Disclaimer: This post was originally written in Chinese and translated into English by GPT-5.2.
[Abstract] The lexical grammaticalization trajectory of the negative words “没” and “没有” can roughly be summarized as follows: in the early Tang, V没 emerged; in the Yuan and Ming, Ad没 emerged; V没有 also emerged in the Yuan and Ming, but in time it was very likely earlier than Ad没, whereas Ad没有 emerged in the mid-to-late Ming. The lexical grammaticalization of “没” and “没有” both conformed to the trend of structural adjustment in the system of negative words in Early Modern Chinese and directly propelled the formation of the “没”-series negatives, which, together with the “不”-series negatives, ultimately constituted the basic binary division in the modern Chinese negative system. The article also discusses issues such as the source and mechanisms of the lexical grammaticalization of “没” and “没有,” the possible early use of “没” as a general negative adverb, and the formation of the modern Chinese negative system.
[Keywords] negative words 没 没有 lexical grammaticalization
The lexical grammaticalization of the negative words “没” and “没有” in Early Modern Chinese is a major event in the history of Chinese, bringing about the basic binary division between the “不” and “没” series of negatives in the modern Chinese negative system, with far-reaching influence. In this respect, previous scholars have achieved certain research results (Yang Rongxiang 1999; Shi Yuzhi et al. 2000; Xu Shiyi 2003; Ota Tatsuo 2003), but due to insufficient possession of data and a lack of careful fact-checking, these studies have certain shortcomings. Building on previous work, this paper extensively introduces new materials and new theories, and uses the “Early Modern Chinese Tagged Corpus” of Academia Sinica in Taiwan (hereafter “EMC Corpus”) and the Peking University CCL Corpus (hereafter “PKU Corpus”) to re-examine and re-interpret the deficiencies in earlier studies.
In Modern Chinese, both “没” and “没有” have two uses: as verbs and as adverbs. For the convenience of examining the lexical grammaticalization trajectory of “没” and “没有,” this paper denotes these two uses respectively as V没/V没有 and Ad没/Ad没有.
According to Shuowen Jiezi, the original meaning of “没” is “to sink, to submerge, to dive into water,” and later it was extended to meanings such as “to inundate; to fall into destitution; to disappear,” etc. Probably in the early Tang it was further extended to the V没 usage meaning “to lack; there is not” (7th century). For example, in Wang Fanzhi Poems Collated and Annotated:
(1) 漫作千年调，活得没多时。（〇三五）
(2) 人人觅长命，没地可种谷。（一〇三）
(3) 恶口深乖礼，条中却没文。（一九七）
(4) 相见作先拜，膝下没黄金 [1]。（二一〇）
(5) 一人吃一个，莫嫌没滋味。（三一八）
However, compared with the synonym “无,” the use of V没 is quite limited: in the whole book of 390 poems, only these 5 instances are found. In most cases “无” is used rather than “没,” for example:
(6) 草舍元无床，无毡亦无被。（〇三七）
“无” was probably not replaced by the later V没 until the early Ming. We counted the usage of V没 and “无” in Collected Vernacular Steles of the Yuan Dynasty, Lao Qida, and Lao Qida Eonhae [2], obtaining three sets of data: 22:34, 32:31, and 44:5, with the time spans involved being 1276–1336, around 1346, and 1483 respectively, which confirms this point. Thereafter, aside from being used in some expressions with a relatively strong Classical flavor (e.g., “恐后无凭”), “无” has disappeared from the spoken language.
Pan Wuyun (2002:309) holds that V没 derives from “无,” produced when “无” underwent phonological reduction in the course of grammaticalization, with the medial glide lost. This view is incorrect. First, the development of the “无” meaning by “没” is a natural semantic extension, and it is still an ordinary verb; its meaning has not undergone grammatical bleaching. Second, from the appearance of “没” in the early Tang to the replacement of “无” by “没” in early Ming colloquial speech, about 700 years elapsed; clearly the two do not stand in a phonological evolution relationship.
