Syntactic And Pragmatic Differences Between Interrogative If-clause And Whether-clause

This thesis shows the differences between interrogative if-clause and whether-clause from perspectives of syntax and pragmatics. It first introduces the research achievement of former scholars such as Jespersen, Quirk, Radford, etc. and then expounds on some relevant theories, including X-bar theory, checking theory, movement theory, speech act theory and pragmatic presupposition. Then this thesis explains the syntactic differences between interrogative if-clause and whether-clause in respects of categories of if and whether, properties of if and whether, and distributions of interrogative if-clause and whether-clause. In this part, the thesis clarifies the different categories of if and whether (in the tree-diagram, with the development of syntactic theory, whether first occupies the Complementizer position, then occupies the Spec-C position, while if occupies the Complementizer position). At the same time, this part points out that different properties of if and whether depend on their different positions in the tree-diagram, which is the reason of their differences. Also, this part presents different distributions of interrogative if-clause and whether-clause; that is, the interrogative if-clause can only be the complement of VP, while whether-clause can be specifier of IP and complement of VP/PP. Besides, this thesis explains the pragmatic differences between interrogative if-clause and whether-clause. In this part, the thesis explores the original use of if and whether, and tends to discuss different uses of interrogative if-clause and whether-clause within speech act theory: indirect question prefers interrogative if-clause to represent indirect speech acts. With the help of corpus, the thesis finds that some verbs prefer whether-clause, not if-clause as complement. By the judgment whether interrogative if-clause and whether-clause belong to embedded alternative question or embedded yes-no question, this part discusses types of interrogative if-clause and whether-clause. Then this part draws on the research achievement of recent pragmatic studies of interrogative if-clause and whether-clause—the Bias of if and the Non-Bias of whether, thus enriching the pragmatic research of differences between interrogative if- clause and whether-clause.