Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

Schrilifestschnift: <strong>Essays</strong> in Honor of John DeFrancis
case of A-not-A questions in Taipei, 72 tokens of that pattern were
counted in the data, whereas one would have expected to find just
45.65 tokens if Taipei behavior were completely independent of
Peking behavior, and the occurance of A-not-A questions operated
independently of the occurance of .the other two patterns. In the
case of Figure 1, note that although both speech communities contain
all three patterns in their respective repertoires, in Taiwan the
obvious choice from among the three is A-not-A, while in Peking
that pattern is utilized least of all. In fact, if one were to compare
the ratio of A-not-A questions to the combined sum of intonation +
MA and intonation-only questions in each speech community, a clear
difference in linguistic behavior is observed. In Taipei the ratio of
A-not-A to the other two is about 1:1, while in Peking the ratio is
about 1:4. Also, note how infrequently Taipei speakers utilize
intonation alone to express a yes-no question in comparison to
Peking speakers. In Taipei the ratio of that pattern to the other two
is about 15, while in Peking it is almost 12. These facts clearly
indicate that a qualitative difference exists between the way Taipei
speakers tend to express pragmatically neutral yes-no questions and
the way Peking speakers do.
Figure 1. Distribution of Neutral Yes-No Tokens by Pattern and City
Pattern Taipei Peking Total
Intonation 22 8 9 11 1
40.22 70.78
Total 150 264 414