How are contrasts marked? – the case of ne in Mandarin Chinese

Partition semantics argue that the meaning of an interrogative is represented as a partition on the set of possible worlds (Hamblin 1973; Karttunen 1977). Following their analysis, this chapter shows that the particle ne in Mandarin Chinese marks the contrast between the cells of the partition induced by an interrogative. I also show that the contrastive use of the particle can be applied to declaratives and rhetorical questions. Meanwhile, I argue that the particle ne following nominals marks topic.