The Negation Marker mei in Northeastern Mandarin

摘要

Negation in Mandarin is a field that has been substantially studied, but researches on the negation of dialects are relatively lacking. This article conducts an analysis into the negation marker mei in Northeastern Mandarin and finds three different types of mei, including mei_1, a verbal negator complementary to bu, mei_2, an unaccusative intransitive verb which is characteristic in this dialect but has rarely been mentioned in previous researches, and mei_3, a telic and static aspectual negator which involves a tone sandhi pattern. The tone sandhi of mei_3, in Northeastern Mandarin has something to do with the 4-tone-transformation in Mandarin and can be extended to other negators and even some numerals.