The emergence of Ad没 is the product of semantic bleaching of V没, closely related to the increasingly frequent use of V没, and the time is also roughly around the Yuan–Ming transition (Ota Tatsuo 2003:279). However, perhaps because it had just emerged and was not yet widely accepted socially, and because in usage it was not as standardized or frequent as the main expressions in the same semantic domain at the time such as “不曾,” Ad没 does not appear in the three representative Yuan and early-Ming colloquial documents cited above. But judging from the fact that in Yuan drama “没” can be used alone as a negative predicative reply (Kōsaka Jun’ichi 1997:245), Ad没 should have emerged around then. For example:
(7) [正末做听科云]扬州奴，你做什么来？[扬州奴云]没。您孩儿商议做买卖哩。
(8) [正末云]扬州奴，你说甚的？[扬州奴云]没。（扬州奴，上同。）
(9) [正末云]娄肯，曾见什么人来？[娄肯云]没。我则见鬼来。（生金阁第4折）
Also, “没揣的” is a common word in Yuan drama; Cuihongxiang: Children Reunited in Two Groups contains three instances, meaning “didn’t expect.” Here “的” is clearly an adverbial suffix marker; “没揣” is a compound, and “没” is an adverbial prefix meaning Ad没. In addition, according to our survey of the EMC Corpus, Ad没 appears 431 times in the late-Ming novel Jin Ping Mei, and thereafter it basically maintains this level of use; it is obviously impossible that it appeared out of thin air.
Semantic bleaching often relates to changes in syntactic position (Liu Jian et al. 1995:161). Zhang Yisheng (2000:3–4) once summarized that three kinds of structural relations—verb-object, serial-verb, and coordination—are the main syntactic environments that trigger the adverbialization of Chinese content words (verbs). V没 originally was generally used as the main predicate of a sentence; later it was also used as the first predicate in serial-predicate structures. For pragmatic reasons, it was followed by a predicate-like object or the second predicate of a serial-predicate structure, causing the weakening and bleaching of the verbal nature of V没 and promoting the formation of Ad没. The following examples come from the EMC Corpus:
(10) 是何人，此而立？数伴叫问，都没应挨；推筑再三，方始回答。（敦煌变文集新书•八相变）
(11) 侯门相府知有千万，读书人怕没为姻缘。（永乐大典戏文三种•张协状元）
(12) 却交我没亲没属，没靠没挨，没米没柴。（元刊杂剧三十种•薛仁贵衣锦还乡记）
(13) 君子没恁地直，那婆婆，丈夫也无这般刚。（元刊杂剧三十种•死生交范张鸡黍）
It should be noted that although the EMC Corpus treats the “没” in these examples as a “negative adverb,” in fact they are still V没: in (10) and (11), “没” is used as the first predicate in a serial-predicate structure, and the object “人” is omitted or implicit afterward. In (12) and (13), the predicate-like elements after “没” have strong referentiality, as can be seen from the nominal-verb parallelism before and after, and from the contrast between “没” and “无.” In (13), “没+referential word+adjective” expresses the “没” of “falling short of,” which is generally regarded as V没 (Lü Shuxiang 2002:282).
In addition, the bleaching from V没 to Ad没 also has a profound semantic basis and cognitive motivation. Semantically, bleaching from V没 to Ad没 is merely a shift from V没 negating a typical three-dimensional entity to Ad没 negating a typical one-dimensional event, which accords with the basic law that grammaticalization always shifts from space to time (Shen Jiaxuan 1994:18). Moreover, the objects negated by the two both have discrete, bounded characteristics; fundamentally they are consistent (Shi Yuzhi 2001). Many scholars in the past, from the perspective of the loss of the medial glide, have held that Ad没 derives from “未” (see Xu Shiyi 2003), thereby neglecting the semantic connection. And in fact, “未” was completely replaced by “不曾” in Yuan colloquial speech, e.g., in Thirty Yuan Printed Zaju Plays “未:不曾”=56:75, in Lao Qida “未:不曾”=0:21; this is clearly unrelated to the emergence of Ad没 and its subsequent widespread use.
As for the time when Ad没 emerged, some scholars hold different views. Wu Fuxiang (1995)认为Ad没始见于南宋，并举《张协状元》中的5条用例证明“没”“否定动作或状态已经发生”的用法应已产生。不过，根据我们对《张协状元》全书和吴福祥5条例证的调查，就“没”后接谓词性成分而言，其中只有一例可以看作是Ad没用例（不考虑体标记“过”的影响），其余的均属于上述V没在特殊语境的用法：
(14) 没瞒过我实是你灾。（永乐大典戏文三种•张协状元）
In addition, Xu Shiyi (2003:2) also cites several examples to prove that Ad没 already existed as early as the Tang–Five Dynasties to Jin period. However, among them the Tang–Five Dynasties example, as shown in (10), is a V没 example. In the Jin examples, the “没” in “没恁地撑” is still V没, for reasons as in the analysis of (13), while the “没” in “没转移好教圣贤打” is ambiguous and hard to determine. Worth mentioning is the “没” in “没理会,” which is often misidentified as Ad没 (Yang Rongxiang 1999:23).
