A Study of the Focus Expression Function of the Modal Adverb “yòu” in Modern Chinese
Authors
Shuang Dai, Chunhong Qi
Corresponding Author
Chunhong Qi
Available Online December 2018.
- DOI
- 10.2991/meici-18.2018.164How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- yòu; Focus; Accent; High Line; Low Line; Voice Length
- Abstract
The main point of view in the academia is that “yòu” is generally lightly read when expressing refutation and negative tone adverbs with a focus. This paper uses experimental phonetics to test 10 subjects “wǒ yòu méi huā nǐ de qián, guǎn nà me duō!”, “nǐ zěn me yòu lái le ?” The pitch frequency percentage values of each of the two sentences were analyzed, pointing out that “yòu” tends to be the focus in negation, rebuttal tone or rhetorical tone. When “yòu” is the focus, its pragmatic function is to serve as the narrow focus of the whole sentence to accentuate the pragmatic function of negative presupposition and counter-question. The paper also proves that with the semantic blur of “yòu”, its tendency to focus is smaller.
- Copyright
- © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Shuang Dai AU - Chunhong Qi PY - 2018/12 DA - 2018/12 TI - A Study of the Focus Expression Function of the Modal Adverb “yòu” in Modern Chinese BT - Proceedings of the 2018 8th International Conference on Management, Education and Information (MEICI 2018) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 823 EP - 829 SN - 1951-6851 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/meici-18.2018.164 DO - 10.2991/meici-18.2018.164 ID - Dai2018/12 ER -