The Sino-Vietnamese Negative Prefixes bất, vô, phi and Their Coexistence with Sentential Negators: A Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsReview of
“The Sino-Vietnamese negative prefixes bất, vô, phi and their coexistence with sentential negators: A synchronic and diachronic analysis.”
This manuscript primarily looks into the use of the sentential negators chẳng and không 空, and the lexical negators (prefixes) bất- 不, vô- 無, and phi- 非 in Vietnamese based on three Vietnamese translations of the Analects in the 17th, 19th, and 21st centuries.
The author presents counts of various Vietnamese and Classical Chinese negators found in the last six chapters of the aforementioned translations of the Analects. From these counts, the author shows that in Vietnamese:
1. the native chẳng was the only sentential negator used in the 17th century version; the Chinese-inspired không 空 started to appear in the 19th century version, and by the 21st century, không 空 dominates and chẳng is rarely used;
2. the prefixes bất- 不, vô- 無, and phi- 非 were absent in the 17th century Vietnamese translations; bất- 不 started to appear in the 19th century version, and bất- 不 and vô- 無 made more appearances in the 21st century version.
Both Vietnamese and Chinese linguistics would benefit greatly from the publication of these results. I can see that the author has done a lot of work in the analyses of the data. However, the manuscript itself is currently in a rather unpolished state; the manuscript looks like it was rushed through to meet a deadline. If there was indeed a deadline, I would have negotiated a later deadline with the special volume editors. It is unfair for the journal manuscript reviewer to receive a manuscript on such an interesting topic, only to discover that the manuscript definitely needs a further round of reviewing at a later date. (I am here expressing my eagerness to see an improved version of your important work published. This is my harsh-sounding, but sincere encouragement.) (Based on the version of the manuscript received from the publisher:) The most-obvious example of the cause of disappointment is in page 7: line 315 has the title of section 3 “Bất, vô, and phi in Present-Day Vietnamese”, line 316 has the title of section 4 “Data collection”, and line 317 has the title of section 5. Sections 3 and 4 contain no content! I feel that the contents that should be covered under these headings are important to the narrative, and most of them are not covered in the rest of the manuscript.
Contents that would be in section 3 are partially covered by the discussions in section 5.3 (“the 21st century Vietnamese translation of the Analects”). However, there are not many instances of bất- 不 and vô- 無 in that translation, and cases of phi- 非 are absent. You do need a separate section talking about how these are used in modern Vietnamese. (In my understanding, phi- 非 is indeed used in modern Vietnamese, e.g. phi pháp 非法, phi phàm 非凡.)
The missing of content in section 4 is fatal. The reader needs to know which exact three translations of the Analects were used. The three versions of translations of the Analects, and also Tân biên Truyền kỳ mạn lục 新編傳奇漫錄 discussed in section 5.4, need to be in the bibliography. The reader needs information (if available) like the title of the translated version, translator of text / author of annotations, year, and (if applicable) which modern reprints were consulted.
There is another type of discussion that I feel is inadequate in the manuscript. The author looks at the use of negators in translations from Classical / Literary Chinese to Vietnamese. It is a leap to claim that the developments seen in the translations reflect the development in the Vietnamese language in general. While information gained from translated texts is certainly very valuable, translated text is a rather artificial genre. It would be good if the author can systematically make more discussions on whether the same trends can also be seen in non-translated Vietnamese texts during the same periods. From translation studies, we know that there are many different types of translations. There is one dimension which is a spectrum from maximal similarity to maximal dissimilarity from the source language. A different dimension is the level of naturalness from the target language’s point of view. In other words, translators have many considerations, and naturalness from the point of view of the target language (Vietnamese in this case) is not necessarily of the highest priority. In different eras there are also different trends with translations. Without adequate discussions on the development of negators in non-translated Vietnamese texts in the same periods, how does the reader know what the author has discussed does not just simply reflect trends in translation. (There is already a very small amount of such discussions in the manuscript, but the amount is inadequate. A subsection’s worth of discussion would be adequate.)
