Logical Information Processing of Possibility and Negation: Cases from Taiwanese Hakka

Logical Information Processing of Possibility and Negation: Cases from Taiwanese Hakka ∗ Chioushing Yeh a, and Hueiling Lai b aGraduate Institute of Linguistics, National Chengchi University, NO.64, Sec.2, ZhiNan Rd., Wenshan District, Taipei City 11605, Taiwan (R.O.C) kyoko@nccu.edu.tw bDepartment of English, National Chengchi University, NO.64, Sec.2, ZhiNan Rd., Wenshan District, Taipei City 11605, Taiwan (R.O.C) hllai@nccu.edu.tw Abstract. This paper attempts to provide a refined description with a quantitative analysis about the deontic modals zo3-ded4 (做得) and sii2-ded4 (使得) in Taiwanese Hakka. While the affirmative-negative relationship is symmetrical structurally, it manifests in an asymmetrical manner semantically. The logic notations will be applied to clarify the intriguing interaction of possibility and negation. Under the interaction of semantic meanings and syntactic constructions, the representation of deontic modals in Taiwanese Hakka is therefore clearly elucidated. Keywords: possibility, necessity, negation, modality, Taiwanese Hakka 1 Introduction The application of modals reflects the attitude and viewpoint of the speakers toward the conversation. Two types of linguistic forms can be usually found, taking Taiwanese Mandarin for example. The first one is the modal auxiliary verbs such as neng2 (能), hui4 (會), or ke3 yi3 (可以) as in (1) and (2). The other one is the potential construction [Verb-de(得)-C-O]. The negative marker bu (不) is used to substitute de (得) and turns the affirmative potential construction into a negative form [Verb- bu(不)-C-O] as exemplified in (3) and (4). (1) 他能騙過你。 ta1 neng2 pian4 guo4 ni3 he able deceive across you ‘He is able to deceive you successfully.’ (2) 他可以騙過你。 ta1 ke3 yi3 pian4 guo4 ni3 he able deceive across you ‘He is able to deceive you successfully.’ (3) 他騙得過你。 ta1 pian4 de guo4 ni3 he deceive PM1 across you ∗ This study is partly based on the NSC research project On Hakka genericity-characterizing constructions: Lexical semantics, event frames and information structure (NSC 100-2410-H-004-185-MY2). Special thanks extend to four anonymous reviewers. We are solely responsible for possible errors. Copyright 2011 by Chioushing Yeh, and Hueiling Lai 25th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, pages 70–79 70 ‘He is able to deceive you successfully.’ (4) 他騙不過你。 ta1 pian4 bu guo4 ni3 he deceive NEG across you ‘He is unable to deceive you successfully.’ In Taiwanese Hakka (TH), possibility can be expressed by modal verbs and the potential construction [Verb-de(得)-C-O] as well. The general form is zo3-ded4 (做得) while the less frequent one is sii2-ded4 (使得). Both cases are composed of a verb (that is, zo3 (做) or sii2 (使)) and ded4 (得). The affirmative and the negative types of deontic modals in TH present an asymmetric phenomenon. Based on the corpus data, the distribution of the linguistic forms of zo3-ded4 (做得), sii2- ded4 (使得), zo3-m5-ded4 (做毋得), sii2-m5-ded4 (使毋得), and m5-sii2 (毋使) is presented. Among our data, 229 tokens of zo3-ded4 (做得), 20 tokens of sii2- ded4 (使得), 43 tokens of zo3-m5-ded4 (做毋得), 13 tokens of sii2-m5-ded4 (使毋得), and 118 tokens of m5-sii2 (毋使) are collected. The data shows that zo3-ded4 (做得) is the dominating one to express possibility or …

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