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Article published In:
Concentric
Vol. 47:1 (2021) ► pp.113–166

Negator turned intersubjective speech-act adverbial

| National Taiwan Normal University

This study investigates the non-negating negator m̄ in Taiwanese. With respect to its function, this study argues that it is neither an intensifier nor a rhetorical marker. Furthermore, contrary to prevalent intuition, the combination m̄-tō is not parallel to the ostensible cognate bújiù in Mandarin Chinese. Instead, the non-negating m̄ is an intersubjective speech-act adverbial affix attaching to the head of FocP (realized as tō or tsiah) that takes scope over whatever follows. Typologically, this study uncovers another use of non-negating negation in natural languages, and consequently challenges the enterprise pursuing a unified analysis for the phenomena of the so-called expletive negation.

Keywords: non-negating negator, expletive negation, speech-act adverbial, Taiwanese
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies
    • 2.1The m̄ that abnegates negation
    • 2.2The nature of expletive negation: A crosslinguistic perspective
  • 3.The habitat of non-negating negator m̄
    • 3.1Islands
    • 3.2Scope taking and the right boundary
    • 3.3With or without tō
    • 3.4Summary
  • 4.The function of the non-negation m̄
    • 4.1It’s not an intensifier
    • 4.2It does not make a rhetorical question
    • 4.3Not a cognate of bú-jiù in Mandarin
    • 4.4Not an epistemic modal
    • 4.5An intersubjective speech-act adverb
    • 4.6Summary and speculation on its origin
  • 5.Syntactic analysis
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • List of abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 19 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/consl.00025.lau
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