Abstract
This thesis aims to give a preliminary study on wh-elements, negative markers and sentence final particles in Hakka from the cartographic viewpoint. By following Tsai’s (2000, 2007, 2008) analysis of how, how come and why in Chinese, I propose that how come and how in Hakka can be divided into resultative how, instrumental/manner how, causal how, denial how and refutatory how. How and how come in Hakka is similar to Mandarin. But there are still some differences between the two dialects. It is found that in Hakka the higher how’s, i.e., causal how and denial how, can’t occur in the sentence initial position before the subject. They trigger the subject topicalization, unlike the refutatory how. The reason for this phenomenon is relative to the mood, speech act and context. Five negative markers, ‘毋mˇ’, ‘無moˇ’, ‘吂mangˇ’, ‘moiˊ’, ‘莫mokˋ’, and four sentence final particles, ‘無moˇ’, ‘吂mangˇ’, ‘話vaˋ’, ‘嘎gaˊ’, are also investigated in Hakka to observe their interaction with modals and to map out their syntactic positions. Moreover, the covert and overt modals in Hakka, are also observed and can serve as evidence supporting Tsai’s (2015) claim that some modals in Chinese can be implicit, unlike English.