Taxonomy of meanings for 毋:　　

  • 毋 wú (OC: ma MC: mio) 武夫切 平 廣韻：【止之辝亦姓毋丘或爲毋氏又漢複姓人氏漢書貨殖傳有毋鹽氏巨富齊毋鹽邑大夫之後漢有執金吾東海母將隆將作大匠母丘興風俗通有樂安母車伯奇爲下邳相有主簿步邵南時人稱母車府君歩主簿何氏姓苑有母終氏左傳魯大夫兹母還晉大夫綦母張漢書有巨母霸王莽改爲巨母氏 】
    • AVOID
      • vt+V[0]negativeavoid to; be sure not to [This can also be taken more traditionally as a padV.]
    • DON'T
      • vt[0]{NEG}(+V[0])don't you> Don't!
      • vt{NEG}.+VtoNdon't
      • vt{NEG}+Vidon't Vi
    • LACK
      • nabhavenot-having things
      • vinot exist; be lacking; be missing
      • vtoNlack, be without; make do without
      • vt0oNN=logical subjectthere is a lack of
      • vt(oN)be without the contextually determinate thing
      • nabstativeabsence of untoward things; clear path
      • vttoN1.+prep+N2reflexive.己lack N1 within (oneself)
      • nabplaceabsence; the place where something is absent or lacking
      • nababstractnothingness, absence of anything whatsoever
      • vtoN1.postadN2without
      • vt+V[0]V=object of Vlack an object of V > have nothing to V, have nothing that one Vs
      • vt(oN)ombe without the contextually determinate object N
      • nab.tfeaturelack > non-existence of N
      • nprono one
      • vadNthe missing N, the non-existing N, the non-extant N
      • vtoNN=support of Nlack; have lost the support of N
      • vtoN.adVgrammaticalisedwithout
      • vt0oNthere are no NsCH
      • vtoNderivedlack the experience of> never encounterCH
      • vtoNlack the N one needsCH
      • vadVt(oN)there is not the contextually determinate object N of the Vt, there is no contextually determinate object N of the VtCH
      • vt0oN1{SUBJ}.postN2{PLACE}there is no N1 at N2DS
      • vt[0]oN.adV(0){NEG}=無所 e.g. 無與慮國 "have not one to plan for the state with": lack the object of Vt in V-ingCH
      • vtoNinjunctive: should be withoutLZ
      • vt0(oN)there does not exist any contextually determinate NDS
      • vtoNabfigurativethere is/was no Nab-ing, Nab did not happenLZ
      • vt[oN]lack things; be without anythingDS
      • vt0oN{SUBJ}.postN{TOP}there is no N among/between TOPDS
    • NOT
      • vt{NEG}.+VtoNfail to, not; not to
      • vt{NEG}+.Vt(oN)not
      • vt{NEG}+.VtoN:adSnot
      • vt{NEG}+.VtoN:adSirrealisif... had not
      • vt{NEG}+Vinot
      • vt{NEG}+Vt{PASS}not
    • SHOULD NOT
      • vt{NEG}.+VtoNone should not; should not
      • vt{NEG}+.Vt(oN)one should not Vt the determinate object
    • NONE
      • PARTICLE
        • SURNAMES

          Additional information about 毋

          說文解字: 【毋】，止之也。从女，有奸之者。凡毋之屬皆从毋。 【武扶切】

            Criteria
          • DON'T

            1. The most common prohibitive particle is wù 勿, which usually precedes transitive verbs with omitted objects.

            2. Wú 毋 is a prohibitive particle which normally requires that any transitive verb it precedes must retain its object.

            3. Wú 無 appears often used for wú 毋, but there is a clear tendency for the word to indicate a generalised "one should not" rather than a "don't" hic et nunc.

          • NOT

            1. The general all-purpose pre-verbal negation is 不 which generally has the whole predicate it precedes as its scope. 不 can be inchoative "not get to begin", continuative "not continuously", discontinuative "stop doing" or resultative "not get to complete doing". By the rhetorical device of litotes 不 can create antonymic opposites as in 不少 “quite a lot".

            2. Fēi 非 negates categorising subsumptive judgments when it precedes predicative nominals; when preceding verbs 非 "it is not as if" negates not the verbal verbal proposition but metalinguistically the making of a statement that can usefully be paraphrased as "the claim is not that".

            3. Wú 無 "in no way; in no way i.e. regarding no object", when used as a straight negation (contrast SHOULD NOT) is descriptively generalising and not straightforwardly narrative or descriptive.

            4. Fú 弗 "would not; could not" prototypically refers to a refusal or inability to do something which in principle one might intend to do.

            5. Wèi 未 "not yet; not quite" refers to either temporal or logical incompleteness in verbal predication.

            6. Fǒu 否 "It is not the case" is a negative pro-form, and there remains a suspicion that the graph 不 is to be read as fǒu 否 when it is used as a pro-form.

            7. Mò 莫 "none" is protoypically resumptive of an explicit or implicit subject.

            8. Wú 毋 "don't" and wù 勿 don't the object" when not used injunctively, are negations restricted to the position after such causative verbs as 使.