X-Copying as Metalinguistic Negation in Chengdu Chinese

In this paper, we investigate the semantics and syntax of the X-copy structure of [X-təu-XY] in Chengdu Chinese. The semantics of this structure is rather elusive, as evidenced by the various contexts where it may occur and diversified meanings that it exhibits across contexts. Facing the difficulty in identifying its constructional meaning, we scrutinize the interactions between contexts and implicatures and figure out, for the first time in the literature, the main function of this copy structure as metalinguistic negation. Syntactically, this copy mechanism is proved to be a type of CP negation, as opposed to the propositional negation, such as VP negation and IP negation.