| Abstract |
This paper intends to investigate a usage of sī “be” in Taiwanese, which occurs higher than speaker-oriented adverb(ial)s and need not adjoin to vP in a wh-question, contrary to its non-copular homonyms (Lee, 2005). I suggest that it can be analyzed based on the denotation of FOR-SURE really, which conveys the meaning: “it is for sure that we should add to Common Ground that p,” proposed in Romero and Han (2004). The analysis not only explains all the empirical disparity observed between this sī and other non-copular usages of sī but also reveals the existence of a pragmatic marker in Sinitic languages, which indicates a result of high degree of grammaticalization of sī, an item whose cognates have also evolved into a wide spectrum of functions / distribution in today’s Sinitic languages. |
