Multi-dimensional meanings of subjective adverbs - Case study of mandarin Chinese adverb pianpian

The combination of strict scalar and exclusive components of focus particles has been considered to be exceptional and rare in the literature. In this study, we identify and analyze a frequently used multi-dimensional focus particle pianpian 偏偏 in Mandarin Chinese and claim that it is a strictly scalar exclusive focus particle (which accordingly show evaluative properties). The analysis is based on data from CCL corpus. Different from English only, the scalar feature of pianpian is non-optional and does not depend on the lexical specification of the focus. Furthermore, the negation of the more expected/positive alternatives by pianpian gives rise to interesting interactions with surprisal, modality and speaker-orientedness.