Acceso usuarios
Lelia Glass
The Mandarin belief verb yĭwéi strongly suggests that the belief it embeds is wrong or questionable. Based on original data, I propose that this sense of negative bias stems from a postsupposition that the reported belief must not be accepted in the Common Ground following an update with yĭwéi. When a belief is reported using a neutral, nonfactive verb such as rènwéi ‘think,’ it is possible for the content of that belief to become Common Ground if the belief or belief-holder are considered reliable; but the postsupposition of yĭwéi explicitly blocks such an inference, giving rise to its negative bias. By heading off a potential inference, this postsupposition is further argued to serve a function common to other proposed postsuppositions in the literature. Zooming out, this investigation illuminates the complex calculations triggered by belief reports in discourse, and the linguistic resources used to guide them.
