Abstract
In this article, the syntactic and the semantic constraints on the employment of the negative wei in Han period Chinese are at issue and it will be assumed that the interpretation of the negative wei is closely connected to the situation type of the verb it modifies. The negative wei in Classical and Han period Chinese belongs morphologically to the category of modal negatives. Regarding its semantics it has been assumed that the negative wei appears in complimentary distribution with the aspecto-temporal adverb ji K (and with yi) and that the two adverbs display the same dichotomy as the aspectual suffix-le and the negative meiyou in modem Mandarin. Based on this assumption the article demonstrates that in fact the negative wei predominantly selects an event as its complement just as has been shown for the negative meiyou in Modern Mandarin, though it is less restricted in its employment than meiyou in Modem Mandarin. But wei can also select an atelic complement, which then frequently changes its situation type from atelic to telic. Additionally, in combination with state verbs and with modal auxiliaries it can also attain a modal reading indicating the epistemic modal value of Inferred Certainty (assertion) and thus displaying its relation with the other modal negatives.