<p>有 can be translated as <code>have</code> in English. So when you want to say "I don't <strong>have</strong> money" in Chinese, you would say <code>我没<strong>有</strong>钱</code>. If you don't have the word <code>have</code> in your English sentence, you don't need to use 有 in it's Chinese translation.</p>

<p>A couple of really common phrases that use the character 没:</p>

<p>没关系 = <code>That's OK</code></p>

<p>没门 Literally means <code>no door</code>, but it actually means <code>no way</code></p>

<h3>Other meanings:</h3>

<p>没 has other means when it's pronounced as <code>mò</code></p>

<p>沉没 = <code>sinking</code></p>

<p>隐没 = <code>disappear/hide</code></p>

<p>没落 = <code>decline/downfall</code></p>

<p>没收 = <code>confiscate</code></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-16T10:47:16.607Z
2011-12-16T10:47:16.607Z
StarCub
<p>Firstly - you are correct, as are the others who have posted here. 没 is unusual in that it negates 有 and only 有，and for simplicity can itself serve as a contraction of 没有.</p>
<p>As others have pointed out, 没/没有 also has the unique grammatical role of indicating an action &quot;not yet done&quot; (in conjunction with 还 and 过) or &quot;never done&quot;.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>你去过香港吗？= Have you been to Hong Kong?</p>
<p>我还没去过。= I still have not gone.</p>
<p>我没去过。= I have never been.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As for <em>why</em> 有 takes 没, I think it's likely best to chalk that up to the irregularities of languages, which develop over time without any planning.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-18T07:03:07.917Z
2011-12-18T07:03:07.917Z
2020-06-17T09:50:11.587Z
tbaums
<p>This is only a partial answer because I don't know all the details. I've been taught that when you use 没 with other verbs it indicates a different tense or time aspect.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>我没去 (I have not gone)</p>
<p>我不去 （I do not go)</p>
</blockquote>

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2011-12-21T20:37:03.157Z
@Szabolcs: yes, 没有 is shortened 没 when preceding a verb.
Petruza
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2011-12-21T20:40:01.327Z
@Mr. Shiny: see how this construct matches english, spanish, and may be other languages; 有 is *to have* as in possession, but it's also used for have as in *have done*. I think it's called an auxiliary verb.
Petruza
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-21T22:40:06.367Z
@Petruza Indeed, I was always amazed by the fact that it matches the use of "to have" in many European languages (at least Germanic, Romance and Greek, I don't know about Slavic).  In my language (Hungarian) there is no such thing (actually there is no verb "to have").  Do you know why this is so?  Is this a mere accident?  Surely there can't be any such fundamental relationship between Chinese and English, yet the verb "to have" is used in very similar ways to express very different meanings.  Do you know why?
Szabolcs
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2011-12-21T22:54:29.703Z
@Szabolcs: I'm not sure, but I guess the notion of *to have* something in some way implies a completed past action, as to have something requires that you already got it.  
Actually, in spanish the auxiliary verb is not to have, but to be, as in *there is* (haber) which, not surprisingly, is the other meaning of 有. Also consider the similarities of *have* and *haber*
Petruza
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2011-12-15T15:18:00.533Z
Your post wasn't answering my question but you made a good point and I added a small part to include the topic covered by your answer.
Alenanno
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-15T17:37:09.240Z
Is 我没去 by any chance a shortening of 我没有去?  Which would take us back to 没 being a negator of 有 only.
Szabolcs
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2011-12-15T14:59:19.133Z
2011-12-15T14:59:19.133Z
2020-06-17T09:50:11.587Z
Mr. Shiny and New 安宇
<p>I have some examples:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>我没开车</p>
<p>我没关灯</p>
<p>我没喝水</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Also, you can say 我没关灯 by any chance is a shortening of 我没有关灯,but there is few people speak like that.</p>
<p>In some chances it is better to add 有 after 没, but in the other chances isn't.</p>

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2011-12-15T23:10:25.567Z
Welcome to the site. An upvote to get you going.
Tom Au
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2011-12-15T18:01:16.157Z
2011-12-15T18:01:16.157Z
2020-06-17T09:50:11.587Z
macskuz
<p>The reason the verb 有 (yǒu) takes 没 (méi) while other verbs take 不 (bù) is that 没 (méi) means, 'not have' and 有 (yǒu) means 'have'; thus they are tied linguistically (interestingly).</p>

<p>BTW, 没 (méi) can never literally serve as a contraction for 没有 (méiyǒu) 'not have', because by itself, historically, 没 (méi) already meant, 'not have'. One shouldn't discount the answer here by thinking of it as a contraction. Historically, this explains its peculiar attachment to 有 (yǒu).</p>

<p>If one realizes the historical nature of this question, it is good to refer to a dictionary of ancient Chinese, such as Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Karlgren" rel="nofollow">Bernhard Karlgren</a>.</p>

<p>Perhaps your question really is how to have a feeling for when to use these two words in sentences?</p>

<p>没 (méi) means, 'not have'. It can be used alone, without 有 (yǒu), for that meaning. 没 (mò) has meanings related to that. It is a picture of a hand, a knife and water: a hand like a knife plunging into water: we don't see the hand anymore: 'not have'.</p>

<p>不 (bù) means, 'do not' (like, 'I do not', instead of a command). It is an (upside down) picture of a bird, landing. Perhaps it is the experience of seeing a bird not flapping wings, inactive?</p>

