Home Request for confirmation sequences in Mandarin Chinese
Article Open Access

Request for confirmation sequences in Mandarin Chinese

  • Xiaoting Li EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 8, 2024
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

As a social action, requesting confirmation involves presenting a proposition to be (dis)confirmed and seeking another’s (dis)confirmation of the proposition. This article provides an overview of the lexico-syntactic and prosodic resources used by participants to perform requests for confirmation (RfCs) and to respond to RfCs in Mandarin face-to-face interactions. Drawing on statistical results of the frequencies of a variety of linguistic resources in RfC sequences, this study shows that declaratives are the most frequently used syntactic forms for RfCs in the Mandarin data. Tags, such as shiba ‘right?’, are also frequently used by the speaker to seek (dis)confirmation from the recipient. The RfCs in the data also exhibit one prominent prosodic pattern. That is, a larger number of RfC turns in Mandarin end with falling pitch movement with very moderate slope from mid (M) to low (L). This prosodic pattern stems from the interplay between tones and intonation in Mandarin. In the responses to RfCs, a majority of them are confirmations. Also, response tokens, such as dui ‘right’ and en ‘en’ with falling intonation, are used highly frequently in responses to RfCs in the Mandarin data. Findings in this study afford cross-linguistic research on RfC sequences.

1 Introduction

Requesting confirmation is a social action that people carry out in interactions. A request for confirmation (RfC) presents a proposition to be (dis)confirmed – the confirmable (König and Pfeiffer forthcoming). In this article, I provide an overview of the lexico-syntactic and prosodic resources used by participants to accomplish and to respond to requests for confirmation (RfCs) in Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Mandarin) interaction. Extract 1 illustrates a typical RfC sequence in my Mandarin data.

Extract 1: BJ_R10_ZO01_1742

01 - > Xia: 走的 时候 [大韩 吗.
zoude shihou shi [dahan shi ma.
leave time COP [Korean COP. Q
The airline (you) flew with when leaving was Korean Air, right?
02 -> Lan: [对 走的 时候 大韩;
[dui zoude shihou shi dahan;
[right leave time COP Korean
Right. The airline (I) flew with when leaving was Korean Air.

Fei produces a declarative zoude shihou shi dahan ‘The airline (you) flew with when leaving was Korean Air’ and a tag shi ma ‘right?’ (line 1), forming a tag question in Mandarin, to seek Bai’s confirmation of the statement. The proposition to be (dis)confirmed, that is the confirmable, is zoude shihou shi dahan ‘The airline … flew with when leaving was Korean Air’. Bai uses a response token dui ‘right’ and a full repeat zoude shihou shi dahan ‘The airline … flew with when leaving was Korean Air’ (line 2) to confirm it. I return to a fuller version of this extract with a focus on the response to RfC in Section 5.6.

This article examines the lexico-syntactic and prosodic designs of RfCs and their responses in Mandarin. Tags and particles (including both question particle and other utterance-final particles) are commonly used lexico-syntactic resources used to perform RfCs in the Mandarin data (see details in Section 4). Particles (and particularly utterance-final particles) are a typological feature of Mandarin and highly relevant to the lexico-syntactic design of RfCs. Thus, it is necessary to clarify particles and tags as they are used in this study, before discussing how they are used to accomplish RfCs.

1.1 Mandarin particles

There are two types of Mandarin particles relevant to RfCs in this study: question particles such as ma (glossed as Q for Question), and utterance-final particles such as ba, ha (glossed as PRT for Particle). Although ne can also be used as a question particle when it is followed by an NP as a follow-up question (NP ne? ‘How about NP’?), ma is the only full-fledged question particle (Li and Thompson 1981, 547). The other type of particles in Mandarin is referred to as utterance-final particles or sentence-final particles such as ba, ha, a/ya, and ne. They are a set of particles that occur in sentence-final positions without any denotative or referential meanings (Wu 2004, 25, Li and Thompson 1981, 238). They are primarily used to “convey emotive and/or epistemic nuances on the part of a speaker” in interaction (Wu 2004, 25). Although the question particle ma also appears at the end of an utterance, it is distinct from (other) utterance-final particles in that ma is a grammatical particle (with the grammatical function of marking the interrogative sentence type), whereas utterance-final particles have pragmatic functions rather than grammatical functions. See Extract 2 for the usages of the question particle ma and the utterance-final particle ba.

Extract 2: BJ_R10_ZO01_0125

01 -> Xia: 一下 吗-
yao shi yixia ma-
will test a little Q
(Are we) going to test it?
02 -> Lan: 不 需 吧;
bu xuyao ba;
NEG need PRT
There is no need BA.

The utterance in line 1 yao shi yixia ma ‘(Are we) going to test it?’ is a polar interrogative marked by the question particle ma at the end of the utterance. Here, the function of the question particle ma is grammatical in that it marks the utterance as a polar interrogative sentence. In Lan’s response in line 2, another particle ba is used at the end of the utterance. Distinct from ma in line 1, ba in line 2 does not have any grammatical functions in that no grammatical meanings or categories are altered because of ba. Instead, the particle ba has the pragmatic or interactional function of softening the assertiveness of the statement bu xuyao ‘there is no need’ and thus soliciting the approval/agreement of the hearer. Thus, although both appearing at the end of an utterance, ma in line 1 is a question particle (a grammatical particle), whereas ba in line 2 is referred to as utterance-final particle (a pragmatic particle).

In Mandarin, a tag question consists of a statement and a tag. According to Li and Thompson (1981, 546), the primary function of tag question is to “seek confirmation of the statement that occurs before the tag.” Tags are a short lexico-syntactic form that change a statement they follow into a question, such as shi ma ‘COP/be + question particle ma’ or ‘X ma’ ‘right?’ in line 1 in Extract 1. Three lexico-syntactic forms are coded as tags in the data based on the pre-established categories in the project (cf. König et al. forthcoming): A-not-A question form, X ma question form, and utterance-final particles when used to seek confirmation. The three types of tags are illustrated in Extracts 3–5.

Extract 3: TY_R03_0300

01 -> Hong: 电 了 是 不 是.
mei dian.le shibushi.
NEG battery.CRS COP-NEG-COP
There’s no power left, right?
02 Bai: 好像 是吧;
haoxiang shiba;
seem COP.PRT
It seems so.

The tag in line 1 in Extract 3 is of the A-not-A form, specifically, the shibushi COPULA-not-COPULA or ‘be-not-be’ form, translated into idiomatic English as ‘right?’

Extract 4: BJ_R10_ZO01_1742

01 -> Xia: 走的 时候 [大韩 吗.
zoude shihou shi [dahan shi ma.
leave time COP [Korean COP.Q
The airline (you) flew with when leaving was Korean Air, right?
02 Lan: [对 走的 时候 大韩;
[dui zoude shihou shi dahan;
[right leave time COP Korean
Right. The airline (I) flew with when leaving was Korean Air.

Extract 1 is reproduced here as Extract 4. At the end of line 1 in Extract 4, shi ma COPULA + ma or ‘be + ma’ (translated as ‘right?’) exemplifies the X ma tag form.

Extract 5: BJ_R11_ ZO03_0640

01 -> Hei: 时候 洛杉矶 吧.
ni nei shihou zai luoshanji ba.
At that time, you were in Los Angeles BA./At that time, you were in Los Angeles, right?
02 Nan: 嗯::-
En.
03 洛杉矶 附近
luoshanji fujin.
‘Near Los Angeles.’

