ABSTRACT

First, in Mandarin བᵰ rúguI/㽕ᰃ yàoshì is a complementary part of this pattern and must appear at the beginning of the compound structure. In other words, Mandarin rúguI/yàoshì cannot be taken as an isolated equivalent to ‘if’ or ‘whether’ in English. Thus examples 12g-h are erroneous. While the English translations of both sentences are fine, the Mandarin sentences are unacceptable because yàoshì is misused in both-it is put in the middle of the sentence and treated as if it were simply equivalent to the English word ‘whether.’