In Modern Chinese, “没理会” means “didn’t notice,” but the “没理会” cited by Xu Shiyi and Yang Rongxiang cannot be interpreted this way, for example:
(15) 如读书人，初未理会得，却不去究心理会，问他《易》如何，便说中间说话与《书》甚处相类。问他《书》如何，便云与《诗》甚处相类。一齐都没理会。（朱子语类卷18）
(16) 何处疼，那面痛，教俺没理会。（西厢记诸宫调）
(17) 止缘初间不理会到十分，少刻便没理会那个是白，那个是皂，那个是酸，那个是咸。（朱子语类卷17）
According to our survey of the PKU Corpus, “没理会” occurs 69 times in Zhuzi Yulei, among which “没理会处” accounts for 9 instances and “没理会了” accounts for 16. In addition, “没理会” is modified by words such as: 一场 (2 instances), 一个 (2), 一重, 一齐 (3), 一向, 只, 更 (4), 都 (9), etc. Very clearly, Modern Chinese does not have the above kind of usage of “没理会.” On close analysis, “理会” here should be a noun, probably meaning “key point; understanding; insight.” As an idiom, “没理会” can roughly be understood as “not getting the point; having no idea (unable to understand; muddle-headed),” for example:
(18) 初做工夫时，欲做此一事，又碍彼一事，便没理会处。
(19) 今人大抵有贪多之病，初来只是一个小没理会，下梢成一个大没理会！
(20) 问：“范公说‘从心所以养血气’，如何？”曰：“更没理会。”
(21) “以我视，以我听”，恐怕我也没理会。
Of course, we do not deny that “理会” can sometimes also be regarded as a verb, especially as in (17). But even so, the “没” here can only be explained as a general negative adverb, far from Ad没. In (15), earlier there is “初未理会得,” clearly using “未” rather than “没” to express “at first still hadn’t understood thoroughly”; in context, the final “一齐都没理会” means that regarding the three works Yi, Shu, and Shi, they “all did not truly grasp/understand” or “all could not truly grasp/understand.” In (17), “没理会” is set in contrast with “不理会,” and has a result meaning, but it expresses a hypothetical or future negation; it can only be translated as “cannot grasp/discriminate,” rather than “did not/was unable to grasp/discriminate.” Seen this way, the “没理会” in (16) likewise merely says “I can’t make clear where on my body it hurts.”
In pre-Yuan texts, there indeed appear Ad没 examples that are hard to deny, like (14) and the following (22), but isolated examples prove little. We cannot, on the basis of these occasional and discontinuous written attestations, conclude that Ad没 emerged before the Yuan. If Ad没 had already emerged, then it would be unlikely that in the Yuan it would still be so hard to find a single clear example. In sum, the most reliable claim is that Ad没 emerged in the Yuan–Ming period.
(22) 厌善缘，贪恶境，早晚情田能戒省，万种随心没感惭，纤毫为（违）意嫌灾横。（敦煌变文集新书•维摩诘经讲经文(一)）
For historical reasons, the surviving colloquial corpus from the Yuan is limited; moreover, later compilations of relevant texts have all been processed, and their reliability is open to question. Earlier research did not pay enough attention to this, resulting in many factual errors, which are closely related to the issue of the lexical grammaticalization trajectory of “没有,” and therefore require special clarification.
Based on our examination of the EMC Corpus, the PKU Corpus, and some related studies, the earliest examples of “没有” can now be traced back to the Song–Yuan period, among which in the Southern Song 7 V没有 examples can be found, in the Yuan 77, and moreover in the Yuan there are already 5 Ad没有 examples. The sources of these materials fall into three categories, ranked by quantity: ① early (“Song–Yuan period”) vernacular fiction, basically all included in Feng Menglong’s Jingshi Tongyan; ② Lao Qida Eonhae, Pak Tongsa Eonhae, Lao Qida Xinshi, with Lao Qida Xinshi as the main one; ③ the spoken parts (宾白) of Yuan zaju, basically all included in Yuanquxuan compiled by Ming people. For ① and ③, Mei Tsu-lin (1984:133–148) long ago used four statistical indicators such as the proportion of usage of “没” and “没有,” and, drawing on various scholars’ views, demonstrated from multiple angles such as history and bibliography that most of these materials, which were not compiled until after the mid-Ming, can at most serve as corroborative evidence for the study of Song–Yuan colloquial grammar and should not be used directly as Song–Yuan data; we will not belabor it here. As for ②, according to our investigation, Lao Qida contains no word “没有”; in Lao Qida Eonhae, V没有 appears only 4 times; and Lao Qida Xinshi (1761) on this basis adds 29 V没有 examples and 3 Ad没有 examples. Pak Tongsa Eonhae was printed in 1677, and V没有 appears only 2 times, which should also have been added later.