The ba at the end of the utterance in line 1 in Extract 5 is an utterance-final particle without inherent lexical meaning. It can be translated as ‘right?’ in line 1. It is the third form of tag used to seek confirmation in the Mandarin data.

To sum up, question particle ma and utterance-final particles are distinct types of particles, in that the former is the grammatical particle whereas the latter is the pragmatic particle. Utterance-final particles and other two lexico-syntactic forms – A-not-A and X ma – are three tag forms in the Mandarin data.

In the remainder of the article, I first provide an overview of the previous research on RfCs and RfC sequences in Mandarin (Section 2); then I describe the data used for this study (Section 3). The lexico-syntactic and prosodic resources used to perform RfCs and their responses are discussed in Sections 4 and 5, respectively. I summarize the findings in Section 6.

2 Literature review

To my knowledge, RfC sequences have not been the focus of studies in Chinese linguistics, because Chinese linguistic research is predominantly form oriented. As a function/action category, RfC has been described as a function of some better-researched grammatical structures in Mandarin such as tag questions, A-not-A questions, and declarative questions (Gao and Zhang 2009, Gao 2009, Xie 2018).

Requesting confirmation is commonly described as a function of tag questions in previous research studies (Zhang 1997, Shao 1990, Niu 2002, Gao and Zhang 2009, Gao 2009, Tsai 2019). For example, tags ending with the question particle ma such as shi ma and dui ma (both can be translated as ‘right?’) are predominantly used to request confirmation (Gao and Zhang 2009, Gao 2009, Shao 1990). A-not-A questions and particularly shibushi ‘be-not-be’ questions are another grammatical resource used to perform RfC in Mandarin (Shao 1990, Rong 2012, Shao and Zhu 2002). In addition, declarative questions are also documented to perform RfC in Mandarin. The term declarative question refers to declaratives with prosodic features that contextualize them as questions in Mandarin spoken discourse (Xie 2018, Wang 2021). According to Wang (2021), declarative questions are routinely used to accomplish RfCs in Mandarin conversation. Finally, utterance-final particles such as ba and ha (in Mandarin and other Chinese dialects) attached to a declarative can also be used to seek confirmation from the recipient (Lü 1942, Yin 1999, Gao and Zhang 2009, Gao 2009, Wang 2021).

In terms of responses to RfCs, three types of responses have been documented in Mandarin interaction. The first type is shi ‘yes’ and bu ‘no’, expressing confirmation and disconfirmation, respectively (Xiao 1994). The second type of response to RfCs involves a variety of response tokens other than shi ‘yes’ and bu ‘no’ that can display (dis)confirmation, such as dui ‘correct’, en displaying confirmation (a non-lexicalized response token with falling pitch movement), and a displaying confirmation (a non-lexicalized response token with falling pitch movement) (Xiao 1994, Xie 2018, 40). The third type of RfC response is repeats, including partial and full repeats (Xiao 1994, Zhu 2001, Xie 2018). Xie (2018, 43) describes that repeats and particularly partial repeats of the main verb in an RfC are a highly frequently used and canonical form of response to RfCs. Xie (2018) further argues that full repeats as responses to RfCs display the speaker’s higher epistemic stance toward a reference event than the recipient (Stivers 2005).

To sum up, the previous research has documented that RfCs and response to RfCs are the functions of a variety of linguistic structures. Building on the previous research on various linguistic forms, this study is the first systematic study of RfCs in their own right by focusing on RfC sequences themselves. Specifically, the present study examines the lexico-syntactic and prosodic resources used by the participants to accomplish RfCs and to build responses to RfCs in Mandarin interactions.

3 Description of data sets

The data used for this study are approximately 22 hours of video and audio recordings of everyday Mandarin face-to-face interactions. Mandarin is the standard variety of Modern Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese. The data are 22 interactions (each lasting about 1 h), including 18 triadic and 4 dyadic interactions and altogether 62 speakers. The activities conducted by participants in these interactions vary, such as chit-chats, cooking together, and chatting over board games. This study is part of a cross-linguistic comparative research project on RfCs across languages (Pfeiffer et al. forthcoming). Two hundred instances of RfC sequences were identified in the data. They were coded based on a number of pre-established categories across different languages in the project (cf. König et al. forthcoming). Some of these categories are discussed in Sections 4 and 5.

4 Designing RfCs in Mandarin

4.1 Syntactic design

Five general types of syntactic forms are used to perform RfCs in the Mandarin data. They are (1) declaratives, (2) tag questions, (3) negative rhetorical questions, (4) A-not-A questions, and (5) noun phrases (NPs). Their respective frequencies of occurrence are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Syntactic design of RfC turns in Mandarin

Syntactic form Frequency
Tag questions 114 (57%)
Declaratives 48 (24%)
Negative rhetorical questions 18 (9%)
A-not-A questions 11 (5.5%)
NPs 9 (4.5%)
Total 200 (100%)

Table 1 shows that tag questions and declaratives are the two most frequently used syntactic forms for RfCs, constituting altogether 81% (n = 162) of the total number of RfCs in the data. In contrast, NPs are the least frequently used syntactic forms for RfCs, which is only 4.5% (n = 9) of the total number of RfCs.

Tag question is the most frequently used syntactic form (57%, n = 114) for RfCs in the data. The use of tag questions to request confirmation is illustrated in Extract 4. In Excerpt 4, the tag is shi ma ‘right’ (line 1), glossed as a copula shi followed by ma? Xia’s turn in line 1 is in the form of tag question consisting of a statement zoude shihou shi da han ‘The airline (you) flew with when leaving was Korean Air’, followed by a tag shi ma ‘right?’. The tag question is designed and treated as requesting confirmation, as can be seen through Lan’s confirmation dui zouede shihou shi dahan ‘Right, the airline (I) flew with when leaving was Korean Air’ (line 2).

Declarative is the second most frequently used syntactic form (24%, n = 48) for RfCs in the data. Extract 6 exemplifies the use of declaratives to request confirmation.

Extract 6: TY_R03_ ZO01

01 -> Gon: 以前 认识.
ni lia san nian yiqian cai renshi.
‘You two didn’t know each other until three years ago.’
02 Zi: 嗯.
En.

In line 1 in Excerpt 6, Gon’s turn at talk is composed of a declarative with falling intonation. Zi’s response in line 2 en with falling pitch movement confirms Gon’s statement in line 1.

The third most frequently used syntactic form for RfCs in the data is negative rhetorical question (9%, n = 18). Although it is generally considered in Chinese linguistics that rhetorical questions have the same syntactic structures as other types of interrogatives (Wang 1943, Lü 1980, Li 1990), negative rhetorical questions used in the data exhibit distinct syntactic features that warrant its being characterized as a separate syntactic form for RfCs. Specifically, one particular type of negative rhetorical polar question is used to perform RfCs: bu(shi) X ma ‘not X?’, as in ‘ni bushi yao fenxi jiaocai ma ’ (Weren’t you going to analyze textbooks?). This format invites a confirming response. All 18 negative rhetorical questions for RfCs are of this structure. See Extract 7 for an example.

Extract 7: BJ_R08_ ZO07

01 -> Jin: 那次 不是 咱们 去过 吗.
neici bushi zanmen quguo ma.
Didn’t we go (there) last time?
02 Nan: 不是 还有 另外 家.
bushi nei jia haiyou lingwai yi jia.
It was not that restaurant. It was another one (that we went to).

