So, here's some interesting "evidence" about semantics and pragmatics I found in my daily life.
Today, I called Aunt Qian, who recently visited her daughter in Mannheim, to wish her a prosperous Year of Rabbit. In the end of the call, I asked her as usual as I always did with my mum, "姐姐还有什么事儿吗？(Literal translation: Does my cousin have anything else?)" When I called my parents, at last I used to ask my mum like this--"爸爸还有什么事儿吗？" to be polite, and meant "Does dad have anything else to say to me?" What my mum usually does would be to ask my dad whether he wants to talk with me and the answer is usually "No, I have nothing important to say." Then we end the call.
What surprised me today was the reply of my aunt. She didn't ask my cousin whether she wanted to speak on the phone, instead, she told me something about my cousin's health condition, saying "she's much better now, although sometimes she still feels pains". (little background info: my cousin has just given birth to a baby.) This means, my aunt has misunderstood my question as "Does everything go on well with my cousin?" which is actually another interpretation of the question but is pragmatically used at the very beginning of a conversation, simply like "How's my cousin doing?"
Right now, I'm not sure why my aunt misunderstood me. Perhaps that's her way of interpreting such kind of questions, and thus, according to her, the question has been correctly answered. I reckon in this case, she must have felt weired why I delivered such a question at the end of the conversation. If she didn't feel awkward, then the reason might probably be the differing backgrounds we grow up from: she's from South China, while I'm from the North. And people do speak differently in these two regions.
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