“Negation” is one of the most important expressive categories in human natural language; its frequency is higher than that of ordinary vocabulary, and it is far more stable than ordinary vocabulary. It neither could suddenly disappear from a language system in a short time nor could it suddenly appear in it—just as with the replacement of “无” by V没, what lies between is a long coexistence and competition between new and old forms. Even considering the lag of written language in reflecting speech, V没有 and Ad没有 could not have emerged in the Song–Yuan and around the Yuan–Ming transition respectively (Ota Tatsuo 2003), because in all reliable Yuan texts, we do not even see the word “没有.” Careful observation shows that the sources of the above V没 data are all of the types of texts—fiction, drama, teaching materials—that pay great attention to colloquialness and audience acceptability in diction and phrasing; in their transmission they can easily undergo systematic deletions and revisions consciously or unconsciously, as shown by the revision process of Lao Qida. As for the lexical grammaticalization trajectory of “没有,” the above ①②③ materials are clearly not trustworthy, and their validity is quite limited.
The time when V没有 emerged was probably around the Yuan–Ming transition (14th century). The earliest examples we have seen so far come from the early-Ming Lao Qida Eonhae, with a total of 4 instances. From the timing of the earliest examples, V没有 likely emerged earlier than Ad没. For example:
(23) 往年便只是三钱一斤，如今为没有卖的，五钱一斤家也没处寻里。（306B）
(24) 我看了也，上下衢都没有，十分老了。（338B）
(25) 官星没有，只宜做买卖。（603B）
(26) 你卖主自家看，里头没有一锭儿低的。（363B）
In the Yuan-era old version of Lao Qida, in the first three examples “没有” is written as “没,” and in the last example it is written as “无,” showing that the probability of scribal error is not high, and also indicating that the lexical status of V没有 had already received official recognition and begun to spread.
The emergence of V没有 is the product of analogy with the “无有” structure. In terms of deep structure, both V没有 and “无有” can be described as: negation marker + possessive verb “有.” Since the constituent elements, structural hierarchy, and structural relations are all the same, the result of this structural analogy is the equivalence of V没有 and “无有” in semantic function—both serving as existential-negation verbs for nominal constituents. Combinations like “不有” and “未有” also seem to fit the above formula in deep structure, but note that “不有” often carries a hypothetical or interrogative tone, while “未有,” on the basis of “没有,” additionally contains “irrealis” tense information; moreover, these two are less lexicalized and have fewer examples, and are essentially different from V没有, so they cannot be the objects of analogy. In addition, the appearance of V没有 around the Yuan–Ming transition did not directly cause the disappearance of “无” and “无有” in Northern dialects; rather, together with V没 it coexisted with “无” and “无有” for a period, and in the end the latter were gradually replaced. Thus, the relationship between V没有 and “无有” is not, as Ota Tatsuo says, a lexical replacement of “无” by “没,” but rather a competition and rise-and-fall of new and old forms within the Early Modern Chinese negative system. This again confirms that “无” is not the source of V没.
Harris et al. (1995:97) point out that analogy is the extension and application of existing syntactic rules. This can in fact also be seen as an important driving force that triggers reanalysis and promotes new grammaticalization, consistent with the principle of economy in human natural language. From the perspective of syntax theory, analogy is the fundamental reason for the generativity of human natural language. The emergence of Ad没有 is related to its functional analogy with Ad没.
So-called functional analogy, simply put, refers to a linguistic element gradually analogizing (in use), on the basis of semantic identity or similarity with another element, some grammatical function of the latter, thus producing an analogical form; therefore, before and after the analogy there is no structural combination and reanalysis, unlike structural analogy. There are many such examples in the history of Chinese; the most classic are: “将、把、拿,” which mean “to grasp/hold,” each bleached in turn into grammatical markers of the disposal construction; and “被、叫、让、给,” which mean “to suffer/undergo,” each bleached in turn into grammatical markers of the passive construction. This reflects the guiding role of semantics for syntactic function and grammaticalization.