<p>Two concepts: 'do not' and 'not have'. They are not precisely the same concept, are they? If we think of 没 (méi) and 不 (bù) only as two negators, we are dropping what will help us learn them.</p>

<p>没 (méi) 'not have' and 有 (yǒu) 'have' in 没有 (méiyǒu) combine to mean 'not have', in a somewhat poetic way, like many other two-word combinations, for other linguistic reasons than meaning because 没 (méi) already means, 'not have'. If you think of 没 (méi) audibly as 'not have' and of 没有 (méiyǒu) as 'not have-have', you'll be all right.</p>

<p>Also, many verbs make sense both with 'not have' and with 'do not'. 我没开车 (wǒ méi kai-1 che-1) which glosses as 'I not have operate vehicle' (perhaps meaning, 'I haven't operated the vehicle'). 我不开车 (wǒ bù kai-1 che-1) glosses as, 'I do not operate vehicle' (perhaps meaning, 'I don't drive (vehicles)').</p>

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2012-01-12T12:03:10.070Z
不有 is correct in classical.
magnetar
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2012-01-13T15:41:14.243Z
Why tell me, instead of commenting on the question? W/s 不有 has 13 million hits. What does the phrase mean? I'm curious!
MarkDBlackwell
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2012-01-10T02:49:11.063Z
2012-01-13T17:44:13.450Z
2012-01-13T17:44:13.450Z
MarkDBlackwell
<p>It's quite possible that you are asking a question that makes no sense in the context of the language itself. Asian languages tend to be less logically-oriented than Western languages, and more influenced by temporal events, like politics and history. Scholars, for example, are able to date documents by the conspicuous absence of certain characters - writing the emperor's name was forbidden in ancient China, so if we find that a strange character is being used instead of a more common-sense one that also happens to be in the name of a known emperor, we can say with reasonable conviction that this document was produced during that emperor's lifetime/reign. So, some questions, ESPECIALLY questions that start with the word "why," are more or less gibberish in the context of a lot of Asian cultures. I think you may have stumbled upon one such question here.</p>

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2012-01-11T01:37:21.977Z
+1: I'm not sure I understand or buy the claim that Asian languages are less logical, but this is the only answer which attempts to address the actual question without engaging in baseless speculation.
Alf
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2012-01-11T01:45:20.730Z
Not "less logical" as much as less "logically-oriented." As in, logic tends to be less of a consideration when dealing with Asian languages. Things are often the way they are "just because" and the actual causes or underlying forces are unknowable except to scholars of history. See: Japanese.
StormShadow
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2012-01-11T02:33:29.990Z
I don't know why this would get an upvote. It is actually worse than baseless speculation; it makes the spurious claim that asking 'why' is gibberish in the context of a lot of Asian cultures. If I ask why you can say 'I didn't want to go' but not 'I didn't can go' in English, do you really think that pointing out that 'can' is a modal auxiliary is a 'logical explanation'? The fact that modal auxiliaries are 'defective verbs' is a fact of English, in the same way that 有 is negated with 没 is a fact of Chinese. To claim that one is logical and the other isn't just doesn't make sense.
Bathrobe
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2012-01-11T04:33:28.337Z
@Bathrobe: You're right. The claim is spurious, and I shouldn't have let it fly so easily. I disagree that this is worse than baseless speculation, though. I think this is closer to a good answer to this question than many of the other answers, and so I've kept my upvote in place. (I've also upvoted tbaums's answer, which I missed at first. It's a better answer than this one, but in the same vein.) Also, your comment highlights what I think is the problem with this thread: saying that "can" is a modal auxiliary is a WAY better answer than most of the stuff here because it's a specific...
Alf
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2012-01-11T04:38:21.653Z
...grammatical claim which comes from linguists who have studied how the language works. A good answer to this question would probably involve knowledge of classical Chinese, the spread of standard vernacular Chinese, and the status of words like 沒 in major dialects. I suppose it was refreshing to hear someone say, "I don't know!" rather than trot out a few example sentences involving 沒 and some vaguely remembered facts about 沒 having something to do with tense.
Alf
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2012-01-11T04:55:00.850Z
Perhaps 'modal auxiliary' is a slightly better explanation, but applying a label doesn't really explain much. To explain why they are defective verbs, you would probably have to go back to proto-Germanic or further. To explain 没 you would probably have to go back to early modern Chinese (since, AFAIK, 没 isn't used as a negative in Classical Chinese). To compare the usage of 没 to character taboos related to emperor's names is really just nonsense.
Bathrobe
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2012-01-11T05:23:27.027Z
@Bathrobe: I entirely agree. This doesn't hold water, but I'm also disappointed in the rest. The OP asked us to explain 没, and it's troubling that the fact that 没 wasn't a negative in Classical Chinese (which I also suspected) has taken this long to appear, and in a comment at that.
Alf
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2012-01-11T05:32:10.147Z
True, the other answers aren't much chop, either. This is not my website, but I'm wondering if this is really the kind of question that should be asked here. Like a lot of questions on stackexchange, it seems to arise from a sense of idle curiosity rather than a genuine desire to learn Chinese. (There is nothing wrong with being curious, but some of these questions seem to be just killing time.) Anyhow, as I said, this is not my site, so it's not really my call...
Bathrobe
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2012-01-11T05:52:59.403Z
My claims aren't "spurious" - everything I wrote is true and based on personal experience with the languages themselves. You may not like hearing it, sure, but that doesn't make it less true. Also, the example of the emperor's names is included only to illustrate the heavy political influence on the Chinese language that often overrides grammatical common sense, making the explanation for that characteristic a creature of historical context, that may easily be lost to time, instead of a rule-based linguistic one. It has nothing to do with the character in question, nor was it meant to.
StormShadow
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2012-01-11T06:24:33.623Z
StormShadow, your point about taboo characters is correct. Your point that grammatical rules are often arbitrary is also correct. What is questionable is the attempt to link the two together. At any rate, I don't particularly want to go around insulting people by trashing their speculations. What struck me was that naive, fairly unanswerable questions are being asked (a bit like asking 'Why does Chinese have four tones?') and points are being awarded for answers that aren't really accurate.
Bathrobe
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2012-01-11T07:23:53.470Z
I agree. Such an attempt would be questionable. *That's why I did not make any such attempt.*
StormShadow
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2012-01-11T10:52:35.140Z
@Bathrobe "Like a lot of questions on stackexchange, it seems to arise from a sense of idle curiosity rather than a genuine desire to learn Chinese." — Let's say I have both. I'm learning Chinese and also I was curious what brought to this Mei vs Bu. The fact that the question is not easily answerable doesn't mean it's not answerable at all.
Alenanno
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2012-01-11T22:50:53.597Z
Having trod on a number of toes, I think I've pinned down the problem. Questions that ask 'Why does Chinese...?' are usually not good questions. They either attract off-target (albeit often useful) explanations of usage, or vague speculation about language. StormShadow was right to say that 'you are asking a question that makes no sense in the context of the language itself'. Sometimes the only answer is: 'That's how it is. That's how Chinese is constructed'. My humble suggestion is that 'Why does Chinese...?' questions should always be rephrased in a way designed to elicit concrete answers.
Bathrobe
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2012-01-11T00:56:22.140Z
2012-01-11T00:56:22.140Z
StormShadow
<p><strong>The Story of 没</strong></p>