The two least frequently used syntactic forms for RfCs are A-not-A question (5.5%, n = 11) and NPs (4.5%, n = 9). Among the wide variety of specific forms of A-not-A questions (A being a VP or Adjective Phrase), only one specific type of A-not-A question is used to perform RfCs: shibu(shi) + clause (shibu(shi) in this syntactic context roughly translated as ‘isn’t it the case’ followed by a statement in the subsequent clause).

Although the negative rhetorical question form bu(shi) X ma ‘not X?’ and the A-not-A question form shibu(shi) [1] + clause are both used as RfCs, they differ in the epistemic stance (Heritage 2012) that they convey. Specifically, the negative rhetorical question bu(shi) X ma ‘not X?’ displays the speaker’s higher epistemic status over the referent event than that displayed through the A-not-A question form shibu(shi) + clause. Consider Extracts 7 (for negative rhetorical question) and 8 (for A-not-A question).

Extract 8: BJ_R08_ ZO07

01 -> Xia: 是不 北美 礼拜 了.
shibu zai beimei dou gou zu yi leibai de le.
Isn’t it the case that the (car) rental fees (for four days) would be enough to rent (a car) for a week in North America?
02 Lan: 到 不 了;
daobu liao.
Not that much.

Prior to the sequence in Extract 8, Lan tells Xia about her experience renting a car for 4 days in Europe. In line 1, Xia seeks confirmation from Lan about whether the 4-day car rental fees in Europe would be enough to rent a car for week in North America. In line 2, Lan produces disconfirmation that the 4-day rental fees in Europe would not be as much as rental fees for a week in North America.

In Extract 8, shibu ‘isn’t it the case […]’ structure in line 1 is used to request confirmation about an event in Lan’s territory of knowledge, namely, Lan’s car rental experience in Europe. Shibu ‘isn’t it the case […]’ marks that the RfC recipient has epistemic primacy over the referent event. In contrast, in Extract 7, the bushi X ma negative rhetorical structure in neici bushi zanmen quguo ma ‘didn’t we go (there) last time’ in line 1 indicates that the speaker also has certain knowledge about the referent event. Thus, although both the negative rhetorical question form bu(shi) X ma ‘not X?’ and the A-not-A question form shibu(shi) + clause are used to seek confirmation, they differ in the epistemic stance toward the referent event they convey.

Finally, NPs are the least frequent form of RfCs in the data (4.5%, n = 9). Due to the space limit, I will not provide the entire sequences for the two examples for A-not-A interrogative and NPs.

4.2 Polarity

A majority of syntactic structures for RfCs in the Mandarin data are of positive polarity (82%, n = 164). Only 18% (n = 36) of the RfCs are of negative polarity. Three negative particles are observed in the RfCs designed in negative polarity: 不bu ‘not’, 不是 bushi ‘not be’ (in idiomatic translation ‘It is not the case that […]’), and 没mei ‘not’.

The three negative particles are used in distinctive semantic and pragmatic environments. Specifically, 不bu ‘not’ expresses a ‘neutral negation’; 不是 bushi ‘not be’ serves as a denial of what a prior speaker has said (and therefore translated as ‘it is not the case that […]’); and 没mei ‘not’ expresses a negation of the completion of an event (Li and Thompson 1981, 421–38). Their frequencies of occurrences are shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Negative polarity markers in RfCs in Mandarin

Negative polarity marker Frequency
bu (‘not’) 18 (50%)
bushi (‘not be’) 12 (30%)
mei (‘not’) 7 (20%)
Total 36 (100%)

Table 2 shows that the ‘neutral negator’ bu ‘not’ is used most frequently (50%, n = 18) among the three negative particles in RfCs. The following example from the data exemplifies the use of bu ‘not’ in RfCs.

Extract 9: TY_R05_ZO05

01 -> Hei: 高中
xian bu nong gaozhong le ha
first NEG do senior high PRT PRT
(He) doesn’t do the (after-school programs for) senior high school, right?
02 Wen: 不弄;
bu nong.
(He) doesn’t do (it).

Bushi ‘not be’ as a negator marks denial of a prior speaker’s utterance. However, when used in RfCs, all bushi ‘not be’ instances occur in negative rhetorical questions. In this syntactic structure, bushi ‘not be’ is used to seek confirmation from the recipient. This syntactic environment and usage of bushi ‘not be’ are illustrated in Extract 11.

Extract 10: WH_R02_0819

01 Wan: 这里 这些=
ni zai zheli shuo zhexie=
Don’t talk about this here.
02 Hong: =没 事儿.
=mei shir.
It’s OK.
03 不是 我们(.) 我们 可以 自由
ta bushi shuo women(.) women keyi ziyou liao
3SG NEG say 1PL 1PL can freely chat
Didn’t he say that we can chat freely?
04 Wan: 啊;
shi a.
Yes.
05 是可以;
shi keyi.
(We) can.

In line 3 in Extract 10, Hong uses the negative rhetorical question with the negator bushi to request Wan’s confirmation that they can chat freely.

Although the third negative particle mei ‘not’ is used less frequently than the other two negative particles, its approximately 20% (n = 7) frequency of occurrence is not negligible. The use of mei ‘not’ to negate the completion of an event is shown in Extract 11.

Extract 11

那天 好像
ni neitian haoxiang mei qu a
2SG that day seem NEG go PRT
You didn’t seem to have gone (there) that day.

The frequencies of occurrence and the semantic and pragmatic environments of the three negative particles in RfCs in the data show that the selection of the three negative particles is related to their distinct semantic and pragmatic functions. Specifically, as the neutral negator, bu negates the proposition (Extract 9). Mei negates the completion of the action or event in the proposition (Extract 11). Bushi ‘not be’ occurs in negative rhetorical questions. When being used to seek confirmation, the bushi structure displays the speaker’s epistemic access to the referent event (Extract 10).

4.3 Modulation

Twenty-five percent (n = 50) of RfC instances in the data contain modulation markers. According to the definition of modulation adopted in the project, these markers mitigate or reinforce the requester’s commitment to the validity of the confirmable. One striking feature of modulation of RfCs in the Mandarin data is that almost all 50 modulations are performed through utterance-final particles (see the discussion of utterance-final particles in Section 1), except one instance of the epistemic expression wo juede ‘I think’ and one instance of the lexical device haoxiang ‘seem’. The utterance-final particles used as modulation devices in the data include la, ba, da, me, and a/ya. The interactional functions of these utterance-final particles vary depending on their interactional-sequential environments. For example, when seeking confirmation, the final particle a/ya is used as a modulation marker to reduce the assertiveness and forcefulness of the requester’s ‘B-event’ statement (Labov and Fanshel 1977) in relation to the recipient’s past experience. See the use of a as a modulation marker in Extract 12.

Extract 12: WH_R02_ TU01_0922

01 -> Lin: 一个 艺术家 啊.
ni hai xiang dang yige yishujia a.
You would still like to be an artist, right?
02 Yin:
dui.
Right.

In line 1 in Extract 12, the final particle a is deployed to downgrade the assertiveness of the statement about the recipient’s wish (becoming an artist).

In contrast to languages with developed morphological markings for epistemics, epistemic modulations in the Mandarin data are mainly implemented through utterance-final particles like a.

4.4 Inference marking

Among the 200 RfCs in Mandarin, only 27 (13%) are framed as having been inferred from prior talk through explicit lexical devices. These lexical items are all at the TCU-/turn-initial position, prefacing an RfC TCU/turn. Five lexical items are observed to mark inference in the data (Table 3).

