Dynamic Semantics for Intensification and Epistemic Necessity: The Case of Yídìng and Shìbì in Mandarin Chinese
Jiun-Shiung Wu · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · 2015
Functioning as adverbials, yiding and shibi in Mandarin Chinese can either express intensification or (strong) epistemic necessity. In addition, context influences their semantics. Hence, dynamic semantics are proposed for them. An information state is a pair , where s is a proposition and A is an affirmative ordering. Yiding() performs update on an information state: A is updated with and s is specified to be a subset of or equal of , as long as is true in one of the absolutely affirmative worlds. Otherwise, uttering yiding() leads to an absurd state. This is how a strong epistemic necessity reading is derived. To yield an intensification reading, yiding() performs a test on the information state. Yiding() gives back the original information state as long as is true in all of the absolutely affirmative worlds. Otherwise, an absurd state is produced. As for shibi, its semantics is identical to that of yiding, except for that the s in an information state for shibi is underspecified and needs resolving before a proposition gets an appropriate interpretation. The information needed to resolve the underspecified s for shibi must be inferred from the context.