<p>As other commenters have noted, looking for logic in language is almost always futile. No natural language is logical. But there is a historical logic to language development; even if the existence of a phrase is a historical accident, it's sometimes interesting to see when that "accident" took place, and why.</p>

<p>Such is the case with 没. One interesting fact I learned from all this that contradicts what some others have said in their answers: 没 is <em>not</em> a contraction or shortening of 没有, at least not originally. MarkDBlackwell is right to point this out in his answer. The development of both words is slightly more complicated.</p>

<p>(All of the following comes from Xu Shiyi's excellent paper <a href="http://wenku.baidu.com/view/2987364d852458fb770b5653.html">"否定词‘没’‘没有’的来源和语法化过程"</a>. To save time, I will not differentiate between places where I am quoting, summarizing, and expanding the original text. Apologies to the author; all errors are my own.)</p>

<p><strong>The History of Negatives in Chinese</strong></p>

<p>Before beginning, it's important to distinguish between two different categories of negative words: negative adverbs (否定副词) and negative verbs (否定动词). For our purposes, the former category is any word that can be put before a verb to negate its sense; the word 不 in modern Chinese is a good example. Negative verbs can stand alone at the "center" of a predicate (谓语). The word 没 is sometimes used in this way in modern Chinese. For example, in the sentence, </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>屋子里没人.<br>
  <sup>wūzi li méi rén</sup><br>
  There is no one in the room.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>没 is acting as a verb, not an adverb modifying another main verb. (The use of the word adverb is not exactly right here, by the way, because the category 副词 doesn't exactly correspond to the English category of adverbs, though it's pretty close.)</p>

<p>I'll also be making a distinction between the use of 没 as a "full-fledged verb" (corresponding to its reading "mò" today,meaning "to sink, to be covered") and its use as a negative verb.</p>

<p>Previously (in the oracle bone inscription days), Chinese had many negative adverbs, such as 不 、弗 、勿 and 毋, and later (during the Zhou and Qin dyansty period) added several more, like  非 、匪 、微 、无 、蔑  and 未. Both 无 and 蔑 were themselves negative verbs also, and both had the same meaning as 没有 does today.</p>

<p><strong>没 on the Scene</strong></p>

<p>The first textual evidence for the existence of 没 (as a verb meaning to sink/submerge) is in the Tang dynasty, but various pieces of evidence which I will not repeat here imply that 没 was already being used as a negative verb (<em>not</em> a negative adverb) before the Tang period.</p>

<p>The use of 没 as a verb meaning to sink into water gradually extended until 没 meant to disappear or lose. From a phonetic perspective, though, there is no link between the use of 没 as a full-fledged verb and its use as a negative. (Recall that two different pronunciations of 没 exist today which enforce precisely this difference.) Indeed, many experts have assumed that 没 originated as a negative word because it sounded the same as 未 (wèi, which is still used as a negative adverb today to mean "has not yet").</p>

<p>The author of this work, though, prefers to trace the connection between 没 and 无, which, as I pointed out above, has long had the same meaning as modern "没有."</p>