The process whereby V没有 bleached into Ad没有 is clearly the result of functional analogy. According to our examination of the EMC Corpus, before the appearance of Ad没有 there was no obvious process of “change of syntactic position of V没有 → semantic bleaching”; in fact, in early usage the frequency with which V没有 served as the first predicate in serial-predicate structures was even lower than the frequency of Ad没有. By contrast, the appearance of Ad没有 is mainly related to the frequency of use of V没有; the two are positively correlated. The overall trend is a gradual increase in the frequency of Ad没有 and a continual leveling of the V没有/Ad没有 ratio. Below are the usage of V没有 and Ad没有 in Ming–Qing novels and relevant examples:
| Work | Water Margin | Journey to the West | Jin Ping Mei | Pingyao Zhuan | Xingshi Yinyuan | The Scholars | Dream of the Red Chamber | Qiludeng |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V没有 | 16 | 67 | 96 | 50 | 654 | 204 | 448 | 160 |
| Ad没有 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 89 | 16 | 222 | 30 |
(27) 赤条条的一毫丝线儿也没有在身上。（水浒传第103回）
(28) 自幼儿是太子登基，城门也不曾远出，没有见你这等凶汉。（西游记第30回）
(29) 迎儿道：“我并没有看见，只怕娘数错了。”（金瓶梅第8回）
(30) 晁大舍看了庚帖，半会子没有做声。 （醒世姻缘第18回）
Among these, the single instance in Water Margin comes from after the first hundred chapters and is very likely an addition in a later version, thus not very reliable. Judging from this, Ad没有 should have emerged in the mid-to-late Ming (16th century), and gradually became popular around the Ming–Qing transition.
The process whereby V没有 bleached into Ad没有 can be described as: with increasing frequency of use of V没有, V没=V没有>Ad没有=Ad没. Precisely due to functional analogy, the process from V没有 to Ad没有 took only about 200 years, whereas from V没 to Ad没 took about 700 years. Of course, the trend toward disyllabification of Chinese vocabulary, and the fact that “没” and “没有” differ by only one syllable phonetically, were also powerful driving forces in this process.
Finally, we must again mention Xu Shiyi’s view. He believes the following example is the earliest source of Ad没有:
(31) 才信，便当定如此，若恁地慢忽，便没有成。（朱子语类第21卷）
This is in fact a misunderstanding. First, this judgment would lead to the paradox that Ad没有 emerged earlier than V没有, which violates the basic law of grammaticalization and is therefore impossible. Second, “有成” is an old idiom, scattered in ancient texts; therefore, the structural hierarchy of “没有成” should be “没/有成” rather than “没有/成.” Note that “没” here means “will not,” and, like the “没” in “没理会,” expresses a general negation toward the future, not Ad没. Finally, “没有” appears only this once in the entire Zhuzi Yulei and contemporaneous texts; an isolated example proves little and is not persuasive.
The above examples (17) and (31) seem to indicate that before Ad没 emerged, “没” once had an adverbial use expressing general negation. According to our survey of the PKU Corpus, similar examples in Zhuzi Yulei include:
(32) 凡人看文字，初看时心尚要走作，道理尚见得未定，犹没奈他何。
(33) 看见那做诸侯卿相不是紧要，却不是高尚要恁地说，是他自看得没紧要。
(34) 但他是与这般人相投，都自恁地没检束。
The complexity is that it is not impossible to take these “没” as V没. For instance, in (32) after “没奈他何” something like “的办法” may be omitted or implicit; in (33) and (34), “紧要” and “检束” may either have been nominalized here or may have been used as nouns in the first place. Just as “理会” in “没理会” discussed in Section 2 is often used as a noun. Cognitively, “V没什么” is semantically related to “不怎么样”; for example, among the official proclamations collected in Collected Vernacular Steles of the Yuan Dynasty, many end with “没/无体例的勾当休做,” but there is also one instance of “不依体例的勾当”; “没/无体例” clearly means “不依体例.” The reason why the above “没” can be either verb or adverb is related to the strongly predicate-like component following it (possibly nominal), which creates analytic difficulty. Moreover, this difficulty is sometimes related to dialect factors. For example:
(35) 许公道∶“此事与下官无干，只吾女没说话就罢了。”（金玉奴棒打薄情郎）
If one does not know that “说话” in the above example is a noun meaning “words,” it is easy to analyze “没说话” as “don’t speak.” According to Lin Lunlun (1984), although using “说话” as a noun is rare today, there are quite a few examples of this usage in Feng Menglong’s “Three Words,” and modern Cantonese still preserves this usage.
So does “没” have a general negative adverbial use? The preliminary conclusion of this paper is: yes, but it mainly exists in ancient southern written language, likely produced under the influence of southern dialects, and is not used in northern dialect speech. To clarify this issue, it is first necessary to understand the distributional differences between V没 and “无” in the North and South. Limited by space and the complexity of the issue, this paper can only briefly discuss it as follows.
