Correlation between Vietnamese and Chinese adverbs in rhetorical questions (莫非)

Abstract

Many adverbs in modern Chinese have their roots in old Chinese. 莫非 is a typical example. 莫非 is an adverb composed of 莫 and 非 which have negative meaning, and the adverb is often used in a sentence to ask a rhetorical question. The usage of this adverb can be examined from grammatical, syntactic and semantic perspectives. This adverb has an equivalent in Vietnamese, which is “hay là” and “chẳng lẽ” (used to make a guess or express doubt). 莫非 is used to display speakers’ attitude and viewpoints so as to improve communication effectiveness. In this article, an attempt is made to  review the formation, meaning features and usage of 莫非 in comparison with Vietnamese, so that it can contribute a reference to research on adverbs.