Dissecting the illocutionary force phrase

New evidence from SFP embeddability

Abstract

Based on Mandarin question markers' embeddability profiles in nonquotational subordinating contexts, this paper argues in favor of Dayal's (2025) three-way split in projections that contribute to the illocutionary force, attributing the non-co-occurrence of question markers to their semantics. Specifically, we propose that (i) LowIForceP houses the most embeddable meiyou, Op_WH, and A-not-A; (ii) PerspP houses question markers restrictedly embeddable like bu and ma; and (iii) HighIForceP houses the unembeddable ba. Looking deeper into the embeddability patterns of bu and ma, we argue that our PerspP should be interpreted `a la Dayal (2025) in the sense that it introduces a not-at-issue requirement for the embedded question to be potentially active for the matrix subject. We explicate that the embedding of bu and ma is restricted by two constraints: (i) the embedded clause size must satisfy the syntactic selectional requirement of the embedding context; and (ii) the overall interpretation must be compatible with a not-at-issue requirement lexically introduced. Our proposal calls for a theory of selection that manifests a conspiracy of syntax and semantics.