汉语否定词“不”与“没”的比较

A Comparison of Chinese Negatives: bu and mei

汉语否定词“不”与“没”都具备否定义的核心特征,又都携带时体特征,“不”的时体意义为“当前”“将来”,“没”的时体意义为“过去”“完成”。2个否定词的时体意义可以帮助解释2个否定词含义反差、含义互补及含义中和等3种分布情况。可通过时态修饰语添加、否定词“辖域”观察,来对“不”“没”这2个否定词时体特征构拟加以证明。在对2个否定词分布的认识上可进一步讨论2个否定词的标记性差异,认为“不”的标记性相对较弱。

Both bu(不)and mei(没)possess the core negative senses and they also carry tense and aspect features:bu conveys present and future senses while mei imparts past and perfect senses.Their tense and aspect senses helped explain the semantic contrast,complementation and neutralization phenomena exhibited by the two words.The hypothesized tense and aspect features of the two words were supported through addition of tense modifiers and the observation of the scope of negation.On the basis of the observed distribution of the two negative words,their differences in markedness were further discussed and a conclusion was reached that the markedness of bu is relatively weaker.