Negative particle syntax is parallel to Mandarin about 70% of the time. Here is a fairly complete description (parallel usage to Mandarin is bolded):
- 毋 - (is) not + noun (Mandarin: 不)
- 伊毋是阮老母 She is not my mother.
- 毋 - (does) not + verb/will not + verb (Mandarin: 不)
- 伊毋來 He does not come./He will not come.
- verb + 未 + particle - (is) not able to (Mandarin: 不)
- 我看未著 I am not able to see it.
- 未 + helping verb - can not (opposite of ē/會 is able to/Mandarin: 不)
- 伊未曉講英語 He can't speak English.
- helping verbs that go with 未
- 未使 - is not permitted to (Mandarin: 不可以)
- 未曉 - does not know how to (Mandarin: 不会)
- 未當 - not able to (Mandarin: 不能)
- 莫 - do not (imperative) (Mandarin: 別)
- 莫講! Don't speak!
- 无 - do not + helping verb (Mandarin: 不)
- 伊無侎來 He is not going to come.
- helping verbs that go with 無:
- 侎 - want to + verb; will + verb
- 愛 - must + verb
- 應該 - should + verb
- 合意 - like to + verb
- 無 - does not have (Mandarin: 沒有)
- 伊無錢 He does not have any money.
- 無 - did not (Mandarin: 沒有)
- 伊無來 He did not come.
- 無 - is not + adjective (Mandarin: 不)
- 伊無婎 She is not beautiful.
- An exception can be made for 好 (good), 不好 = 無好 - not good.
- back to main article
- view negative particles in simplified Chinese script
Famous quotes containing the words dialect, negative, particles and/or traditional:
“The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Mothers often are too easily intimidated by their children’s negative reactions...When the child cries or is unhappy, the mother reads this as meaning that she is a failure. This is why it is so important for a mother to know...that the process of growing up involves by definition things that her child is not going to like. Her job is not to create a bed of roses, but to help him learn how to pick his way through the thorns.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“When was it that the particles became
The whole man, that tempers and beliefs became
Temper and belief and that differences lost
Difference and were one? It had to be
In the presence of a solitude of the self....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems with which the human mind is occupied, and the correlative rejection of traditional beliefs which have proved their incompetence to bear such investigation.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)