Typological Stage of Counterfactuals in Mandarin

Typological Stage of Counterfactuals in Chinese Qian Yong Ph.D . Candidate Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics City University of Hong Kong Sissy6025@gmail.com Abstract Wu(1994) listed ten words as CFs’ markers in Chinese, they are 早 (early) ， 了 (perfect/perfective marker), 要不是/要不然 (had it not been the case), 没(didn’t), 就好了 (would have been great if only)，还以为(had thought), 原来应该(should have been), ...的 话 (in the case), 真 的 (really). However, according to our definitions, none of them are dedicated CFs markers but only CFE 1 markers except 要不是. Several observations can be summarized from these markers: (1)although they can be applied to deliver a a counterfactual reading, they can never ensure counterfactual reading; (2) the counterfactuality delivered by them can be easily cancelled by inserting another sentence following behind; (3)counterfactuality can be expressed in absense of these CFE markers. 1 Introduction about Counterfactual Research in Chinese The issue of different treatments of counterfactuality in Chinese and other world languages was first proposed by Bloom(1981) who made an assumption that the lack of counterfactual expressions in Chinese is a significant cognitive consequence. To support his hypothesis, he made several experiments including asking contrary-to-fact questions in HongKong and Taiwan. Comrie(1986) holds the similar opinion by arguing that Chinese is among the languages which make no distinction in terms of hypotheticality, for instance, in Chinese, where ‘Zhangsan he-le jiu, wojiu mata’ can vary in interpretation from ‘If Zhangsan has drunk wine, I will scold him’, to ‘If Zhangsan drank wine, I would scold him’, and then to ‘If Zhangsan had drunk wine, I would have scolded him.’ Wizerzbicka(1997) is skeptical about the accuracy of the lacking of counterfactual markings in Chinese, by illustrating: 1 CFE markers (Counterfactuality Enhancing Markers) characterize the grammatical elements whose appearence increases but not ensure the chances of expressing counterfactuality. (1) a. Jiaru nashihou (in the past) x mei fasheng dehua, ye jiu meiyou y le. If X hadnot happened at that time, there would not be Y. (Non-factual optional) b. Jiaru jianglai(in future) x bu fasheng de hua Jiu buhui you y. If X does not happen, there won’t be Y. (Non-factual impossible) The difference between the above two sentences involves the time adverbials (nashihou implies past reference and jianglai refers to the future). In addition, the modal form buhui implies a real possibility.Tien(1994) gives a similar discussion about the clearly distinguished CF conditional in Taiwanese Min by considering the following examples: (2) a. yi lae shizwun(past) wa na wu ji, wa ae twa yi I will/would marry she/her. (Non-factual optional) b. yihou / jionglai wa na wu ji, later / future I if have money I will marry her. (Non-factual impossible) I agree that neither Chinese nor Taiwanese constituent an exception to the broad generalization that languages have “at least two-way distinction in terms of degrees of hypotheticality”, but the complexity of counterfactual marking in Chinese has been underrated. For one thing, neither past tense nor the modal verb is sufficient to differentiate CFs from non-CFs in Chinese. …

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