ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author will build on this basic understanding of dou by examining its properties and behavior with respect to modality. This will also help shed light on dou’s licensing of polarity items. Based on the discussion in this chapter, we can update the proposed licensing condition for Chinese NPIs as follows: non-interrogative wh-indeterminates in Mandarin can be licensed in the restriction domain of a necessity operator, in terms of Heim’s analysis of modality. More specifically, wh-indeterminate polarity items are licensed by a conditional necessity operator in their restriction domain. Conditional necessity is different from human necessity in that the modal base used in the interpretation of the former is not contributed by context alone, but is a product of contextual factors plus the meaning of the antecedent clause.
