Origin of modern Chinese pragmatic markers bushi: Negative copula or negative adjective?

Abstract

Contrary to the claims of previous studies, the development of Modern Chinese right-periphery (RP) pragmatic marker bushi does not involve the shi X bushi X construction, and the development of Modern Chinese left-periphery (LP) pragmatic marker bushi does not involve the negative copula use of bushi in a clause-medial position. Rather, the RP pragmatic marker bushi originates from the use of the negative adjective bushi in a clause-final position as a rhetorical question tag, while the LP pragmatic marker bushi originates from the negative adjective bushi used as a negative response to the previous speaker's question or statement. Our accounts are supported by cross-linguistic data on the grammaticalization pathway from a negative response marker or a negative rhetorical question tag to a pragmatic/discourse marker. Expanding beyond earlier works, this paper proposes two diachronic trajectories for the formation of phrases or structures involving shi in Chinese: one develops from shi as a demonstrative and later a copula; the other originates from shi as an adjective meaning ‘correct, true’. These two trajectories account for the synchronic and diachronic issues of almost all the constructions involving shi in Chinese.