La négation "explétive" en chinois

This article aims to show that the phenomenon of expletive negation, observed e.g. in French, also exists in Chinese. The factor of (un-)desirability from the speaker's point of view, proposed as relevant by preceding studies, is rejected. Instead, Martin's (1984) semantico-logical approach is adopted in order to demonstrate the homogeneity of the mechanism of expletive negation, through the heterogeneity of the trigger-items. Last, but not least, the constraints governing the trigger-items are shown to be closely related to the internal structure of the language.