses to negative assertions and questions

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• dc.contributor.author Feifei, Lica
• dc.contributor.author González-Fuente, Santiagoca
• dc.contributor.author Prieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-ca
• dc.contributor.author Espinal i Farré, M. Teresaca
• dc.date.accessioned 2017-08-25T16:52:53Z
• dc.date.available 2017-08-25T16:52:53Z
• dc.date.issued 2016
• dc.description.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(you), 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 reject speech act that integrates lexical and syntactic strategies with prosodic and gestural strategies.
• dc.description.sponsorship We acknowledge support from the Spanish MINECO (FFI2014-52015-P, FFI2015-66533-P), and from the Generalitat de Catalunya to both the Prosodic Studies Group (2014SGR-925) and the Centre de Lingüística Teòrica (2014SGR-1013). The first author acknowledges a grant from the Chinese Scholarship Council, the second author a MEC-Spain FPU 2012-05893 grant, and the last author an ICREA Academia award.
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdfca
• dc.identifier.citation Feifei L, González-Fuente S, Prieto P, Espinal MT. Is mandarin chinese a truth-based language? Rejecting responses to negative assertions and questions. Front. Psychol. 2016; 7:1967. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01967
• dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01967
• dc.identifier.issn 1664-1078
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/32693
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher Frontiersca
• dc.relation.ispartof Front. Psychol. 2016; 7:1967. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01967
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/1PE/FFI2015-665
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/1PE/FFI2014-52015-P
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/3PN/FPU 2012-05893
• dc.rights ©2016 Li, González-Fuente, Prieto and Espinal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• dc.subject.keyword Truth-based language
• dc.subject.keyword REJECT
• dc.subject.keyword Disagreement
• dc.subject.keyword Negative propositions
• dc.subject.keyword Mandarin Chinese
• dc.title Is mandarin chinese a truth-based language? Rejecting responses to negative assertions and questionsca
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion