Focus, metalinguistic negation and contrastive negation
重点, 后设否定和对比否定
Ling-hsia Yeh 叶陈凌霞

Abstract 摘要
Bushi, the negative form of the focus marker shi, is generally considered to appear in an instance of anaphiric negation, in which the negative element signals an objection to a prior utterance. This paper sets out to argue that other than rejecting a previous utterance, bushi is a negative focus marker since it has to refer to an aspect of the utterance in question. A clause of rejection when coupled with a clause of rectification constitutes a construction of contrastive negation, of which the archetype is bushi X shi Y or shi Y bushi X. A construction of contrastive negation often lends itself to the use of metalinguistic negation, which is about the appropriate use of word(s). Both Metalinguistic Negation and different forms of Contrastive Negation have been studied in this paper. Finally, the study shows that the negative focus marker is insensitive to certain syntactic constraints which are observed by the negative operators bu and mei(you).

本论文的主旨在于讨论重点指示词 “是” 的否定词 “不是” 的特性及其涵盖分布性。作为重点否定词，“不是” 可以出现于后设否定结构或对比结构中。在对比否定结构中，又可以有：“紧缩式” 和 “附加式” 两种省略句构。最后，就语法的限制而言，有些明显对 “不” 、“没有” 所设的限制并无法在 “不是” 上面起作用。文中亦讨论到当 “是” 不作为连接动词时有两种作用：作为重点指示词。当“是”作为重点指示词时，它的否定词是 “不是”；而当 “是” 作为肯定词时，它的否定词则是 “不” 或 “没有”。

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