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This paper first examines the distribution of tseng4 曾as an experiential aspect marker, and then the distribution of pat4 識 both as a cognition verb and as an experiential aspect in five earlier Southern Min texts. (Wu 2001abcd and Quanzhou 2010) Almost three quarters of all instances of tseng5 曾 occur in non-positive contexts. The same percentage of occurrence is also true of pat4 識, be it a cognition verb or an experiential aspect. A comparison of the use of pat4 識 as a verb and as an experiential aspect marker indicates that 16 (sixteen) tokens occur in non-positive context. Only one suspicious instance occurs in a positive context. Crucially, robust cases of reinforcement of juxtaposed negatives and experiential aspects, 未曾, show that the emergence of the experiential aspect marker pat4 (‘ever’) from its cognitive source may have been induced by the weakening of the early experiential aspect marker tseng5 曾 in the sequence ber7-tseng5 未曾 ‘have not yet; never’, of which the-tseng5 in tseng5 was deleted to result a lacuna.