<p><strong>Phonetic History of 没 and 无</strong></p>

<p>Our knowledge of the phonology of middle Chinese comes mostly from a Song work called &lt;广韵> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangyun">Guangyun</a>, which listed characters according to rimes [sic]. To indicate the pronunciation of a word, the dictionaries of those days used something called the 反切 method, which split a character up into two other characters, one representing the syllable onset and one representing the rime (rest of the syllable). Wikipedia's article on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie">Fanqie</a> quotes an example from Gari Ledyard of how such a system might work in English: we could encode the pronunciation of the word <em>sough</em> by using the two words <em>sun</em> and <em>now</em>, to show that the word starts with an "s" and ends with the same sound as the word "now." (I am omitting many details.)</p>

<p>These books also come with a table of rimes so that we know basically how the various consonants and vowels were articulated in those days. There were two different syllable onsets (called 明母 and 微母) which sounded similar (the former corresponds to modern initial "m", the latter variously to "w", "v" or "m"): 没 was 明母 (cf. modern <strong>m</strong>éi), and 无 was 微母 (cf. modern <strong>w</strong>ú). Various historical clues allow the author to conclude that the popular pronunciation of those two words (as opposed to the possibly literary pronunciation in the Guangyun) was the same. At that time, 无 also had the meaning of "to lose" when used as a full-fledged verb. This similarity, combined with the at-least similarity in sound, led to an eventual mixing of the uses of 没 and 无. By the Song dynasty, these two words were being used interchangeably. By the Yuan/Ming period, the process was completed, and 没 had replaced 无 as the negative verb meaning "没有."</p>

<p><strong>But what about 没有?</strong></p>

<p>The uses described above all still involve 没 as a negative verb. In fact, the above change also influenced the development of 没 as a negative adverb. 无 could always be used as a negative adverb in addition to being a negative verb, and the compound 无有 had always existed because 无 was viewed as being the direct negative of 有. As 没 gradually replaced 无, so too did 没有 replace 无有. (The form 不有 is attested, but was gradually superseded by 没有 as Chinese negative adverbs consolidated over time.)</p>

<p><em>There's more to be said about the process by which 没 and 没有 became fully gramaticalized, but I'm out of time and will have to come back later. Will be happy to post more if you're interested.</em></p>

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2012-01-12T21:12:04.183Z
I disagree with the claim *"No natural language is logical"*; I'd rather say that *languages are not always (apparently) logical*, and there I might agree. Apart from that, it seems my question uncovered a much more complicated topic than I thought! But it's certainly interesting. :) If you edit something in next time, would you mind including some references? I can help you with the formatting if you want.
Alenanno
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2012-01-12T21:35:22.897Z
As I mention in the answer, my primary reference is the article I linked to in the comment of the question. Perhaps it's best to say that languages have an a posteriori logic, but I do not think that languages are logical in and of themselves.
Alf
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2012-01-12T23:07:03.207Z
BTW, there's no need to indicate [sic] next to the word "rimes".  Some linguists specifically use the "rime" spelling to distinguish it from poetic rhyme.
Claw
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2012-01-13T01:36:46.940Z
@Claw: yes, thanks, I used sic to indicate that the spelling was not erroneous.
Alf
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2012-01-13T05:29:31.567Z
Perhaps it's worth pointing out that the negative verb usage 没 has an extremely common use in 没事, which might translate idiomatically as "it's alright", but literally as "has no matter".
GTK
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2012-01-13T16:54:36.283Z
Please give a link for "Wikipedia quotes an example from Gari Ledyard".
MarkDBlackwell
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2012-01-13T17:14:07.570Z
"Sough" is problematic (usually /səf/) as a rime example for "now"; "bough" has a similar problem. Here's a beautiful [discussion](http://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/sough/) of words spelled that way. If you like "sow", that would work; I couldn't think of a good rime with the "ough" spelling. How about using "free" and "tea"?
MarkDBlackwell
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2012-01-13T18:14:26.050Z
@MarkDBlackwell: you're right that that sough is problematic, but I didn't want to change Ledyard's original example. The source is the Wikipedia page on [fanqie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie).
Alf
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2012-01-13T20:08:53.273Z
@Jon, per the [fanqie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie) source link, sough (given by Ledyard) is a good, subtle example with two variant pronunciations.
MarkDBlackwell
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2012-01-13T21:51:45.793Z
Jon, my hat off to you for finding a good article on the topic. There is, of course, a logic in linguistic structures; the problem comes when you ask 'why is xx language structured that way and not the same as our language?'. To fully answer Alennano's question, we still need to explain why 有 had the negative form 无 (無) in the Classical language. That is where the problem (special form of negation for one particular verb) seems to have started. And I still don't believe there is any other answer than 'that's how Classical Chinese was structured'.
Bathrobe
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2012-01-14T09:39:43.970Z
Yes! I agree that 无 was popular previously, as in many idioms, "无", not "没", is used. E.g. 无伤大雅,相安无事,一无所知，无所事事。
Huang
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2012-01-15T21:11:20.457Z
+1 for mentioning the song dynasty text.
magnetar
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2012-11-26T20:59:38.537Z
not to mention that mei you is much more rhythmic than bu you to say. Water follows the path of least resistance and so does my tongue.
Mallow
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2012-11-29T13:21:18.747Z
I am accepting this even though I don't agre with your premise. :)
Alenanno
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2012-01-12T20:52:40.580Z
2012-01-14T09:17:07.627Z
2012-01-14T09:17:07.627Z
Alf
<p>To negate something, we use 不 (bù) before the verb, such as in this short dialogue:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>A: 你是老师吗？= <em>Are you a teacher?</em><br>
  B: 不是。= <em>I'm not.</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>However, the verb 有 (yǒu) is the only one that requires 没 (méi) = 不是，不来，不忙, etc. <strong>vs</strong> 没有. </p>