Pan Wuyun (2002) noted that to this day “无” is still widely used in southern dialects, while northern dialects basically use only “没” and not “无.” Moreover, in the spoken language of northern and southern dialects, the distribution of “无” and “没” also shows a strict complementary opposition. Although northern and southern written language, due to the influence of Mandarin, tends to converge and also mixes in Classical elements and may not reflect true speech, dialect influence is after all difficult to cast off quickly; the above phenomenon is also basically consistent with the usage of “没” and “无” in southern and northern Ming–Qing novels as reflected in the EMC Corpus (the north–south usage of “没有” is similar; see the relevant statistical table in the previous section). The following are relevant statistics [3]:
| Work | Water Margin | Journey to the West | Jin Ping Mei | Pingyao Zhuan | Xingshi Yinyuan | The Scholars | Dream of the Red Chamber | Qiludeng |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language background | Jiangsu Xinghua | Jiangsu Huai’an | Shandong Linyi | Jiangsu Suzhou | Shandong Zhangqiu | Anhui Quanjiao | Beijing/Nanjing | Henan Baofeng |
| “无” | 857 | 933 | 440 | 294 | 423 | 201 | 877 | 545 |
| V没 | 464 | 328 | 934 | 219 | 916 | 128 | 840 | 517 |
| Ad没 | 2/27 | 4/22 | 431 | 17/31 | 759 | 2/7 | 550 | 251 |
When studying the areal shift and distribution of Chinese negative words, Hashimoto Mantaro (1985:76–85) found that for the “不”-type negatives meaning “prohibition; unnecessary,” most southern dialects use a nasal consonant, whereas the North uses a plosive (stop), and this shows a striking typological similarity to the Old Chinese bilabial stop series “不”“弗”“非” and bilabial nasal series “无”“勿”“微.” Zhang Min (2002:7–40) summarized this north–south dialectal difference in the phonological forms of negatives into two series, [m-] and [p-], and, through observing the Old Chinese negative system, inferred that the [m-] series is essentially existential negation, whereas the [p-] series denotes non-existential negation. “无” and “不” are representative words of the two series respectively, and [m-] negatives tend to expand into the functional domain of general negation, i.e., the [p-] series. This process is generally: existential negation > agent-oriented negative modality > speaker-oriented negative modality. Finally, he argues that the [m-]-series negative system of southern dialects had formed no later than the Tang–Five Dynasties period and has continued to this day, whereas northern dialects still have a two-series [m-][p-] system (“没”“不”). This is what he calls the “negation–existence evolutionary circle” in Old Chinese, Middle Chinese, and modern southern dialects.
If Zhang Min’s research is reliable, we can easily reach this conclusion: the general negative adverbial use of “没” is a written, temporary use produced by functional analogy with “无,” and this functional analogy occurred in the southern dialect area. Evidence is that the general negative adverbial use of “没” appears after the Tang–Five Dynasties and is almost all concentrated in southern texts, such as Zhuzi Yulei, Yuan drama, etc. Besides the examples cited above, for example:
(36)（做怒科云）嗏！刘大，你来这里子末？去！这钱没与你。（元刊杂剧三十种•散家财天赐老生儿）
In addition, as shown in the above table, when Ad没 had long been widely used in the North, relevant examples in the South were always quite scarce; the usage frequencies of the two are extremely asymmetrical. This is likely because the [p-]-series “不” is incompatible with the southern dialect negative system. Even more interestingly, as we discussed above, Ad没 is likely later than the emergence of V没有, and the “没” in V没有 is a general negative marker, similar to the “无” in “无有.” Putting these together, our conjecture is: V没有 was very likely promoted by contact between northern and southern dialects in the Yuan–Ming period, and the reanalysis caused by the emergence of V没有 accelerated the rate at which V没 bleached in northern dialects; due to profound semantic foundations and cognitive motivations, and the need for structural adjustment of the entire Early Modern Chinese negative system, Ad没 also emerged shortly thereafter. Of course, these are only conjectures, but they are not without explanatory power and are worth further detailed argumentation.
The principle of divergence is an important law of grammaticalization, referring to the multidirectional bleaching of a content word (Shen Jiaxuan 1994:19). If the above conjecture accords with reality, then the bidirectional bleaching phenomenon before and after V没 may provide a new explanatory perspective, namely, emphasizing the influence of language contact on grammaticalization, which is not without theoretical significance.
