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Croft’s Cycle in Mandarin and Cantonese through history and across varieties
Author(s)
Date Issued
2022
Publisher
Berlin: Language Science Press
Citation
In Veselinova, L., & Hamari, A. (eds.). 2022. The Negative Existential Cycle (pp. 357–401). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Description
Open access
Type
Book Chapter
Abstract
One of the oldest problems in Chinese linguistics is negation and currently there
is no consensus on a theory for the distribution of negators. This article explores
this issue from the perspective of Croft’s Negative Existential Cycle (NEC) based
on diachronic evidence and synchronic comparative data from four varieties of
Chinese. The results show that the NEC is attested in Chinese throughout its history and across all varieties, and that different varieties can be positioned at different stages in the Cycle. The shared historical origin of the Beijing and Taiwan
Mandarin méi(yǒu), the Hong Kong Cantonese mou5 and the Gaozhou Cantonese
mau5, and their involvement in the NEC account for their semantic similarity in
producing a non-existence reading as a standard negator. They also provide a new
understanding of the nature of these negators and their present-day structural behaviour
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