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Article published In:
Language and Linguistics
Vol. 25:4 (2024) ► pp.615–643

From negative to conjunctive

無 bo55 in the Jieyang Southern Min dialect

ORCID logo | Sun Yat-sen University
ORCID logo | Shaanxi Normal University
| Sun Yat-sen University
In the Jieyang Southern Min dialect, the negative 無 bo55 has evolved into a conjunctive that is used in multiple constructions: negative conditionals, cause and effect, disjunctives, and proposals. This paper aims to describe the multiple functions of 無 bo55 and to construct its grammaticalization path as compared with those of 否則 fouze ‘otherwise or else’, and 要不 yaobu ‘if not’, in Mandarin. It is common in Chinese and other languages for a negative to combine with its adjacent conjunctive to develop a new conjunctive. However, the Jieyang dialect exhibits a unique feature in that 無 bo55 is grammaticalized into a conjunctive per se by applying a complicated process of reasoning involving the logical relations among clauses without the support of any conjunctive constituents. This phenomenon can provide a new model for the study of grammatical evolution.
Keywords: 無 bo55 , negative, conjunctive, grammaticalization, Jieyang Southern Min dialect
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Functions of 無 bo55
    • 2.1 無 bo55 1 in negative conditional constructions
    • 2.2 無 bo55 2 in cause and effect constructions
    • 2.3 無 bo55 3 in disjunctive constructions
    • 2.4 無 bo55 4 in proposal constructions
  • 3.Evolution of 無 bo55
    • 3.1Negative > negative conditional conjunctive
    • 3.2Negative conditional conjunctive > cause and effect conjunctive
    • 3.3Negative conditional conjunctive > disjunctive conjunctive
    • 3.4Disjunctive conjunctive > proposal conjunctive
  • 4.The typological features of the evolution of the negative in Southern Min
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • List of abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 8 July 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00170.hua
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