The Decisive Factor of Negtive Scope in Chinese Singular-Topic Paratactic Sentences

This paper studies several sentences regarded as having scope ambiguity of negation by Yuan Yu-lin(2000) and puts forward the view that the decisive factor of negative scope in Chinese paratactic sentences with a same topic is semantic.The several clauses following the negative word closely are all in the negative scope if they are similar semantically.If the clause within which having a negative word is semantically contrary to the following clauses,the negative scope is confined to the clause itself.