<p>First of all, is this correct? If so, are there any social or historical (or other) reasons for this? What other uses does 没 have?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-01-11T06:59:07.823Z
Bingo: I finally found the information I was looking for in [this article](http://wenku.baidu.com/view/2987364d852458fb770b5653.html?from=related), an account of the origin and grammaticalization process of 没. I'm not making this an answer because I don't have time to translate it or summarize it now. The article does answer your question, however.
Alf
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2012-01-11T09:24:08.560Z
@Jon The page takes forever to load, at least to me; but even if it did, it's all written in Chinese, I wouldn't understand a word. :D So I think I'll wait for you to post your answer and see what it is about. :) No need to translate it all, but please take your time to  write a good answer because it might be useful not just for me. :)
Alenanno
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2012-01-12T03:50:00.240Z
没 is for definite yes no (black and white). 不 can be incremental (shades of grey). 没 also indicates the lack of something (an object), 不 can mean not **DOING** something. E.G. I didn't have lunch (我没有吃午饭) vs I don't want to have lunch (我不吃午饭)
Gapton
<mandarin><etymology><verbs><negation>
Why is 有 (yǒu) the only verb that requires 没 while other verbs can use 不?
# Why is 有 (yǒu) the only verb that requires 没 while other verbs can use 不?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2011-12-15)

To negate something, we use 不 (bù) before the verb, such as in this short dialogue:

> A: 你是老师吗？= *Are you a teacher?*  
> B: 不是。= *I'm not.*

However, the verb 有 (yǒu) is the only one that requires 没 (méi) = 不是，不来，不忙, etc. **vs** 没有.

First of all, is this correct? If so, are there any social or historical (or other) reasons for this? What other uses does 没 have?

**Tags:** mandarin, etymology, verbs, negation

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Bingo: I finally found the information I was looking for in [this article](http://wenku.baidu.com/view/2987364d852458fb770b5653.html?from=related), an account of the origin and grammaticalization process of 没. I'm not making this an answer because I don't have time to translate it or summarize it now. The article does answer your question, however.  
> **username_0**: @Jon The page takes forever to load, at least to me; but even if it did, it's all written in Chinese, I wouldn't understand a word. :D So I think I'll wait for you to post your answer and see what it is about. :) No need to translate it all, but please take your time to  write a good answer because it might be useful not just for me. :)  
> **username_2**: 没 is for definite yes no (black and white). 不 can be incremental (shades of grey). 没 also indicates the lack of something (an object), 不 can mean not **DOING** something. E.G. I didn't have lunch (我没有吃午饭) vs I don't want to have lunch (我不吃午饭)  

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## 7 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2012-01-12. Score: 36 | Accepted answer

**The Story of 没**

As other commenters have noted, looking for logic in language is almost always futile. No natural language is logical. But there is a historical logic to language development; even if the existence of a phrase is a historical accident, it's sometimes interesting to see when that "accident" took place, and why.

Such is the case with 没. One interesting fact I learned from all this that contradicts what some others have said in their answers: 没 is *not* a contraction or shortening of 没有, at least not originally. username_10 is right to point this out in his answer. The development of both words is slightly more complicated.

(All of the following comes from Xu Shiyi's excellent paper ["否定词‘没’‘没有’的来源和语法化过程"](http://wenku.baidu.com/view/2987364d852458fb770b5653.html). To save time, I will not differentiate between places where I am quoting, summarizing, and expanding the original text. Apologies to the author; all errors are my own.)

**The History of Negatives in Chinese**

Before beginning, it's important to distinguish between two different categories of negative words: negative adverbs (否定副词) and negative verbs (否定动词). For our purposes, the former category is any word that can be put before a verb to negate its sense; the word 不 in modern Chinese is a good example. Negative verbs can stand alone at the "center" of a predicate (谓语). The word 没 is sometimes used in this way in modern Chinese. For example, in the sentence,

> 屋子里没人.  
> wūzi li méi rén  
> There is no one in the room.

没 is acting as a verb, not an adverb modifying another main verb. (The use of the word adverb is not exactly right here, by the way, because the category 副词 doesn't exactly correspond to the English category of adverbs, though it's pretty close.)

I'll also be making a distinction between the use of 没 as a "full-fledged verb" (corresponding to its reading "mò" today,meaning "to sink, to be covered") and its use as a negative verb.

Previously (in the oracle bone inscription days), Chinese had many negative adverbs, such as 不 、弗 、勿 and 毋, and later (during the Zhou and Qin dyansty period) added several more, like 非 、匪 、微 、无 、蔑 and 未. Both 无 and 蔑 were themselves negative verbs also, and both had the same meaning as 没有 does today.

**没 on the Scene**

The first textual evidence for the existence of 没 (as a verb meaning to sink/submerge) is in the Tang dynasty, but various pieces of evidence which I will not repeat here imply that 没 was already being used as a negative verb (*not* a negative adverb) before the Tang period.

