The Implicit Negative Marker “Xleba” In Modern Chinese

This paper focuses on the implicit negative marker“Xleba”in modern spoken Chinese（including“Xingleba”“Deleba”“Suanleba”“Haoleba”,etc.）.“Xleba”has no explicit negative form,but when the communicative parties are in a conflicting discourse environment,“Xleba”has the function of conveying negative emotional attitude.On the basis of corpus analysis,this paper comprehensively and systematically examines the negative function of the implicit negative marker“Xleba”from the perspectives of syntax,semantics and pragmatics,and reveals its formation process and mechanism,in order to study the implicit negative marker“Xleba”which produces a more in-depth and comprehensive understanding.The full text is divided into six chapters:The first chapter is the introduction.The first is to clarify the research object,and explain the research significance of this paper from two aspects of theory and practice;then sort out the relevant research results of implicit negation,“Xle/Xleba”and the modal particle“Ba”,and find that the research on the negative function of“Xleba”is rarely involved in the academic circles;finally,the research objectives,research methods and corpus sources of this paper are introduced.The second chapter defines the relevant concepts involved in this article.According to the related theories of implicit negation and discourse markers,this chapter clearly defines the nature of“Xleba”:it is a discourse marker that shows the speaker’s negative attitude through the structural form of“X”+“Le”+“Ba”instead of typical negative words.The third chapter examines the syntactic features of the implicit negative marker“Xleba”.This chapter first analyzes the grammatical properties and semantic features of“X”“Le”“Ba”.And then analyzes the variant forms of“Xleba”.Finally,it is found that the distribution of“Xleba”in discourse mainly includes independent turns,turn beginning,turn middle,and turn end.The fourth chapter discusses the semantics and categories of the implicit negative marker“Xleba”.According to the different ways of expressing negative meaning,“Xleba”is divided into two types:“Xleba₁”which expresses negation in imperative mood and“Xleba₂”which expresses negation in interrogative mood;The conceptual meaning and the explicit negative form in the preceding and following discourses are deduced,proving that the negative meaning has been solidified in“Xleba”;finally,the semantic background of the implicit negative marker“Xleba”is established.The fifth chapter analyzes the pragmatic function of the implicit negative marker“Xleba”.The implicit negative marker“Xleba”has the functions of discourse organization,interpersonal interaction and emotional expression.The discourse organization function manifests as topic continuation,topic change,and topic end;the interpersonal interaction function manifests as conflicting or mitigating responses to the addressee’s speech behavior;the emotional expression function manifests as expressing the speaker’s negative emotions such as helplessness,impatience and angry.The sixth chapter analyzes the formation process and mechanism of the implicit negative marker“Xleba”.The discourse tokenization of“Xleba₁”experienced four stages:the subjectification of“Xle”,the drop-off of“Jiu”,the displacement of“Xle”,and the addition of“Ba”;The discourse tokenization of“Xleba₂”experienced three stages:asking for permission,seeking approval and avoiding entanglement.The formation mechanism of“Xleba”mainly includes three aspects:metaphor,contextual absorption,and interactive subjectivity.The seventh chapter is the conclusion,which summarizes the basic conclusions of this article and points out the shortcomings of this study.