Table 3

Inference-marking lexical items in RfCs in Mandarin

Inference marker Frequency
jiu(shi) (‘just’) 10 (37%)
na (‘then’) 6 (22%)
ou (‘oh’) 5 (19%)
suoyi (‘so’) 3 (11%)
a (‘ah’) 3 (11%)
Total 27 (100%)

Table 3 shows that the most frequently used lexical device marking inference in RfCs is jiu(shi) ‘just’ (37%, n = 10). Jiu(shi) is an adverb with a wide variety of uses in discourse. In the context of RfCs, it is used as an inference marker connecting prior talk to a conclusion drawn from it (Lü 1980, 316) and can be roughly translated as ‘so it’s just […]’. Its usage as an inference marker in RfCs can be observed in Extract 13.

Extract 13: BJ_R10_ ZO01

01 Lan: 但是 我我我 没有 他们 明确 认识的 怎么.
danshi wowowo meiyou ting tamen mingque jiu wo renshide ren shuo ta zenme
But I didn’t hear from my friends about them (feeling unsafe).
02 -> Xia: 总体 觉得 挺好 [啊.
jiu zongti juede hai tinghao de [a.
So they felt it was just good overall, right?
03 Lan: [对 对.
[dui dui.
Right, right.

Prior to the sequence in Extract 13, Lan (woman) has told Xia (woman) about her friends’ vacation in Morocco. Xia has asked Lan about her friends’ impression of the public security in Morocco. Lan responds that she has not heard from her friends about feeling unsafe when in Morocco in line 1. Xia displays her understanding of Lan’s utterance (line 1) with the turn-initial inference marker jiu ‘So it’s just […]’ in line 2.

Another lexical item, na ‘then’, is the second most frequently used (22%, n = 6) inference marker in the data. Its discourse function is similar to that of jiu(shi). That is, na ‘then’ is also used to connect to prior talk, introducing a clause that shows results of prior talk (Lü 1980, 402). Extract 14 is a case in point.

Extract 14: BJ_R10_ ZO01

01 -> Xia: 现在 那个 点儿 就是 民塾 教育.
na ta xianzai nage dianr jiushi na minshu jiaoyu.
Then that school now does private tutoring?
02 Lan:
a.
Yes.

Prior to the sequence in Extract 14, Lan tells Xia about a private after-school academy. In line 1, Xia seeks confirmation from Lan about the private tutoring program that the school offers. Xia’s RfC turn is prefaced with na ‘then’, a conjunction projecting the ensuing utterance as her inference drawn from Lan’s previous telling.

4.5 Connectives

In the Mandarin data, only 20% (n = 40) of the RfCs are prefaced with connectives. The main types of connectives are adverbs (such as jiu or jiushi ‘just’), conjunctions (including temporal conjunction ranhou ‘then’, inferential conjunction na/name ‘then’, contrastive conjunction danshi ‘but’, and causal conjunctions suoyi ‘so’ and yinwei ‘because’), and particles (including ou ‘oh’ and a ‘ah’). The connectives observed in the data and their respective frequencies of occurrences are shown in Table 4.

Table 4

Connectives in RfCs in Mandarin

Connective Frequency
jiu(shi) (‘just’) 10 (25%)
ranhou (temporal ‘then’) 6 (15%)
na (inferential ‘then’) 6 (15%)
ou (‘oh’) 5 (12.5%)
danshi (‘but’) 5 (12.5%)
suoyi (‘so’) 3 (7.5%)
a (‘ah’) 3 (7.5%)
yinwei (‘because’) 2 (5%)
Total 40 (100%)

Table 4 shows that the most frequently used connective in Mandarin is jiu(shi) ‘just’ which marks the RfC as inferred from prior talk (see the discussion of jiushi as inference marker in Section 4.4). It is worth noting that a majority of connectives in the Mandarin data (68%, or 27 out of 40) are used to mark inferences. Other connectives are to mark temporal relations between RfCs and prior talk such as ranhou ‘then’, and contrastive or causal relations such as danshi ‘but’ and yinwei ‘because’.

4.6 Tags

Tags are used in about a third (31%, n = 62) of the RfCs in the data. They form tag questions in Mandarin (see the discussion of tag interrogatives in Mandarin in Section 4.1). Six forms of question tags are observed. They are duiba ‘right-PRT, right?’, shiba ‘be-PRT, right?’, shi ma ‘be-Question Particle, right?’, duibudui ‘right-not-right, right?’, and shibushi ‘be-not-be, right?’. All tags can be roughly translated as ‘right?’ in English. The frequencies of the five types of tags are listed in Table 5.

Table 5

Tags in RfCs in Mandarin

Tags Frequency
shiba (‘be-PRT’) 28 (46.5%)
shi ma (‘be-Q?’) 19 (31.5%)
duiba (‘correct-PRT?’) 7 (12%)
shibushi (‘be-not-be?’) 5 (8%)
duibudui (‘correct-not-correct’) 1 (2%)
Total 60 (100%)

Extract 15 demonstrates how the most frequently used tag – shiba – is used in the data. Shiba is composed of a copula shi and a final particle ba.

Extract 15: BJ_R08 _ZO02

01 -> Jin: 搞的 建筑 设计 一块儿 是吧.
ni shi gaode jianzhu sheji zhe yikuar shiba.
Your field of expertise is architecture design, right?
02 Nan: 景观.
Landscape.

Here, the tag shiba (line 1) exemplifies the most-frequently-used tag form in requesting confirmation in the data.

4.7 Prosodic design

In the data, a majority of tags (73%, n = 46) form an intonation unit (IU) with the confirmables, and 23% (n = 14) of tags are prosodically non-integrated into the confirmables. In addition, one striking prosodic pattern of RfCs in the Mandarin data is that RfCs predominantly end with overall falling pitch movement (86%, n = 172). Only 8.5% (n = 17) of RfCs end with level final pitch movement and 5.5% (n = 11) with rising final pitch movement. In addition, the RfCs with falling intonation exhibit a prominent feature; that is, the slope of their falling pitch movement tends to be very moderate and tends to fall from mid (M) to low (L).

This prominent prosodic pattern stems from two typological features of Mandarin. First, Mandarin is a tone language where pitch movement is primarily used to distinguish lexical meanings. For example, the syllable 妈 [2] with high-level pitch has the lexical meaning ‘mother,’ whereas the syllable 马 with the falling-rising pitch movement has the lexical meaning of ‘horse’. The pitch movement of the final syllable is the result of a combined effect of both the lexical tone (inherent pitch movement) of the syllable and the overall global intonation forming the boundary tone (from its environment being the final syllable in an IU). Second, Mandarin has a developed set of utterance-final particles. As reported in Section 4.1, a large number of RfCs end with utterance-final particles. These final particles have ‘neutral tones’ (Chao 1968) with no inherent pitch movement shape. Consequently, their pitch movements are dependent on the lexical tone (inherent pitch movements) of their adjacent syllables and their position within an IU (Cao 2002). When occurring at the end of an IU of an RfC, the pitch movements of final particles are shaped by their immediately preceding syllables and the boundary tone effect. As a result, their pitch movements are predominantly slightly falling within a relatively low pitch ranging from mid to low. For RfCs that do not end with utterance-final particles, majority of them also end with slightly falling pitch movement due to the influence of boundary tones, regardless of their inherent lexical tones. Thus, the slightly falling intonation from mid to low seems to be the unmarked intonation pattern for RfCs in the Mandarin data. The falling pitch movement of utterance-final particles can be observed in Extract 16.

