没有人不喜欢自己的。 what does 的 imply here?

Question

I understand the meaning of this sentence. Nobody doesn't like him/herself. My question is, why is there a 的 at the end? It is not a past tense sentence. And also there isn't any detail so that the 是。。的 structure be used. Then why? :-/ Does anyone of you more such examples where 的 is used like this? Please share if you do. Thank you. :)

Answer 1

@Stan's reference to NS.X's answer gives a good explanation. 是...的 construction doesn't necessarily imply past action. It's just for emphesis. It's easy to give some examples for this usage.

I will never buy iPhone. I only use Android phone. 我是绝对不会买 iPhone 的。我只用 Android 手机。

NS.X's answer said that the 是 … 的 construction emphasises time, manner or place. In fact, it can also be used to emphasise the action(verb) itself. In 我是绝对不会买 iPhone 的, 的 emphesizes 不会买(won't buy). 是 can be left out here. (You can also say that the 的 emphesizes the whole sentence.)

With regard to没有人不喜欢自己的, the 的 is used here to emphasize on 不喜欢(doesn't like). Its full version is 没有人是不喜欢自己的. 是 is left out here.

Look at the fourth meaning item of 的 from Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition.

Figure 1. Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition, page 272

④用在陈述句的末尾，表示肯定的语气：这件事儿我知道~。 It can be translated as "Used at the end of a declarative sentence, indicating an affirmative tone: I do know this thing."

Answer 2

It's very simple: 的 converts the predicate to an adjective phrase.

Let me explain:

Atmega328's answer was on the right track. 没有人不喜欢自己的 is an informal abbreviated form of 没有人是不喜欢自己的 where 是 is omitted.

To simplify the question let's look at Atmega328's very good example: 我爱你 is I love you, and 我是爱你的 is I am "you-loving". The verb here changes from "love" to "am", and the object "you" becomes an adjective "you-loving". English however doesn't have a way of converting a predicate to an adjective phrase - but "I am someone who loves you" comes close.

The motivation of verb to adjective conversion is indeed to emphasise - as the function of the sentence changes from making a mere statement to describing the subject with an adjective, just like how "It was a car that passed." emphasises the object passed was a car more than simply "A car passed."

Answer 3

First thing first, This sentence should be 没有人是不喜欢自己的。It's missing a 是 here; (No body "do" not like themselves)。

是 and 的 are used here to emphasize the meaning of this sentence and make it clear. Without them, it will be a different meaning. For instance: 没有人不喜欢自己。 (Nobody not like me/ Everyone like me.) 自己=me；自己的=mine；"Everyone like mine" has no meaning, so you can instantly tell 自己的 is not referring to myself, but to something else, the object "没有人" or themselves in this case.

For a simple example: 我爱你。 (I love you.) 我是爱你。（I do love you.) 我是爱你的。（I do love you very much.) With 的 at the end, you can definitely see that I do love you more, and not less. can you?

Answer 4

的 is a 語氣詞 (can't find an English translation for it, literally means "tone word"). This is somehow like exclamation words such as "Oh", but they serve a slightly different function. You should view them as something like punctuations instead.

In English, you can easily express your tone with an increase or decrease in loudness, length/speed or pitch to express that it is a question or a statement; a sure statement, a quoted statement or a doubtful statement; a pleading tone, or a commanding tone; whether you feel that the quantity in the sentence is excessive, neutral or too few. However, Chinese has a fixed pitch, so it is especially necessary to have words at the end of a sentence.

It feels really very unnatural if these words are absent. Without these words, the sentence may sound cold, emotionless, or even unnatural or interrupted. For example, the word "啦" is used so frequently in Cantonese (and probably in Putonghua) to express that the sentence is strongly subjective/emotional/pleading, that some of my friends even mix it (using the pronunciation "la") into our WhatsApp messages in English. For example, "請你不要。" (Please don't.), as you can see in the English translation, sounds very cold and authoritative (even with "Please"). What if we are pleading to our friends (in a calm way, not an exclaiming way)? "請你不要啦。" carries a much more persuading tone (especially if we increase the length of 啦, but not necessarily).

Other examples of these words include (question) 嗎, 呢, (exclamation) 呀, 啊, (statement) 而已, 的, 啦, 吧, (and nil too), etc. (In Cantonese there are many more of these words, but I don't think these also exist in Putonghua)

的, in this example, expresses the objectiveness, absoluteness of the statement "Nobody doesn't like himself". It shows that the sentence is a reasonable, inarguable and doubtless.

To understand this sentence, these syntactic expletives (虛詞) can be ignored, but you may totally misunderstand the tone of the speaker.

Note that if the sentence is changed into "沒有人不喜歡自己的吧", the tone implies presumption and uncertainty, seeking for agreement. Why is there another after 的? It is because 的 isn't very strongly related to 語氣詞, but more related to the structure of a statement, while 吧 is a very expressive word.

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I am a native Chinese (Cantonese) speaker, so I understand the language pattern to nature, that it sometimes gets very difficult to explain how some language patterns work. IMO, Chinese doesn't have a very strict language pattern compared to English. Reading more Chinese books is the only way to develop the sense of understanding these patterns.