Mandarin negation #

Mandarin negates a declarative verbal clause with one of two preverbal negators, chosen by aspect. Bù negates non-perfective predicates, present and future, is the natural choice with states, and adds nothing else to the clause: Nézha bù tǎoyàn Yángjiǎn 'Nezha does not hate Yangjian'. Méi negates perfective and experiential predicates and is the dedicated negator of the existential and possessive verb yǒu 'have', which may follow it in the long form méi-yǒu. The perfective particle le does not occur under it, while the experiential guò does: Nézha chuī le chángdí 'Nezha played the flute' is negated as Nézha méi-yǒu chuī chángdí. Prohibitions use neither negator but the negative imperatives bié and búyào, literally 'not want'. The description follows Miestamo, Zhao, and Jin and Koenig; Miestamo's classification of the constructions as symmetric and asymmetric lives in Studies/Miestamo2005.lean, and the negators that appear expletively under fear and regret are the rows of Data.Examples.JinKoenig2021.

References #

source

structure Mandarin.Negation.Negator :

Type

A Mandarin standard negator is given by its exponent, the aspectual domain it negates, the verb that may follow it as part of the negator, and the aspect particles of the affirmative that do not occur with it.

marker : Negation.Marker
The exponent.
perfectivity : Aspect.Perfectivity
The aspectual domain the negator negates.
verb : Option Morphology.Morph
The verb that may follow the negator in its long form.
excludes : List Aspect.Marker
The aspect particles of the affirmative that do not occur under the negator.