Extract 16: WH_R02_FMF_20180529_A_TU01_1317

01 Dan: 吧.
hai hao zhe de ba.
(It’s) OK, right?
02 (2.0)
03 Tan: 事.
mei shi mei shi.
It’s OK.

Immediately prior to the sequence in Extract 16, Tan’s audio recorder has fallen to the ground. Dan seeks Tan’s confirmation that the audio recorder is OK in line 1 in Extract 16. Dan’s RfC turn in line 1 ends with the particle ba. The last three syllables including the final particle ba in line 1 all have the neutral tone with no inherent tone contours.

We can see from Figure 1 that the pitch movements of the last three syllables are all falling. The last particle ba has a falling pitch movement from the middle to low register of the speaker’s pitch range (Figure 1). The final falling pitch movement of the IU in line 1 represents the unmarked intonation pattern for RfCs in the Mandarin data.

Figure 1 
                  Pitch trace of line 1 in Extract 16.
Figure 1

Pitch trace of line 1 in Extract 16.

Only 14% of the RfCs (n = 28) exhibit slightly rising (5.5%, n = 11) and level (8.5%, n = 17) final pitch movements. The slightly rising and level final intonations seem to be ‘marked’ intonation patterns in the data in that they display particular affective stance – such as unexpectedness or surprise – in addition to seeking confirmation. Also it is worth noting that about 59% (n = 10) of the RfCs with final level intonation end with the question particle 吗 ma.

5 Building responses to RfCs in Mandarin

5.1 Responsive actions

A majority of responses to RfCs in the Mandarin data are confirmations (73%, n = 146). The other 27% of the responses to RfCs are disconfirmations (10.2%, n = 19) and neither (11.8%, n = 22) (Table 6). Among the 19 disconfirmations, 18 (95%) are accomplished through negators such as bushi ‘no’ and meiyou ‘no’ and only 1 (5%) is through partial repeat. The responses labeled as ‘neither’ confirmations nor disconfirmations mainly include repair initiations (n = 5), providing further information (n = 5), claims of no knowledge about the confirmables (e.g., wo bu zhidao ‘I don’t know’) (n = 6), transformative answers (Stivers and Hayashi 2010) (n = 6), and a lack of response (n = 13).

Table 6

Responsive actions in Mandarin RfC sequences

Responsive actions Frequency
Confirmation 146 (78.1%)
Disconfirmation 19 (10.2%)
Neither 22 (11.8%)
Total 187 (100%)

5.2 Response tokens

The use of response tokens is highly prominent in responses to RfCs in the data. Among the 187 responses (not including the 13 instances of RfC sequences where responses are absent), 121 of them (approximately 65%) contain response tokens. The types of response tokens in the RfC responses are also highly patterned. For confirming responses, four types of response tokens are observed: dui ‘right’ (and its cognates including dui a/ya, and multiple sayings of dui), en (no lexical meaning, with falling pitch movement), shi ‘be’ (and its cognates including shia, shide, and shiba), and a (with falling pitch movement). In contrast to the large number of confirming tokens, only two types of disconfirming tokens appear in the data: bu ‘no/not’ (and its cognates such as bu shi ‘not be’), and mei(you) ‘no/not’.

Among the six types of response tokens in the Mandarin data, four of them have lexical meanings. Specifically, dui ‘right’ and shi ‘be’ (when confirming a confirmable, can be translated into ‘yes’ or ‘right’) are confirmative, and bu ‘no/not’ and mei(you) ‘no/not’ are negative particles (see Section 4.2 for them being negative particles in Mandarin) and disconfirmative. The other two response tokens, en and a, are pragmatic particles with no lexical meanings or inherent tones. When functioning as response tokens, they both have falling pitch movements, expressing confirmation.

The most frequently used (confirmative) response tokens is dui ‘right’ (and its cognates) (Table 7). This is arguably because dui (with its lexical meaning of ‘right/correct’) is the lexical item that confirms the correctness of the propositional content of the utterance produced by a prior speaker (Wang et al. 2010). Also, it is not uncommon that dui is repeated, forming multiple sayings of dui as confirmative response tokens, such as dui dui, dui dui dui, and dui dui dui dui dui (Table 7). The repeated duis in response to RfCs display strong heightened confirmation and emphatic affect. Extract 17 demonstrates the use of multiple duis as response to an RfC in the data.

Table 7

Response tokens in Mandarin RfC sequences

Token Frequency Variant
dui ‘right’ 48 (40%) dui 37, dui a/ya 6, dui dui 5, dui dui dui 4, dui dui dui dui dui 1
en (confirmation token) 44 (36%) en 42, en en 2
a (confirmation token) 12 (10%)
shi ‘yes’ 11 (9%) shi 2, shi a 1, shi de 5, shi ba 3
bu ‘no’ 3 (2.5%) bu 2, bu shi 1
mei(you) ‘no’ 3 (2.5%)
Total 121 (100%)

Extract 17: BJ_R10_ZO01_0410

01 Lan: 晒得 脖子 起泡.
jiu shaide wo bozi shang quan dou qipao.
‘My neck was full of blisters from the sun burn.’
02 现在 一样.
wo xianzai gen wo ma yiyang.
‘I’m just like my mom now.’
03 Xia: [啊: 过敏;
[a: guomin;
‘Ah, allergy.’
04 Lan: [就是
[jiushi
‘Just…’
05 Xia: 紫外线 [过敏;
ziwaixian [guomin;
‘Allergic to ultraviolet radiation?’
06 -> Lan: [对.
[dui.
‘Right.’
07 -> 对.
dui dui dui.
‘Right, right, right’

In Extract 17 after Lan tells Xia about the blisters on her neck from an exposure to intense sunlight and her similar skin reaction to the sun as her mother (lines 1–2), Xia registers her understanding of Lan’s skin problem through the ‘change-of-state’ token a (Heritage 1984) (line 3). Then Xia seeks Lan’s confirmation of her understanding that what Lan and Lan’s mother have is an allergic reaction to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun (lines 3 and 5). Lan’s dui in line 6 and dui dui dui in line 7 display her strong confirmation of Xia’s understanding.

En with falling pitch movement is another frequently used response token in the data. As mentioned before, en has no inherent lexical meaning or tone. It can be used to accomplish a variety of socio-interactional functions in Mandarin interaction, depending on its prosodic/phonetic design and sequential environment. When being used in responses to RfCs, en with falling pitch movement performs the action of confirmation. See Extract 11 as an example.

In the interaction in Extract 18, Wen is an administrative staff member working at the registration office at a tutoring school, and Jia is a mother who is registering her son for their after-school science tutoring program. Jia informs Wen that most other students in her son’s class have already been in tutoring or advanced academic learning programs. So her registering her son for the science program at the tutoring school is already ‘late’ compared to other students in her son’s class.

Extract 18: TY_R05_ ZO02_0517

01 Wen: 啦.
ni nongde wan la.
‘You’re doing it late?’
02 Jia: 嗯:.
en:.
‘En.’
03 (3.0)
04 Jia: 这样 可以 吧;
jiu zheyang jiu keyi ba;
‘It’s OK just like this?’
05 Wen: 对.
dui.
‘Right.’

Here, Wen displays her understanding of Jia’s prior informing by requesting Jia’s confirmation that Jia has registered her son for the after-school science program late (compared to other parents in her son’s class) in line 1. In line 2, Jia immediately produces the response token en with lengthening and falling pitch movement, confirming Wen’s statement in line 1. After a 3-s pause (line 3), Jia seeks Wen’s confirmation about whether she has filled out the registration form correctly (line 4).

