Abstract:

This paper proposes that there exist topic-in questions and proposition-in questions in the interrogative system of Shanghai dialect.It compares the former to "S fa?" and the latter to "S, VP fa?" in different aspects, and finds out that the proposition-in question is of great amount and significance.The two differ in several ways, through which we can see some interesting phenomena and characteristics of language changes, including 1)multiplication with multiple resources, 2)mainstream transformation with bilateral complementary relations, and 3)complication with actions and reactions.

Key words: topic-in question, proposition-in question, mainstream transformation