On Rhetorically-Flavoured Speech Acts: A Case Study of Cantonese

Abstract

This paper investigates the Cantonese sentence-final particle (SFP) aa1laa4, which appears in various clause types to enforce rhetorical readings. Drawing on Farkas and Bruce’s (2010) discourse model and subsequent works (e.g., Malamud and Stephenson 2015), this study examines the dynamics of discourse crises in interaction. Specifically, it identifies a scenario where Speaker X attempts to update the Common Ground (CG) with the proposition ¬, while Speaker Y remains committed to and seeks to update the CG accordingly, creating a Discourse Crisis. In such a context, the emergence of strong contextual evidence () supporting ¬ shifts the likelihood in favor of ¬ being true and being false. This resolution allows Speaker X to utter an aa1laa4 sentence, effectively leveraging the rhetorical force of the particle. The contributions of this study are threefold: (1) it refines our understanding of rhetorical question licensing by showing that aa1laa4 wh-questions rely on evidentiality rather than polarity to enforce rhetorical readings; (2) it broadens the scope of rhetorical speech act analysis, demonstrating that rhetoricity extends beyond questions to declaratives and imperatives, necessitating a unified theoretical framework; and (3) it proposes an expanded model of credence, ranging from [−1, 1], to better capture rhetorical dismissals and the rejection of alternatives in aa1laa4 utterances. These findings advance our understanding of rhetorical speech acts and the syntax-pragmatics interface