The use of 没 as a verb meaning to sink into water gradually extended until 没 meant to disappear or lose. From a phonetic perspective, though, there is no link between the use of 没 as a full-fledged verb and its use as a negative. (Recall that two different pronunciations of 没 exist today which enforce precisely this difference.) Indeed, many experts have assumed that 没 originated as a negative word because it sounded the same as 未 (wèi, which is still used as a negative adverb today to mean "has not yet").

The author of this work, though, prefers to trace the connection between 没 and 无, which, as I pointed out above, has long had the same meaning as modern "没有."

**Phonetic History of 没 and 无**

Our knowledge of the phonology of middle Chinese comes mostly from a Song work called <广韵> [Guangyun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangyun), which listed characters according to rimes [sic]. To indicate the pronunciation of a word, the dictionaries of those days used something called the 反切 method, which split a character up into two other characters, one representing the syllable onset and one representing the rime (rest of the syllable). Wikipedia's article on [Fanqie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie) quotes an example from Gari Ledyard of how such a system might work in English: we could encode the pronunciation of the word *sough* by using the two words *sun* and *now*, to show that the word starts with an "s" and ends with the same sound as the word "now." (I am omitting many details.)

These books also come with a table of rimes so that we know basically how the various consonants and vowels were articulated in those days. There were two different syllable onsets (called 明母 and 微母) which sounded similar (the former corresponds to modern initial "m", the latter variously to "w", "v" or "m"): 没 was 明母 (cf. modern **m**éi), and 无 was 微母 (cf. modern **w**ú). Various historical clues allow the author to conclude that the popular pronunciation of those two words (as opposed to the possibly literary pronunciation in the Guangyun) was the same. At that time, 无 also had the meaning of "to lose" when used as a full-fledged verb. This similarity, combined with the at-least similarity in sound, led to an eventual mixing of the uses of 没 and 无. By the Song dynasty, these two words were being used interchangeably. By the Yuan/Ming period, the process was completed, and 没 had replaced 无 as the negative verb meaning "没有."

**But what about 没有?**

The uses described above all still involve 没 as a negative verb. In fact, the above change also influenced the development of 没 as a negative adverb. 无 could always be used as a negative adverb in addition to being a negative verb, and the compound 无有 had always existed because 无 was viewed as being the direct negative of 有. As 没 gradually replaced 无, so too did 没有 replace 无有. (The form 不有 is attested, but was gradually superseded by 没有 as Chinese negative adverbs consolidated over time.)

*There's more to be said about the process by which 没 and 没有 became fully gramaticalized, but I'm out of time and will have to come back later. Will be happy to post more if you're interested.*

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I disagree with the claim *"No natural language is logical"*; I'd rather say that *languages are not always (apparently) logical*, and there I might agree. Apart from that, it seems my question uncovered a much more complicated topic than I thought! But it's certainly interesting. :) If you edit something in next time, would you mind including some references? I can help you with the formatting if you want.  
> **username_1**: As I mention in the answer, my primary reference is the article I linked to in the comment of the question. Perhaps it's best to say that languages have an a posteriori logic, but I do not think that languages are logical in and of themselves.  
> **username_14**: BTW, there's no need to indicate [sic] next to the word "rimes".  Some linguists specifically use the "rime" spelling to distinguish it from poetic rhyme.  
> **username_1**: @username_14: yes, thanks, I used sic to indicate that the spelling was not erroneous.  
> **username_15**: Perhaps it's worth pointing out that the negative verb usage 没 has an extremely common use in 没事, which might translate idiomatically as "it's alright", but literally as "has no matter".  
> **username_10**: Please give a link for "Wikipedia quotes an example from Gari Ledyard".  
> **username_10**: "Sough" is problematic (usually /səf/) as a rime example for "now"; "bough" has a similar problem. Here's a beautiful [discussion](http://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/sough/) of words spelled that way. If you like "sow", that would work; I couldn't think of a good rime with the "ough" spelling. How about using "free" and "tea"?  
> **username_1**: @username_10: you're right that that sough is problematic, but I didn't want to change Ledyard's original example. The source is the Wikipedia page on [fanqie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie).  
> **username_10**: @Jon, per the [fanqie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie) source link, sough (given by Ledyard) is a good, subtle example with two variant pronunciations.  
> **username_13**: Jon, my hat off to you for finding a good article on the topic. There is, of course, a logic in linguistic structures; the problem comes when you ask 'why is xx language structured that way and not the same as our language?'. To fully answer Alennano's question, we still need to explain why 有 had the negative form 无 (無) in the Classical language. That is where the problem (special form of negation for one particular verb) seems to have started. And I still don't believe there is any other answer than 'that's how Classical Chinese was structured'.  
> **username_16**: Yes! I agree that 无 was popular previously, as in many idioms, "无", not "没", is used. E.g. 无伤大雅,相安无事,一无所知，无所事事。  
> **username_11**: +1 for mentioning the song dynasty text.  
> **username_17**: not to mention that mei you is much more rhythmic than bu you to say. Water follows the path of least resistance and so does my tongue.  
> **username_0**: I am accepting this even though I don't agre with your premise. :)  

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### Answer by username_8 on 2011-12-15. Score: 6

I have some examples:

> 我没开车
>
> 我没关灯
>
> 我没喝水

Also, you can say 我没关灯 by any chance is a shortening of 我没有关灯,but there is few people speak like that.

