Abstract
This study aims at providing a systematic event-based model to describe the syntactic-semantic interface of dou sentences. There are at least two types of dou sentences. Consider the following:(1)a.Zhangsan xiezi dou yong maobi. Zhangsan write always with writing brush ‘Zhangsan always uses the writing brush to write.’ b.Zhe san-ge xuesheng dou lai-le. Det three-Cl students all come-Asp ‘The three students all came.’ c.Zuotian, Zhangsan dou zai jia. yesterday Zhangsan always at home ‘Yesterday, Zhangsan was at home.’ d.Zhe san ge xiongdi dou zhangde hen xiang This three CL brother all grow very alike “The three brothers all look much alike.”(2)a.(Lian) Zhangsan dou mai-le zhe-ben shu. Zhangsan buy-Asp this-CL book ‘Even Zhangsan bought this book.’ b.Tian dou hei le, baba hai mei huilai Sky dark-Asp, papa not come back ‘It’s already dark outside, papa hasn’t come back yet.’In the first group of sentence, dou is actually an event quantifier on account of its distinctive feature of accumulating events that share at least one common feature to yield a generalized or a habitual description to a proposition. The quantity of accumulated events is scaled plenty enough to form a comparatively large part when referring to the background set. In line with Davidson’s theory, events are considered as unrepeatable particulars which are the arguments that adverbials are taken to modify and Q-adverbs, such as dou, can quantify over.The second type of dou sentences is what we called the focus related sentences in this study. Generally speaking, focus related usages of dou always carry a strong connotation having to do with contextual presumptions or expectations and implications of events’ contravening those expectations. Dou in these sentences is mainly used to trigger implicatures about (1) the unexpected additive event marked by adverbials such as lien…dou construction and (2) a subjective judgment of expectation contravening when dou is used as an asserted value marker. Therefore, the notion of implicature plays an important role in determining the pragmatic force of dou in a sentence. As it is explained in the first part of this study, the semantic value of dou in the first type of dou sentences is to function as an accumulator which collects or accumulates events to form a statement. If we approach these usages from the pragmatic point of view, it can be found that emphasizing the existence of certain events is the primary force that can be perceived in the second type of dou sentences.