Cartographic syntax of performative projections: evidence from Cantonese

It is argued in this paper that a sentence should consist of at least three layers, namely proposition, grounding, and response, which are formed by a number of functional categories, such as Event, Temp, Focus, Degree, and CoA. A cartographic analysis of the performative projections can be supported by the data of the sentence-final particles in Cantonese, focusing on the sentence-final particle ho and other members of the h -family, which may allow us to have a better understanding of the syntax of the speech act domain and should have implications for the cross-linguistic study of the performatives and the theory of the Universal Grammar.

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