A neo-Gricean speaker-belief-based analysis of Chinese evaluatives

This paper examines evaluatives in Modern Standard Chinese, a small group of rarely studied linguistic expressions like xingyundeshi ‘fortunately’ and buxing(de) ‘unfortunately’ that represent the speaker's value judgments or emotions with regard to the proposition to which they are attached. Also examined is the Gricean notion of conventional implicature in terms of speaker belief. It is argued that the semantics of Chinese evaluatives is better explained within a revised neo-Gricean framework of conventional implicature, built on the central idea that conventional implicature involves the speaker's exhibitive expression of her subjective beliefs. By so doing, this article provides implications for a better interpretation of Grice's theory of speaker meaning and a better understanding of evaluatives in Chinese and other languages. •Chinese evaluatives are classified into factives and non-factives, carrying conventional implicature potentials.•A conventional implicature is taken as the speaker's exhibitive expression of subjective beliefs.•A factivebears a conventional implicature potential indicative of the speaker's attitude with respect to the truth of p.•The speaker's employing a factive suggests an implicit contrast between the actual world state and possible states.•A non-factive bears a conventional implicature potential merely indicative of the speaker's attitude with respect to p.