The lexical grammaticalization of “没/没有” promoted the formation of the basic binary division between the “不”-series and the “没”-series negatives in the modern Chinese negative system; but from another perspective, their lexical grammaticalization trajectory also occurred against the background of structural adjustment of the Early Modern Chinese negative system. This can be seen by comparing the main negative words of three periods: Ancient Chinese [4], Early Modern Chinese, and Modern Chinese. Below is a comparative table we compiled with reference to Xiang Xi (1998:82–84, 269) and Yang Rongxiang (1999):
| Ancient Chinese | 不、弗 | 无、蔑、末 | 未 | 非、匪、微 | 勿、毋、莫 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Modern Chinese | 不 | 无、V没、V没有 | 未、不曾、Ad没、Ad没有 | 不是 | 莫、休、别 |
| Modern Chinese | 不 | 没、没有 | 不是 | 别、不要 |
This issue can be understood as follows: the lexical grammaticalization of “没/没有” was accompanied by the successive elimination of the original existential-negation verb “无” and adverbs “未、不曾,” and thus the “没”-series negatives became a system in their own right. At the same time, the trend toward disyllabification of negatives since Early Modern Chinese (in contrast to Ancient Chinese) accelerated the elimination or affixation trajectory of the monosyllabic negatives of Ancient Chinese. And since the negative “不” expresses general negation and is the simplest and most stable in nature, it continued to be preserved as a negative marker that is highly affix-like in word class and highly sememe-like in semantics (see Dong Xiufang 2002:251–261). Through combining with other sememes, the compounds formed from “不,” such as “不是” and “不要,” have replaced or are replacing the original negatives “非” and “别” that expressed judgment negation and volitional negation. Thus the “不”-series negatives basically formed another system of their own. By comparison, the formation of the “不”-series negatives not only simplified the original negative system, but the compound negatives composed of “不” are also more explicit and clear in meaning, which accords with the historical evolutionary principles of economy and clarity in natural language. From this perspective, the successive emergence of “没” and “没有” was in fact also a product driven by the trend toward disyllabification of Chinese negatives, and likewise accords with the historical evolutionary principles of economy and clarity in natural language. This is a necessary condition for the ultimate formation of the “没”-series negatives [5].
As is well known, disyllabification is a major trend in the historical development of Chinese vocabulary; the disyllabification of negatives in Early Modern Chinese is merely part of this larger trend. The essence of lexical disyllabification is the compounding of words [6], which reflects the developmental trajectory of Chinese vocabulary from synthetic to analytic (see Hu Chiru 2005, 2008), and the formation of the two series of negatives “不” and “没” clearly illustrates this well. In addition, the establishment of result-complement structures, aspect markers, and generally bounded predicates are also major changes in Early Modern Chinese worth attention, and these changes are of great significance for the establishment of the “没”-series negatives and the modern Chinese negative system (Shi Yuzhi et al. 2000). From the facts of Chinese, changes in syntactic structure and changes in lexical structure interact and are connected: not only do they overlap in time, but fundamentally they both originate from changes in Chinese conceptual structure (synthetic → analytic) (Tai Haoyi 2002). This can be regarded as the deep cause of the structural adjustment of the Early Modern Chinese negative system. Precisely because of the interaction between the lexical and syntactic levels of Chinese, and accompanying the lexical grammaticalization of “没/没有” and the successive elimination of the original existential-negation verb “无” and adverbs “未、不曾,” the “没”-series negatives ultimately formed. Below we briefly demonstrate this from two aspects:
The replacement of “无.” Why could V没 replace “无” in northern dialects, while “无” did not, like V没, develop into an Ad无 and form a similar “无”-series negative system? For now, this paper cannot provide a fully satisfactory answer; perhaps the question cannot be answered. Our current view is that this is likely because “无” arose very early, and also very early developed a clear division of labor with “未.” Under the influence of disyllabification of negatives in Early Modern Chinese, “无” developed an affixation tendency relatively early. But at the same time, since it could not further bleach into Ad无, this hindered the formation of a “无”-series negative system. After the Ming, “无” disappeared from the spoken language.
