How have Classical Chinese negative elements (e.g. 否、無) preserved in dialects?

[ipsi()]

As part of my study of Classical Chinese, I'm looking into how the various negative elements in Classical Chinese (e.g. 不、非、否、弗、莫、未、勿、etc) have been preserved in Chinese dialects. This is not exactly an in-depth or detailed essay. I'm just looking for a brief overview, basically. Word length is 1500 words, and I'm also trying to incorporate something about how they're still used in public signs and the like, and why (which is getting posted to another topic elsewhere). This only relates to the use of negative elements, other bits are only going to be included if they're relevant.

If anyone can give me any help, that would be great. It's also due Friday... (I've been slack). Suggested readings would be great too.

[ipsi()]

It's a little depressing that this is the top result on Google for this sort of thing.

[roddy]

On public signs - about 1,000 or so of the photos on signese.com are searchable, so you could find examples of usage that way - ie for 无.

it's a start

[ipsi()]

Thanks - I hadn't realised some were searchable .

Also, this may help some people (if they ever end up with the same question):

https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/dspace/bitstream/1887/2446/1/349_016.pdf - it's an old discussion (with toneless romanisation only ), discussing some aspects of negation in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taiwanese, which is going to help me a bit.

[江静rita]

and 甭............

[trien27]

甭 is the same as

[anonymoose]

As far as I know, shanghainese uses 勿 where mandarin uses 不. However, shanghainese not being a written language, it's not always clear which character corresponds to which word, so most Shanghai natives would not know that the character is 勿. I got this from a few books on shanghainese that I have, but the books are not consistent. Some use 伐 instead, but this is because the mandarin pronunciation of 伐 is closer to what they want to say in shanghainese.

[muyongshi]

甭 is the same as

Is that in the form of a question?

If so check out:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/2-favourite-chinese-musician3290

and 12 and 14 of this:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/178-cool-chinese-characters&page=2

[Hofmann]

In Cantonese (apparently not Hong Kong Cantonese) a Classical usage of 無 is retained.

[skylee]

In Cantonese (apparently not Hong Kong Cantonese) a Classical usage of 無 is retained.

I don't understand. How is it apparent?

[Hofmann]

A few Cantonese speakers in that thread say that they use/hear "X 無" in place of "X 唔 X." e.g. instead of "你餓唔餓?" it's "你餓無?"

Someone called "wai ming" wrote that he believes that one does not use that construction in Hong Kong Cantonese, except "你知道無?" and "好無?"

[wai ming]

Someone called "wai ming" wrote that he believes that one does not use that construction in Hong Kong Cantonese, except "你知道無?" and "好無?"

Since that's me you're talking about, I'd like to clarify a few things :

1. I am a she
   
2. I am not a native Cantonese speaker
   
3. It is my *impression* that HKers do not use this construction - doesn't mean that they don't, just that I haven't encountered them using it like I have Malaysian Cantonese speakers
   
4. It was actually hkmike who stated that "你知道無?" and "好無?" are used in HK
   

[Quest]

好无 is just a contraction of 好唔好。唔好 pronounced fast (mm ho) becomes 无 (mo)。

无 in 你知道无 is not the same. Here 无 means 没有, and I think it's a non-standard way of saying 你知唔知道？probably due to dialectal influence.

[Mark Yong]

Originally Posted by anonymoose:

As far as I know, shanghainese uses 勿 where mandarin uses 不. However, shanghainese not being a written language, it's not always clear which character corresponds to which word, so most Shanghai natives would not know that the character is 勿. I got this from a few books on shanghainese that I have, but the books are not consistent. Some use 伐 instead, but this is because the mandarin pronunciation of 伐 is closer to what they want to say in shanghainese.

In 湯志祥's book 基礎上海話, the character 伐 "va" is used to represent the interrogative final, equivalent to 嗎 "ma" in Standard Mandarin. He uses 勿 "ve" exclusively as the negative particle.

It seems that the Central dialects (e.g. 吳 Wu) have v- beginnings for the negative particle, where the Southern dialects (e.g. 粵 Yue, 閩 Min, 客家 Kejia) have m- beginnings.

[Mark Yong]

Originally Posted by anonymoose:

However, shanghainese not being a written language, it's not always clear which character corresponds to which word, so most Shanghai natives would not know that the character is 勿.

To sidetrack a little, and riding the momentum of the above statement:

Spoken Shanghainese generally made exclusive use of 勿 "ve" for all negatives. However, prior to the advent of Mandarin being used as the standard pronunciation, Chinese characters were generally read out using the pronunciation of the reader's dialect. In the case of Shanghainese, how were the negatives like 不, 無, 莫, 未, etc. pronounced in Shanghainese (or Wu, in general) when read?

[Mugi]

It seems that the Central dialects (e.g. 吳 Wu) have v- beginnings for the negative particle, where the Southern dialects (e.g. 粵 Yue, 閩 Min, 客家 Kejia) have m- beginnings.

For most Southern Min (閩南) dialects, only the copula negative begins with an [m] - all others begin with (eg in Taiwanese 唔/毋/嘸/不/吥(是) m7(-si7) vs 無 bo5, 未 be7, [不會]/[勿會] boe7, 莫 bok8 )

[melop]

The negative word "m" 唔 in Cantonese could be a simplification of "mu" 無. Compare 五 ng, which is from something like "ngu" from middle Chinese.

[Hofmann]

They could all have stemmed from the same thing, as they sound kind of alike:

不弗非莫無唔未勿冇嗎

They all have either labiodental, bilabial, or labialized velar initials.

[CrispinChan]

Better state I'm from Hong Kong! From my point of view, the frequency of the presence of these words are in sequence:

(唔未冇)非莫無勿不弗 << just for Hongkongers

Meanwhile, 唔 and 冇 are just slang, 未 can be a slang or not! 不無非勿莫 are definitely written words in Hong Kong! I ain't heard the word 弗 in Hong Kong, neither slang nor written words...

However, if you choose to learn Mandarin, let's forget the two words - 唔and 冇! There haven't been these slang there! The order of frequency is therefore become:

不無非勿未莫弗 << Idk if it's true but I reckon it helps!

[CrispinChan]

I'm sorry, they are not slang for 冇 and 唔, but instead - they are oral lang., I just deem slang as oral lang in English, Sorry!