Abstract
This paper aims at providing a semantic account of the mechanism informing the use of negative modals in standard Chinese. Based on the notion of modal suppletion and negation placement strategies (de Haan 1997), it will be shown that:
in the negative form each modal takes on its prominent value;
this prominent modal value displays the normative source orientation (Hsieh 2005), where the Situation-oriented normative source can include the Speaker-oriented normative source and, in particular cases in the domain of Possibility, also the Subject-oriented one;
a negative modal admits different modal meanings only if there is no pragmatic conflict between them, as in the case of epistemic and non-epistemic modalities.
Moreover, I will show that in non-epistemic modalities the suppletion mechanism is related to the need for normative disambiguation and is characterized by pragmatic exclusion and semantic inclusion (respectively in the Necessity and Possibility domains). In the epistemic area, on the other hand, the mandatory suppletion of the Speaker-oriented adverbs fulfills the condition of semantic well-formedness of the sentence and, for the other epistemic items, a major role is played by the strategy of negation placement (with the result that the syntactic negation mirrors the semantic property of this modality).
Funding statement: Funding: This research was partially funded by MOFA Taiwan Fellowship program.
About the author
Carlotta Sparvoli is adjunct Professor of Modern Chinese at the University of Parma and at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. In 2012 she was granted a research fellowship from the Italian Ministry of University and Research and won a Taiwan MOFA fellowship. She is Board Member and Secretary of the European Association of Chinese Linguistics (EACL) and of CASLAR. Her major fields of research are the semantics of modal expressions and tonal phonology.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Shou-hsin Teng, Chia-Ling Hsieh, Zhao-Hong Han and two anonymous reviewers for the insightful suggestions. Of course, all the mistakes are mine.
Appendix
Negative forms and prominent value in the Necessity domain.
| Modality | NECESSITY | ||||
| Epistemic | Non-epistemic | ||||
| Participant-external | Participant-internal | ||||
| Anankastic | Deontic | ||||
| Source orientation | SITUATION | SPEAKER | SITUATION | SPEAKER | SUBJECT |
| Usage | Certainty | Inevitability | Obligation | Need | |
| Prominent marker | 一定 | 该, 应该,肯定, | 必须, děi 得, | 应该, 要, 该 | 需要 |
| Other markers accepted, in the declarative form | 肯定,该, 应该 děi 得, 要, | děi 得, 要, 一定 | 要, 应该 | děi 得, 必须 | 要, děi 得 |
| External negation | Uncertainty | Exemption | / | Release from need | |
| Logical notation | ¬□ | ¬□ = ◊¬ | ¬□ | ||
| Negative forms of prominent marker | 不一定 | / | Specialized suppletion | 不需要, | |
| 未必 | 无需 | ||||
| Suppletion A | / | 不一定 | Not admitted | ||
| Suppletion B | / | 可能不 | 可以不, 能不 | 不许要 | |
| Specialized suppl. | / | / | 不用, 不必, 无须 | ||
| Internal negation | Certainty that not | / | Prohibition | Need not to | |
| Logical notation | □¬ | □ ¬= ¬◊ | □¬ | ||
| Neg. forms of prominent marker | 一定不 | 该不, | 不应该, | 需要不 | |
| 应该不, | 不要 | ||||
| 肯定不 | |||||
| 不该/应该+ | |||||
| Stative Verb | |||||
| Suppletion A | / | / | 必须不 | / | |
| Suppletion B | / | / | 不可以 | / | |
| 不得 bù dé | |||||
Negative forms and prominent value in the Possibility domain.
| Modality | POSSIBILITY | |||||
| Epistemic | Non-epistemic | |||||
| Participant-external | Participant-internal | |||||
| Anankastic | Deontic | |||||
| Source orientation | SITUATION | SPEAKER | SITUATION | SPEAKER | SUBJECT | SITUATION |
| Usage | Probability | Feasibility | Permission | Ability | Accomplishment | |
| Prominent marker | 可能 | 会 | 能, 能夠 | 可以, 可 | 会, | V1 得 V2 |
| V1 得 V2 | (POT) | |||||
| Other markers accepted, in the declarative form | 能 | 可 | 可以, 可 | 能 | 能, 可以, 可 | 能 |
| External negation | Improbability | Impossibility | Permission denial | Inability | Failure | |
| Logical notation | ¬◊ | ¬◊ | ¬◊ = □¬, | ¬◊ | ||
| Negative forms of prominent marker | 不可能 | 不会 | 不能夠, 不能, | 不可以, 不可, | 不会, | V1 不 V2, |
| 不得 | V1 得不 V2 | 不能 | ||||
| Suppletion A | / | / | / | 不能, 不行 | / | / |
| Suppletion B | / | / | / | 不应该 | / | / |
| Specialized suppl. | / | / | / | / | / | / |
| Internal negation | Probability that not | Possibility not to | Release from obligation | / | Ability to refrain from | |
| Logical notation | ◊¬ | ◊¬ | ◊¬ = ¬□, | *◊¬ | ◊¬ | |
| Neg. forms of prominent marker | 可能不 | 会不 | 能不 | 可以不, | *会不 | 能不 |
| 能不 | ||||||
| Suppletion A | / | / | / | / | / | / |
| Suppletion B | / | / | / | / | / | / |
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