中文的否定性「以前」子句與虛否定的跨語言差異

Negation under Yiqian ‘Before’ in Mandarin Chinese and Cross-linguistic Variation in Expletive Negation

本文主要探討為何否定中文的「以前」子句不會對整個句子的真假值條件產生影響。「以前」的一個主要特質就是其補語子句所指稱的情狀必須是一個可變事態，變化之前的先前事態，通常以否定句來表達，是肯定句所表達的事態尚未存在的狀態，變後狀態則是進入該肯定事態的狀態。「以前」的語意會根據其補語子句究竟表達先前事態或是變後事態來選擇事態的最終點或起始點作為語意解釋的參考點。否定子句選擇事態的最後時間點當作參考點，肯定子句選擇事態的最初時間點當作參考點。「以前」底下的否定不改變句意，其主要原因就是因為「否定事態的最後一個時間點以前」和「肯定事態的最初時間點以前」所表達的意思是幾乎不可區分的。除了對中文「以前」底下的否定做深入的研究，本文也探討不同語言間虛否定的跨語言差異如何解釋，我們提出不同語言間虛否定分布的寬窄主要取決於一個語言否定詞究竟是[+可解釋]或是[-可解釋] 所決定，[-可解釋]的否定詞，虛否定用法分布較寬，因為認可詞較多，[+可解釋]的否定詞虛否定用法則分布較窄，因為其語意解釋是獨立的。

This article deals with the question of why negation under yiqian ‘before’ in Mandarin Chinese does not alter the truth conditions of the sentence. I propose that the complement clause of yiqian must denote a situation that exhibits a potential change of state from the prior nonexistent state to the resultant post-state. The semantic interpretation of yiqian is sensitive to this change of state and may select either the initial or final point of the complement eventuality as a reference time, depending upon whether the complement clause denotes the priorstate or the post-state. The addition of mei under yiqian does not change the meaning of the sentence because before the latest time of the prior-state is truth-conditionally indistinguishable from before the earliest time of the post-state. In addition to Mandarin Chinese, this article discusses cross-linguistic variation of expletive negation in some typologically different languages, showing that the wide or narrow distribution of expletive negation may be due to the [±interpretable] feature that a negation marker carries in a given language.