In some chances it is better to add 有 after 没, but in the other chances isn't.

> **Comments:**
> **username_9**: Welcome to the site. An upvote to get you going.  

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### Answer by username_3 on 2011-12-16. Score: 5

有 can be translated as `have` in English. So when you want to say "I don't **have** money" in Chinese, you would say `我没有钱`. If you don't have the word `have` in your English sentence, you don't need to use 有 in it's Chinese translation.

A couple of really common phrases that use the character 没:

没关系 = `That's OK`

没门 Literally means `no door`, but it actually means `no way`

### Other meanings:

没 has other means when it's pronounced as `mò`

沉没 = `sinking`

隐没 = `disappear/hide`

没落 = `decline/downfall`

没收 = `confiscate`


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### Answer by username_4 on 2011-12-18. Score: 5

Firstly - you are correct, as are the others who have posted here. 没 is unusual in that it negates 有 and only 有，and for simplicity can itself serve as a contraction of 没有.

As others have pointed out, 没/没有 also has the unique grammatical role of indicating an action "not yet done" (in conjunction with 还 and 过) or "never done".

> 你去过香港吗？= Have you been to Hong Kong?
>
> 我还没去过。= I still have not gone.
>
> 我没去过。= I have never been.

As for *why* 有 takes 没, I think it's likely best to chalk that up to the irregularities of languages, which develop over time without any planning.


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### Answer by username_5 on 2011-12-15. Score: 4

This is only a partial answer because I don't know all the details. I've been taught that when you use 没 with other verbs it indicates a different tense or time aspect.

> 我没去 (I have not gone)
>
> 我不去 （I do not go)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Your post wasn't answering my question but you made a good point and I added a small part to include the topic covered by your answer.  
> **username_7**: Is 我没去 by any chance a shortening of 我没有去?  Which would take us back to 没 being a negator of 有 only.  
> **username_6**: @username_7: yes, 没有 is shortened 没 when preceding a verb.  
> **username_6**: @Mr. Shiny: see how this construct matches english, spanish, and may be other languages; 有 is *to have* as in possession, but it's also used for have as in *have done*. I think it's called an auxiliary verb.  
> **username_7**: @username_6 Indeed, I was always amazed by the fact that it matches the use of "to have" in many European languages (at least Germanic, Romance and Greek, I don't know about Slavic).  In my language (Hungarian) there is no such thing (actually there is no verb "to have").  Do you know why this is so?  Is this a mere accident?  Surely there can't be any such fundamental relationship between Chinese and English, yet the verb "to have" is used in very similar ways to express very different meanings.  Do you know why?  
> **username_6**: @username_7: I'm not sure, but I guess the notion of *to have* something in some way implies a completed past action, as to have something requires that you already got it.   Actually, in spanish the auxiliary verb is not to have, but to be, as in *there is* (haber) which, not surprisingly, is the other meaning of 有. Also consider the similarities of *have* and *haber*  

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### Answer by username_10 on 2012-01-10. Score: 3

The reason the verb 有 (yǒu) takes 没 (méi) while other verbs take 不 (bù) is that 没 (méi) means, 'not have' and 有 (yǒu) means 'have'; thus they are tied linguistically (interestingly).

BTW, 没 (méi) can never literally serve as a contraction for 没有 (méiyǒu) 'not have', because by itself, historically, 没 (méi) already meant, 'not have'. One shouldn't discount the answer here by thinking of it as a contraction. Historically, this explains its peculiar attachment to 有 (yǒu).

If one realizes the historical nature of this question, it is good to refer to a dictionary of ancient Chinese, such as Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese by [Bernhard Karlgren](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Karlgren).

Perhaps your question really is how to have a feeling for when to use these two words in sentences?

没 (méi) means, 'not have'. It can be used alone, without 有 (yǒu), for that meaning. 没 (mò) has meanings related to that. It is a picture of a hand, a knife and water: a hand like a knife plunging into water: we don't see the hand anymore: 'not have'.

不 (bù) means, 'do not' (like, 'I do not', instead of a command). It is an (upside down) picture of a bird, landing. Perhaps it is the experience of seeing a bird not flapping wings, inactive?

Two concepts: 'do not' and 'not have'. They are not precisely the same concept, are they? If we think of 没 (méi) and 不 (bù) only as two negators, we are dropping what will help us learn them.

没 (méi) 'not have' and 有 (yǒu) 'have' in 没有 (méiyǒu) combine to mean 'not have', in a somewhat poetic way, like many other two-word combinations, for other linguistic reasons than meaning because 没 (méi) already means, 'not have'. If you think of 没 (méi) audibly as 'not have' and of 没有 (méiyǒu) as 'not have-have', you'll be all right.

Also, many verbs make sense both with 'not have' and with 'do not'. 我没开车 (wǒ méi kai-1 che-1) which glosses as 'I not have operate vehicle' (perhaps meaning, 'I haven't operated the vehicle'). 我不开车 (wǒ bù kai-1 che-1) glosses as, 'I do not operate vehicle' (perhaps meaning, 'I don't drive (vehicles)').

> **Comments:**
> **username_11**: 不有 is correct in classical.  
> **username_10**: Why tell me, instead of commenting on the question? W/s 不有 has 13 million hits. What does the phrase mean? I'm curious!  