5.3 Clusters of response tokens

Compared to the total number of response tokens (n = 121), the occurrences of response token clusters are relatively infrequent (n = 13). Except for one response token cluster of dui shide ‘right, yes’ (with two different response tokens), the other 12 clusters are all multiple sayings of one response token, for example, dui dui dui ‘right, right, right’ in Extract 8. Multiple sayings of duis are commonly observed in affirmative and confirmative responses in Mandarin conversation (Yang 2013).

5.4 Position of the first response token

It is striking that excerpt for two instances where the response tokens are post-positioned to the end of a response, all other response tokens (if present) are in turn-initial position or occupy the entire turn in responses to RfCs in the Mandarin data (see Extracts 6 and 15 as examples).

5.5 Minimal and non-minimal responses

In the Mandarin data, both minimal and non-minimal responses to RfCs are relatively common, though minimal responses are noticeably more frequent than non-minimal responses. Specifically, there are 76 instances of minimal responses (41% of all 187 responses) and 52 instances of non-minimal responses (28% of all 187 responses). See Extracts 13 and 15 for the uses of minimal responses to RfCs in the data.

Regarding non-minimal responses, two general turn design patterns are observed: (1) Confirmation token + Correction/Modification; and (2) Confirmation token + Extended agreement. The two patterns seem to differ in terms of the degree of the recipient’s agreement with the prior speaker’s statement. Specifically, the RfC recipient uses Confirmation token + Correction/Modification to correct details of the statement while still confirming the overall correctness of the statement (see Extract 19). The Confirmation token + Extended agreement is used to display the recipient’s strong agreement with the prior statement (see Extract 20).

5.5.1 Confirmation token + Modification/correction

Extract 19: TY_R05_ ZO02_0517

01 Yi: 开学 以后 是不是 找(-) 工作 啦.
kaixue yihou shibushi gai zhao(-) gai zhao gongzuo la.
‘You’re going to look for a job after the start of the semester, right?’
02 -> Li: 对(.)开学之后先实习
dui (.) kaixue zhihou xian shixi.
‘Right, (I’ll) first do an internship after the start of the semester.’

In line 2 in Extract 19, Li’s response to Yi’s RfC is structured as a confirmation response token dui ‘right’ followed by further turn elements kaixue zhihou xian shixi ‘(I’ll) first do an internship after the start of the semester’. The second TCU corrects Yi’s statement kaixue zhihou … gai zhao gongzuo le ‘look for a job after the start of the semester’.

5.5.2 Confirmation token + Extended agreement

Extract 20: WH_R02_ TU01_2047

01 Han: 所以 就是 纯粹的 恐怖 片儿 是吧.
suoyi ni jiushi xiang kan chuncuide kongbu pianr shiba.
‘So you would just like to watch pure thrillers, right?’
02 -> Din:
shi de ya.
‘Yes.’
03 -> 说的 道理
ni shuode hen you daoli.
‘What you said made a lot of sense.’

Here after a confirmation response token shi de ya ‘yes’ (line 2), Din continues to express her agreement with Han in line 3.

5.6 Full and expanded repeats

This section focuses on the full (N = 7) and expanded repeats (N = 9) found in response to RfCs in the Mandarin data. All full repeats are prefaced with response tokens (see Section 5.2 for response tokens in the Mandarin data). Two response tokens are particularly common as prefaces to full and expanded repeats: en with falling intonation (confirmation token), and dui ‘right’. Except for one disconfirming full repeat, all other full and expanded repeats are confirming responses. The full repeats are used in RfC sequences where the RfC recipient has the absolute epistemic authority to (dis)confirm the confirmables, for example, regarding the RfC recipient’s past experiences. See Extract 21 where Lan in line 5 responds to Xia’s RfC (line 3) with a response token dui ‘right’ followed by a full repeat of Xia’s turn excluding the tag in line 3.

Extract 21: BJ_R10_ZO01_1742

01 Lan: 扒了;
wo yao gei ni bale;
I’d have to open up (the fillings in) your (teeth).
02 重新 一 遍.
quan dou chongxin gei ni tian yibian.
And re-do them all once again.
03 Xia: 美国 [医生 吧.
meiguo [yisheng shi ba.
(It was an) American dentist, right?
04 Lan: [然后我;
[ranhou wo;
Then I…
05 -> Lan: 美国 医生;
dui meiguo yisheng;
Right (it was an) American dentist.

It should be noted that if an RfC is in the ‘declarative + final particle’ format (as in Extracts 22–23), the particle is not in the repeat.

Expanded repeats in the data exhibit two turn design patterns: (1) emphatic and qualifying expressions + full repeats (Excerpts 22–23) and (2) full repeat + elaboration (Extract 24). The emphatic and qualifying expressions in the first turn design pattern include universal quantifier such as dou ‘all’ (Extract 22), emphatic adverbs such as jiushi ‘just be/indeed’, and epistemic markers such as wo juede ‘I think’ (Extract 23). Extracts 22 and 23 demonstrate the uses of expanded repeats.

Extract 22: TY_R05_ZO01_0022

01 Hua: 影响 吧;
bu yingxiang ba;
‘(My taking the phone call) won’t affect (the recording), right?’
02 -> Xu: 影响.
sha dou bu yingxiang.
‘(It) won’t affect anything at all.’

In line 1 in Extract 22, Hua asks Xu (the videographer) for his confirmation that her taking a phone call would not affect the ongoing recording. Xu’s response in line 2 is composed of a universal quantifying expression sha dou ‘anything at all’, modifying the subsequent VP bu yingxiang ‘not affect’. Xu’s expanded repeat response confirms Hua’s statement bu yingxiang ‘not affect’ in line 1 in an emphatic manner.

However, not all expanded repeats in the format of ‘emphatic and qualifying expressions + full repeats’ are used to display one’s epistemic authority. Some qualifying expressions such as the epistemic marker wo juede ‘I think’ in expanded repeats are used to downgrade one’s epistemic authority. See Extract 23.

Extract 23: ED_R01_S01_5326

01 Qun: 吧.
mei cuo ba.
‘(This) is correct, right?’
02 -> Mao: 觉得 错.
wo juede mei cuo.
‘I think (this) is correct.’

Extract 24 illustrates the second turn design pattern of extended repeats: ‘full repeat + elaboration’.

Extract 24: ED_R01_S01_5326

01 Bai: 然后 我们 本科 时候;
ranhou women benke de shihou;
‘Then when we were undergraduate students,’
02 我们: (.)咱们专业.
women: (.) zanmen zhuanye
‘our major,’
03 学前专业跟心理是一个.
xueqian zhuanye gen xinli shi yige
‘pre-school education majors and psychology majors were one.’
04 An: 嗯.
en en
05 一个 学院 [是吧.
yige xueyuan [shiba.
‘one College, right?’
06 -> Bai: [一个 学院 而且 老师们 共用.
[yige xueyuan erqie laoshimen hai gongyong
‘One College and had the same faculty.’

In Extract 24, Bai’s response (line 6) to An’s RfC (line 5) consists of a full repeat of the confirmable yige xueyuan ‘one College’ and the additional information laoshimen hai gongyong ‘have the same faculty’ connected through a conjunction erqie ‘and’. After confirming An’s statement, Bai expands the response turn with an elaboration of additional information.

