ON THE INTERACTION BETWEEN MODALS AND ASPECTS

Abstract

Tsai (1999, 2008a) discusses causal questions with zěnme ‘how’ in Mandarin Chinese and argues that zěnme ‘how’ can be either an outer wh-adverbial or an inner wh-adverbial. If zěnme ‘how’ appears above modals, it is interpreted with a causal interpretation. On the other hand, if it appears below modals, it is interpreted with a manner or instrumental interpretation. In this paper, I discuss a phenomenon associated with the inner wh-adverbials. In particular, the manner or instrumental interpretation is not available when an aspectual marker is present. I argue that the disappearance of the manner/instrumental reading can be accounted for on a par with intervention effects once we take a closer look at the structure of aspectual markers.