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### Answer by username_12 on 2012-01-11. Score: 0

It's quite possible that you are asking a question that makes no sense in the context of the language itself. Asian languages tend to be less logically-oriented than Western languages, and more influenced by temporal events, like politics and history. Scholars, for example, are able to date documents by the conspicuous absence of certain characters - writing the emperor's name was forbidden in ancient China, so if we find that a strange character is being used instead of a more common-sense one that also happens to be in the name of a known emperor, we can say with reasonable conviction that this document was produced during that emperor's lifetime/reign. So, some questions, ESPECIALLY questions that start with the word "why," are more or less gibberish in the context of a lot of Asian cultures. I think you may have stumbled upon one such question here.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: +1: I'm not sure I understand or buy the claim that Asian languages are less logical, but this is the only answer which attempts to address the actual question without engaging in baseless speculation.  
> **username_12**: Not "less logical" as much as less "logically-oriented." As in, logic tends to be less of a consideration when dealing with Asian languages. Things are often the way they are "just because" and the actual causes or underlying forces are unknowable except to scholars of history. See: Japanese.  
> **username_13**: I don't know why this would get an upvote. It is actually worse than baseless speculation; it makes the spurious claim that asking 'why' is gibberish in the context of a lot of Asian cultures. If I ask why you can say 'I didn't want to go' but not 'I didn't can go' in English, do you really think that pointing out that 'can' is a modal auxiliary is a 'logical explanation'? The fact that modal auxiliaries are 'defective verbs' is a fact of English, in the same way that 有 is negated with 没 is a fact of Chinese. To claim that one is logical and the other isn't just doesn't make sense.  
> **username_1**: @username_13: You're right. The claim is spurious, and I shouldn't have let it fly so easily. I disagree that this is worse than baseless speculation, though. I think this is closer to a good answer to this question than many of the other answers, and so I've kept my upvote in place. (I've also upvoted username_4's answer, which I missed at first. It's a better answer than this one, but in the same vein.) Also, your comment highlights what I think is the problem with this thread: saying that "can" is a modal auxiliary is a WAY better answer than most of the stuff here because it's a specific...  
> **username_1**: ...grammatical claim which comes from linguists who have studied how the language works. A good answer to this question would probably involve knowledge of classical Chinese, the spread of standard vernacular Chinese, and the status of words like 沒 in major dialects. I suppose it was refreshing to hear someone say, "I don't know!" rather than trot out a few example sentences involving 沒 and some vaguely remembered facts about 沒 having something to do with tense.  
> **username_13**: Perhaps 'modal auxiliary' is a slightly better explanation, but applying a label doesn't really explain much. To explain why they are defective verbs, you would probably have to go back to proto-Germanic or further. To explain 没 you would probably have to go back to early modern Chinese (since, AFAIK, 没 isn't used as a negative in Classical Chinese). To compare the usage of 没 to character taboos related to emperor's names is really just nonsense.  
> **username_1**: @username_13: I entirely agree. This doesn't hold water, but I'm also disappointed in the rest. The OP asked us to explain 没, and it's troubling that the fact that 没 wasn't a negative in Classical Chinese (which I also suspected) has taken this long to appear, and in a comment at that.  
> **username_13**: True, the other answers aren't much chop, either. This is not my website, but I'm wondering if this is really the kind of question that should be asked here. Like a lot of questions on stackexchange, it seems to arise from a sense of idle curiosity rather than a genuine desire to learn Chinese. (There is nothing wrong with being curious, but some of these questions seem to be just killing time.) Anyhow, as I said, this is not my site, so it's not really my call...  
> **username_12**: My claims aren't "spurious" - everything I wrote is true and based on personal experience with the languages themselves. You may not like hearing it, sure, but that doesn't make it less true. Also, the example of the emperor's names is included only to illustrate the heavy political influence on the Chinese language that often overrides grammatical common sense, making the explanation for that characteristic a creature of historical context, that may easily be lost to time, instead of a rule-based linguistic one. It has nothing to do with the character in question, nor was it meant to.  
> **username_13**: username_12, your point about taboo characters is correct. Your point that grammatical rules are often arbitrary is also correct. What is questionable is the attempt to link the two together. At any rate, I don't particularly want to go around insulting people by trashing their speculations. What struck me was that naive, fairly unanswerable questions are being asked (a bit like asking 'Why does Chinese have four tones?') and points are being awarded for answers that aren't really accurate.  
> **username_12**: I agree. Such an attempt would be questionable. *That's why I did not make any such attempt.*  
> **username_0**: @username_13 "Like a lot of questions on stackexchange, it seems to arise from a sense of idle curiosity rather than a genuine desire to learn Chinese." — Let's say I have both. I'm learning Chinese and also I was curious what brought to this Mei vs Bu. The fact that the question is not easily answerable doesn't mean it's not answerable at all.  
> **username_13**: Having trod on a number of toes, I think I've pinned down the problem. Questions that ask 'Why does Chinese...?' are usually not good questions. They either attract off-target (albeit often useful) explanations of usage, or vague speculation about language. username_12 was right to say that 'you are asking a question that makes no sense in the context of the language itself'. Sometimes the only answer is: 'That's how it is. That's how Chinese is constructed'. My humble suggestion is that 'Why does Chinese...?' questions should always be rephrased in a way designed to elicit concrete answers.  

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