In the manuscript, the use of punctuations (parentheses, commas, semi-colons) around references are rather inconsistent in both the main text and the bibliography.
(The comment below only concerns the rendering of Chinese and Sino-Vietnamese words in the main text, and not the chữ nôm quoted in the examples.)
(Unless making direct quotations) Please be consistent in using either Traditional Chinese characters or Simplified Chinese characters. (Given the historical nature of the discussions, using Traditional characters throughout is probably easier.) In the comments below I have pointed out instances where you have used Simplified characters.
The last section “6. Discussion and Conclusion” feels somewhat strange. Most of this section is a summary. As a summary, it is too detailed for an article of this length. It is so detailed that the numbering goes down two further levels (§6.1.1, §6.1.2, §6.1.3), something more commonly seen in a book. It feels like that (parts of) §6.4 “Conclusion” is needed to act as a “summary of summary”, because the preceding summary is so long. Having a single summary with an in-between level of detailedness may be easier for the reader to remember the “take-home message” of the article.
The following are some smaller comments.
page 2 line 67 “In the history Chinese” > “In the history of Chinese”
page 4 line 174 “Although grammarians differ in classifying fēi, some treat it as a particle rather than an adverb (cf. Guo et al. 1999), making it unique among negators in Chinese (Vogelsang 2021).”
Strange phrasing in general.
Perhaps “Grammarians differ in their classification of fēi, with some treating it as a particle instead of an adverb [...]” (? ask a native speaker of English whether they have an opinion of this.)
page 4
You have Chinese words presented in the format of “zǐ (子, 'you')”, “yú (魚, 'fish')”, and also in the format of “我 wǒ ('I')”, “兵 bīng ('weapon')”. Please use one format consistently, unless you have a good reason to use separate formats.
page 6 §2.3.3
Just a presentational problem. You begin §2.3.3 by saying “bù is frequently used to form non-predicative adjectives by negating the base adjective or noun”. It would be better if you give examples of non-predicative adjectives first, before you present the counterexample shown in example (11).
page 7 line 283 “negator in compound words”: I would use semantically broader descriptors like “negator in morphologically complex words” or “negative prefix for lexical stems”. You probably want to avoid debates about what constitutes a compound or not. (I wouldn’t call (13) wú-táng 無糖 a compound. Compounds to me are words with two or more lexical morphemes. The negator wú- is a grammatical morpheme and not a lexical morpheme. You do not have to agree with my analysis; what I am saying is that it would be easier if you avoid this argument altogether.)
page 7 line 293/294 无力 / 无产者
Simplified Chinese characters.
page 7 line 294 wú- forming nouns, e.g. 无产者:
no, your example does not show wú- forming nouns. Wú- 無 forms the adjective 無產, and the adjective [無產] modifies the bound noun root -者. I haven’t given this a deep thought, but I think perhaps wú- 無 cannot form nouns.
page 9 ex (22a)
I would have preferred that there be a line of chữ quốc ngữ between the Chinese characters and the glosses.
page 13 table 9
“Vietnamese translation (19th century)” > “Vietnamese translation (21st) century”
page 15 line 651 不善 bù shàn: the Mandarin negator bù is pronounce bú in front of another tone 4 (`) syllable.
page 18 line 821 “For instance, in the Tân biên Truyền kỳ mạn lục tăng bổ giải âm tập chú 传奇漫录解音”:
You have used the wrong string of characters for Tân biên Truyền kỳ mạn lục. The whole string in Traditional characters is 新編傳奇漫錄增補解音集註.