The successive elimination of “未” and “不曾.” Shi Yuzhi et al. (2000) argue that due to the establishment of result-complement structures and the formation of the aspect marker system in the Song–Yuan period, predicate verb structures generally became bounded, making “未,” which was mainly used to negate unbounded constituents, unable to adapt to the new change, and ultimately eliminated after the 15th century. Although the later “不曾” continued to be used in Ming–Qing colloquial speech, the emergence of the aspect marker “过” weakened the semantic status of “不曾.” In addition, semantically “不曾” negates the predicate’s action and result as a whole (if there is a quantitative element after the predicate, “不曾” also cannot be used), which does not accord with the semantic characteristics of the analytic result-complement structure, and therefore it was gradually replaced by Ad没 and Ad没有. Shi et al.’s discussion is relatively systematic and detailed and is quite enlightening and can be consulted, but it overemphasizes the influence of changes at the syntactic level while neglecting the direct role of disyllabification at the lexical level in the elimination of “未,” thus having some one-sidedness. In fact, as noted in Section 1, “未” was already completely replaced by “不曾” in the Yuan (14th century), not after the 15th century. “不曾” probably emerged in the Six Dynasties, with semantic function roughly equivalent to “未,” and other synonyms used in large quantities in the same period include “未曾”“未尝,” etc. (Yang Rongxiang 1999), all of which indicate the affixation tendency of “未.” Moreover, although “未” has long disappeared from daily colloquial speech, in Dream of the Red Chamber we still see many examples where “未” is used before bounded predicates (mostly in expressions with relatively strong written flavor), for example:
(37) 雨村犹未看完，忽听传点，人报：“王老爷来拜。”（第4回）
(38) 原来袭人实未睡着，不过故意装睡，引宝玉来怄他顽耍。（第8回）
(39) 宝玉……想了一想:“原来他们比我的知觉在先,尚未解悟,我如今何必自寻苦恼?”（第22回）
(40) 一钟茶未吃完，只见那贾琮来问宝玉好。（第24回）
A careful look at the four examples above reveals that when “未” is used before a verb-complement phrase, it generally needs to be preceded by a monosyllabic adverb to make up a disyllabic unit, such as “犹未”, “实未”, “尚未”; otherwise it sounds quite unnatural. This shows that the phasing out of “未” is the result of the combined effect of the internal disyllabification of negative words and the widespread emergence of externally bounded predicates; however, judging from the analysis in this paper, the role of the former should be more direct and profound.
[1] The original book’s proofreader notes: “没文”: there is no such provision in the law. “膝下没黄金”: in contrast to “男儿膝下有黄金” (“a real man has gold beneath his knees”), meaning that one should be humble and deferential to others. ↩
[2] The four Lao Qida editions used in this paper, in chronological order, are Lao Qida, Lao Qida Eonhae, Lao Qida Xinshi, and Chongkan Lao Qida, all taken from the appendix “Sentence-by-sentence comparison of four editions of Lao Qida” in Li Taesu (2003). Citations are marked afterward in accordance with the original book’s format. ↩
[3] In the Modern Chinese Corpus there are quite a few mistagging cases in annotating the negative adverbs “无” and “没”. After verification, most instances of the negative adverb “无” are still actually the verb usage (mainly used in double-negative sentences), and thus are all classified under the verb “无”. As for the negative adverb “没”, in northern works most are Ad 没 and mistagging is very rare, so we retain the original data; in southern works mistagging is more common, so we rechecked these and marked them on the left side of the slash in the relevant data in the table above. Due to limited time and energy, statistical errors are unavoidable, but we believe the table above is basically sufficient to reflect the north–south differences in the use of “没” and “无”. ↩
[4] Here, following Lü Shuxiang’s criterion, the history of Chinese before the period of Early Modern Chinese is collectively referred to as Ancient Chinese, but in terms of time we take the 7th century, i.e., the early Tang, as the boundary. ↩
[5] After “没” became established as a negative word, the affixation tendency of the negative “没” has become increasingly evident. As for Modern Chinese, although in terms of intuition “没” and “没有” are basically freely interchangeable, according to our investigation of three tagged Modern Chinese corpora, in spoken language “没” still has a slight advantage and is used more frequently than “没有”, but in written language the frequency of “没有” has comprehensively surpassed “没”. As for the use of “没”, in both spoken and written language, Ad 没 is used more frequently than V 没. The use of V 没 is relatively quite restricted; compare: “*钱我没” and “钱我没有”. According to Li Yan (2010), “没” even shows a tendency to gradually change toward a sentence-final modal particle. ↩
[6] According to Zhou Jian (2003:152), based on an exhaustive count of 32,346 disyllabic words, 96.57% of Modern Chinese “disyllabic composite units” can be organized and explained by applying syntactic-structure patterns. Although the “syntactic structures” here are not entirely “subject–predicate, coordinate, modifier–head, verb–object, verb–complement”, these major Chinese syntactic structures are undoubtedly the most important components. ↩