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A microparametric analysis of apparent postverbal negation in Taiwanese Southern Min

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2016

Chyan-An Arthur Wang
Chyan-An Arthur Wang*
Affiliation:
Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
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Abstract

This article investigates the postverbal negation construction in Taiwanese Southern Min. I propose that the construction is derived in a way similar to resultatives and that the postverbal negation bo and its affirmative counterpart u are particular kinds of aspectual elements in the resultative complement. Given this, the lack of (apparent) postverbal negation in the closely-related language Mandarin Chinese can be ascribed to the fact that Mandarin Chinese lacks this particular aspectual use of affirmative you and negative mei(you) and thus it fails to generate the structure under investigation. It is also shown that the proposed analysis is supported by cross-linguistic correlations among Chinese languages.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article se consacre à l'étude de la négation postverbale en min du sud taïwanais. Je propose que, dérivationnellement, la construction est similaire aux résultatifs et que la négation postverbale bo et son équivalent affirmatif u sont des éléments aspectuels dans le complément résultatif. L'absence (apparente) de la négation postverbale en chinois mandarin, une langue étroitement liée à la langue qui nous intéresse, est due au fait que le mandarin n'a pas cet usage aspectuel du marqueur affirmatif you et du marqueur négatif mei(you); par conséquent, la structure n'est pas générée en mandarin. Cette explication est également appuyée par des corrélations interlinguistiques entre des langues chinoises.

Keywords

postverbal negationresultativessecondary predicationTaiwanese Southern MinMandarin Chinesenégation postverbalerésultatifsprédication secondairemin du sud taïwanaischinois mandarin
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 51 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association. 2015

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