Page 24 endnote 2
Phan (2013)’s Annamese Middle Chinese (based on discussions by predecessors) is more than just a “contact language”. (My understanding is that:) During that long period as part of China, there were communities of Sinitic people in the city centres of the Red River Delta. Annamese Middle Chinese is the Chinese dialect spoken by these Chinese people who have long settled in the Red River Delta, with links to the other Chinese dialect islands in Guangxi and Hunan. (A similar situation is still seen in central and western Guangxi, with Sinitic people in the city centres surrounded by non-Sinitic indigenous people.) After Vietnam’s definite independence, the Sinitic communities of the Red River Delta gradually merged into the surrounding indigenous Annamese community; they shifted to speaking Annamese natively, which has been heavily Sinicised by the local Annamese Middle Chinese. (Similar to how in the middle ages, the French-speaking upper class of England gradually shifted to speaking the English language of the commoners, and the English language has been heavily Frenchified.) See also, e.g., Phan & de Sousa (2022) and Phan (in press 2025).
Page 24 endnote 3
I cannot find where in the main text this endnote refers to.
I would like to congratulate the author on this important work. I would like to convey again my strong encouragement to the author. I look forward to seeing a future version of this article.
Author Response
Please find our responses attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis study offers a well-reasoned diachronic account of negation-marking strategies in Vietnamese, presenting well-supported evidence for its central claims. The paper aligns with the aims of Languages and merits publication pending minor revisions. The manuscript could be further strengthened by addressing these key points regarding argumentation and presentation
- 104-110: Only the second reason appears relevant to a linguistic study like the present one.
- 413-5: Intuitively, it makes sense that core grammatical elements (like negation) are slower to pick up foreign influences, but can some citations be provided here?
- 774: For the claim in this paragraph to hold, the analysis must clearly demonstrate that 非 in (39a) functions as a prefix. To what element is 非 affixed in this case? Modern Mandarin would typically employ 不是 in lieu of 非 in this context, where 非 appears to behave more like a verb. Without such clarification, one might alternatively argue that phi only entered the Vietnamese Sino-Vietnamese lexicon through later borrowings of lexicalized terms where it functions as a modifier, and that that verbal uses of 非, among other, were never adopted into Vietnamese.
- 123-4: the author characterizes the use of bất tài 不才 as an “innovative formation”. In what way is it the case, given that 不才 is already attested in classical Chinese texts like 左傳 Zuozhuan (~300 BC)?
- The author should at least provide a brief introduction to the three Vietnamese translations examined in this study. A short overview of their sources, for example, would strengthen the context for readers.
- The 19th-century translation does not appear to be rendered in prose. Does the author have anything to comment about how this stylistic variation might potentially influence the use of the linguistic features under examination?
Miscellaneous presentational issues:
- 68: bracket missing
- 85-6: please decide whether to italicize pinyin transcriptions
- 173: wéi or bù wéi?
- 293-4: be consistent in the representation of Chinese characters, staying with either Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese.
- 306: Language à why L?
- 351: be consistent in whether pinyin goes before or after the character, and whether one of them should be in brackets (371).
Author Response
Please find our responses attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear author(s),
It has been most exciting to read this updated version of the manuscript. The improvements have been significant. I am satisfied with the vast majority of changes, and I now recommend the publishing of this manuscript. I am eager to see your important work published!
The following are some very minor comments that you might want to consider. (No responses required.)
pages 4 and 5
Perhaps you might want to change the heading of §2.2.1 from
“Verbal and Adjectival Negation: 不 bù” to
“Irrealis Negation: 不 bù”
(So that it is in parallel with the heading of §2.2.2 “Realis Negation: 没 (有) méi(yǒu)”.)
page 6 line 253 “Also méi is used as the existential 254 negator: [...]”
Given that this use of méi is rather different from the normal realis use of méi, maybe you want to start a new paragraph for this existential function of méi.
page 9 example (19)
Since there are only 7 instances of phi, and you have already given 5 examples, why not give all 7 examples (for the curiosity of the reader)?
page 10 footnote 1
I think the journal uses endnotes and not footnotes.
page 17 example 20b and other examples
Glosses misaligned.
page 21 Table 9
in which không có (9)) >
(in which không có (9))
(the open parenthesis is missing)
page 26 footnote: I think the journal uses endnotes.
Author Response
Please see our responses attached
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