In this section, I have shown that minimal response tokens or interjections occur more frequently than (full and expanded) repeats as responses to RfCs in my data. This finding contributes to the research on typological features of polar response types in Mandarin interaction. The previous research on the Mandarin polar response system has yielded conflicting results. Sadock and Zwicky (1985) argue that languages fall into three types based on the types of polar question responses: ‘yes-no’ system, ‘agree-disagree’ system, and ‘echo’ system. In the ‘yes-no’ system, polar questions are responded to through interjections such as yes or no. For the ‘agree-disagree’ system, interjections express agreement or disagreement with the questioner’s proposition. In the ‘echo’ system, responses repeat the main verb in polar questions. Based on Sadock and Zwicky’s (1985) response systems to polar questions, Chinese is considered a language embodying the ‘echo’ system (Holmberg 2016). However, Enfield et al. (2019) propose a two-way distinction: interjection and repetition. They also report that interjection is the preferred response-type cross-linguistically. Adopting Enfield et al.’s (2019) two-way distinction, Wang (2021) argues that interjection responses to polar questions are more frequent than repetition responses in Mandarin conversations. The findings in the current study that response tokens or interjections are used more frequently as responses to RfCs in the Mandarin interactional data align with Wang’s (2021) observations also based on Mandarin interactional data.

The conflicting results between Holmberg’s (2016) and the current study in terms of the frequencies of the repetition responses in Mandarin may be due to two reasons. First, Holmberg’s (2016) study is based on invented sentences rather than naturalistic Mandarin interactions which are the data for the current study. Second, Holmberg (2016) investigates the response system to polar questions, whereas the section in this present study only focuses on the responses to RfCs. Polar questions can be used to accomplish a variety of actions, such as request for information and RfCs. Thus, the naturalistic interactional data and the specific focus on RfCs in contrast to all polar questions may account for the divergent results between the findings of the present study and the previous research on the prominence of repeats as responses to RfCs.

6 Conclusion

In this article, I have described the lexico-syntactic and prosodic resources used in building RfCs and their responses in the Mandarin data. Among the syntactic formats used to perform RfCs, declaratives (with and without final particles) and tag interrogatives are the two most frequently used syntactic forms. A majority of syntactic structures for RfCs in the Mandarin data are of positive polarity and are without modulation or inference markers. In terms of the prosodic features of RfCs, a majority of tags are prosodically integrated into the confirmables that they attach to. In addition, RfCs predominantly end with an overall falling pitch movement with a moderate slope that falls from mid (M) to low (L).

In the responses to RfCs in the data, a majority of them are confirming responses and contain response tokens. Further, confirming response tokens are often repeated to form multiple sayings, such as dui dui dui dui dui ‘right, right, right, right, right’, to express heightened confirmation. Repeats of confirmables, including full and expanded repeats, are also used in responses to RfCs in the data. Full repeats are used to display one’s epistemic authority, whereas expanded repeats can be employed to display or to downgrade epistemic authority.

The findings on the lexico-syntactic and prosodic features of RfCs sequences in Mandarin are based on an observation of the frequencies and distributional patterns of those formal features in the data. They are intended to provide an overview of the lexico-syntactic and prosodic features of RfCs and their responses in Mandarin, which can be used for cross-linguistic comparisons. Qualitative analyses of the interactional and sequential environments as well as interactional functions of different lexico-syntactic and prosodic formats necessitate future research.

Transcription conventions

The transcription system used for vocal elements in this article is GAT-2 (Couper-Kuhlen & Barth-Weingarten 2011) with minor modifications.

[]

overlap

(.)

micro-pause

(-), (--), (---)

short, middle or long pauses of ca. 0.2–0.8 s, up to ca. 1 s

(1.0)

pauses of 1.0 s

hehehe

short and syllable-like laughter

((laughing))

description of laughter

:, ::, :::

lengthening of ca. 0.2–0.8 s, up to ca. 1 s

ʔ

glottal stop

<<creaky>XX>

creaky voice

?

final pitch movements: high rise

,

final pitch movements: mid-rise

-

final pitch movements: level pitch

;

final pitch movements: mid-fall

.

final pitch movements: low fall

  1. Funding information: Work on this paper is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) project number 413161127 – Scientific Network “Interactional Linguistics – Discourse particles from a cross-linguistic perspective” led by Martin Pfeiffer and Katharina König.

  2. Author contributions: The author confirms the sole responsibility for the conception of the study, presented results and manuscript preparation

  3. Conflict of interest: The author states no conflict of interest.

  4. Data availability statement: The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

References

Cao, Jianfen. 2002. “Hanyu shengdiao yu yudiao de guanxi” [The relation between tones and intonation in Chinese]. Zhongguo Yuwen [Studies of the Chinese Language] 2002(9), 195–202.Search in Google Scholar

Chao, Yuen-Ren. 1968. A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar

Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Dagmar Barth-Weingarten. 2011. “A System for Transcribing Talk-in-Interaction: GAT 2.” English translation and adaptation of Selting, Margret et al. (2009) Gesprächsanalytisches Transkriptionssystem 2. Gesprächsforschung – Online-Zeit schrift zur verbalen Interaktion 12, 1–51.Search in Google Scholar

Enfield, Nick J., Tanya Stivers, Penelope Brown, Christina Englert, Katariina Harjunpää, Makoto Hayashi, Trine Heinemann, Gertie Hoymann, Tiina Keisanen, Mirka Rauniomaa, Chase Wesley Raymond, Federico Rossano, Kyun-Eun Yoon, Inge Zwitserlood, and Stephen C. Levinson 2019. “Polar answers”. Journal of Linguistics 55(2), 277–304. 10.1017/S0022226718000336.Search in Google Scholar

Gao, Hua. 2009. “Yinghan fujia wenju zai huihuazhong de chuanxin gongneng” [Tag Questions and Evidentiality in Conversation]. Anhui Dianqi Gongcheng Zhiye Jishu Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Anhui Electrical Engineering Professional Technique College] 2009(6), 80–3.Search in Google Scholar

Gao, Hua and Wei Zhang. 2009. “Hanyu jujia wenju de hudong gongneng yanjiu” [The Functions of Tag Questions in Chinese: An Interactional Analysis]. Yuyan Jiaoxue Yu Yanjiu [Language Teaching and Research] 2009(5), 45–52.Search in Google Scholar

Heritage, John. 1984. “A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement”, In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, edited by J. Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage, 299–345, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511665868.020Search in Google Scholar

Heritage, John. 2012. “Epistemics in action: action formation and territories of knowledge,” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45(1), 1–29.10.1080/08351813.2012.646684Search in Google Scholar

Holmberg, Anders. 2016. The syntax of yes and no. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198701859.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

König, Katharina and Martin Pfeiffer. Forthcoming. “Request for confirmation sequences in ten languages. An introduction.” Open Linguistics. Search in Google Scholar

König, Katharina, Martin Pfeiffer, and Kathrin Weber. Forthcoming. “A coding scheme for request for confirmation sequences across languages.” Open Linguistics.Search in Google Scholar

Labov, William and David Fanshel. 1977. Therapeutic discourse. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar

Li, Charles N. and Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520352858Search in Google Scholar

Li, Yuming. 1990. “Fanwenju de goucheng jiqi lijie” [The construction and understanding of rhetorical questions]. Yindu Xuekan [Yindu Journal] 1990(3), 91–9.Search in Google Scholar

Lü, Shuxiang. 1942. Zhongguo Wenfa Yaolue [Outline of Chinese Grammar]. Hongkong: Commercial Press.Search in Google Scholar

Lü, Shuxiang. 1980. Xiandai Hanyu Babai Ci [800 Words in Modern Chinese]. Hong Kong: Commercial Press.Search in Google Scholar

Niu, Baoyi. 2002. “Belieft and doubt: A pragmatic study of tag questions.” PhD diss., Henan University.Search in Google Scholar

Pfeiffer, Martin, Katharina König, Kathrin Weber, Arnulf Deppermann, Oliver Ehmer, Sonja Gipper, Alexandra Gubina, Kyu-hyun Kim, Uwe Küttner, Xiaoting Li, Michal Marmorstein, Yael Maschler, Yotam Ben Moshe, Florence Oloff, and Beatrice Szczepek Reed. Forthcoming. “Request for confirmation sequences in ten languages. A quantitative comparison.” Open Linguistics.Search in Google Scholar

Rong, Lihua. 2012. “Cong goushi jiaodu kan hanyu zhongde ‘X bu X’” [On “X-not-X” in Chinese from a constructional perspective]. Yuyan jiaoxue yu yanjiu [Language Teaching and Research] 2012(6), 73–80.Search in Google Scholar

Sadock, Jerrold M. and Arnold M. Zwicky. 1985. “Speech act distinctions in syntax.” In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, edited by Timothy Shopen, 155–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Shao, Jingmin. 1990. “’X bu X’ fujia wen yanjiu” [A study of “X-not-X” tag questions]. Xuzhou Shifan Daxue Xuebao [Journal of the Xuzhou Normal University] 1990(4), 86–90.Search in Google Scholar

Shao, Jingming and Yan Zhu. 2002. “’Shi bus hi VP’ wenju de kendingxing qingxiang jiqi leixingxue yiyi” [The affirmative inclination of the shì-bù-shì + VP question and its typological significance]. Shijie Hanyu Jiaoxue [Chinese Teaching in the World] 2002(3), 23–36.Search in Google Scholar

Stivers, Tanya. 2005. “Modified repeats: One method for asserting primary rights from second position.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 38(2), 131–58.10.1207/s15327973rlsi3802_1Search in Google Scholar

Stivers, Tanya and Makoto Hayashi. 2010. “Transformative Answers: One way to resist a question’s constraints.” Language in Society 39(1), 1–25.10.1017/S0047404509990637Search in Google Scholar

Tsai, I-Ni. 2019. “A multimodal analysis of tag questions in Mandarin Chinese multi-party conversation.” In Multimodality in Chinese interaction, edited by Xiaoting Li and Tsuyoshi Ono, 300–32. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110462395-011Search in Google Scholar

Wang, Li. 1943. Zhongguo Xiandai Yufa [Modern Chinese grammar]. Beijing: Commercial Press.Search in Google Scholar

Wang, Wei. 2021. “The question-response system in Mandarin conversation.” Pragmatics 31(4), 589–616.10.1075/prag.20019.wanSearch in Google Scholar

Wang, Yu-Fang, Pi-Hua Tsai, David Goodman, and Meng-Ying Lin. 2010. “Agreement, acknowledgment, and alignment: The discourse-pragmatic functions of hao and dui in Taiwan Mandarin conversation.” Discourse Studies 12(2), 241–67.10.1177/1461445609346922Search in Google Scholar

Wu, Ruey-Jiuan Regina. 2004. Stance in talk: A conversation analysis of Mandarin final particles. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/pbns.117Search in Google Scholar

Xiao, Guozheng. 1994. Xiandai hanyu yufa wenti yanjiu [Studies of Issues in Modern Chinese Grammar]. Wuhan, China: China Central Normal University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Xie, Xinyang. 2018. “Wen yu Da: Xingshi he Gongneng de bu Duicheng” [Questions and Answers: The Asymmetry between Form and Function]. PhD diss., Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.Search in Google Scholar

Yang, Jie. 2013. A multimodal study of response token dui dui dui in Mandarin conversation. MA thesis. Edmonton: University of Alberta, Canada.Search in Google Scholar

Yin, Shichao. 1999. “Shuo yuqici ‘ha’ he ‘ha’ zi ju” [On the particle “ha” and “ha”-sentence]. Fangyan [Chinese Dialects] 1999(2), 95–103.Search in Google Scholar

Zhang, Bojiang. 1997. “Yiwen ju gongneng suoyi” [On the Functions of Interrogative Sentences]. Zhongguo Yuwen [Studies of the Chinese Language] 1997(2), 104–10.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2023-08-14
Revised: 2023-09-21
Accepted: 2023-10-05
Published Online: 2024-07-08

© 2024 the author(s), published by De Gruyter

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Research Articles
  2. Describing smell: A comparative analysis of active smell lexicon in Estonian and German
  3. The sound of the Italian comic book: Representing noises, senses, and emotions across 80 years
  4. Framing victimhood, making war: A linguistic historicizing of secessionist discourses
  5. Under pressure: Exploring the impact of cognitive factors on clitics placement in L2 Slovak
  6. The syntax of non-canonical coordination in Jordanian Arabic: An experimental investigation
  7. Suffixation in Zhangzhou
  8. Alignment in Vamale, South Oceanic: Diachrony and contact influence
  9. A corpus-based study of epicene pronouns used by Macedonian learners of English
  10. Iconicity as the motivation for morphophonological metathesis and truncation in Nigerian Pidgin
  11. ‘Little Arabia’ on Buddhist land: Exploring the linguistic landscape of Bangkok’s ‘Soi Arab’ enclave
  12. Mother tongue in Serbia: A speakers’ perspective on the meaning of the concept
  13. Role of six turn-initial demonstrative and emotive particles in Lithuanian
  14. Verbal numeral classifiers in languages of Eastern Eurasia: A typological survey
  15. The multilingual repertoire of the Haitian community in Chapecó (SC, Brazil): Patterns of linguistic evolution in a South–South migration context
  16. ‘Aquí toman mucho sopa’: Linguistic variables as predictors of non-standard gender agreement production in Basque Spanish
  17. Data-driven identification of situated meanings in corpus data using Latent Class Analysis
  18. Adverbs and adverbials in contemporary Arabic syntax: A phase-based account
  19. Spatial effects with missing data
  20. Instability of interactives: The case of interjections in Gorwaa
  21. Linguistic explication of rational and irrational knowledge types in the content of toponyms (on the material of the linguocultural dictionary)
  22. Review Articles
  23. Discourse-related expletives: Challenges and opportunities
  24. Vietnamese tense marking since the seventeenth century: A historiographical analysis
  25. Special Issue: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Language, edited by Külli Habicht, Tiit Hennoste, Helle Metslang, and Renate Pajusalu - Part II
  26. Editorial: Exploring subjectivity and intersubjectivity in language
  27. Two past forms inducing conjectural or non-intrusive questions
  28. A typological approach to intersubjective uses of the Finnish clitic markers =hAn and =se from the perspectives of engagement and their interrelations with subject person
  29. Repetition and variation in a Finnish music-related discourse: A case study
  30. Biased interrogatives in Camuno
  31. On the overlapping discourse functions of Spanish ‘cómo que’ and French ‘comment ça’ interrogatives
  32. Repetition in discourses across languages and genres
  33. Reducing the severity of incidents or emergency in Estonian emergency calls
  34. Special Issue: Request for confirmation sequences across ten languages, edited by Martin Pfeiffer & Katharina König - Part I
  35. Request for confirmation sequences in Mandarin Chinese
  36. Request for confirmation sequences in Korean
  37. Request for confirmation sequences in British and American English
  38. Request for confirmation sequences in German
  39. Request for confirmation sequences in Low German
  40. Request for confirmation sequences in Egyptian Arabic
  41. Request for confirmation sequences in Yurakaré
  42. Request for confirmation sequences in Hebrew
  43. Request for confirmation sequences in Czech
Downloaded on 3.7.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/opli-2024-0011/html
Scroll to top button