This paper starts from the functional and structural similarity of stance constructions with ‘no’ wonder and ‘no’ chance in Present-day English, and sets out to compare their diachronic development. Synchronically, these two ‘no’ + semiotic noun strings take part in the same formal types of grammatical stance construction, i.e. as main clauses, with the propositions in their scope coded as complement clauses, and as stance adverbials, with the propositions in their scope coded as independent clauses. Another similarity is that the clausal patterns show two types of use, i.e. lexical and grammatical use. While grammatical uses of ‘no’ wonder strings convey mirative qualification, those of ‘no’ chance strings express epistemic qualification. Study of corpus data reveals differences in the availability of structural types – within clausal and adverbial patterns – between the two strings studied, as well as in polarity preferences, which follow naturally from the differences observed in their respective diachronic development. While negative polarity triggered the development of grammatical – mirative – meaning in the ‘no’ wonder strings, it did not serve this role in the development of dynamic-epistemic (and later on purely epistemic) meaning in the chance data. This explains why wonder occurs predominantly with negative polarity in Present-day English, while no such preference is observed for chance.

本文从站姿结构在功能和结构上的相似性出发，以当今英语中的“无”和“无”的机会，着手比较其历时发展。同步地，这两个“否” 和符号符号名词串参与了语法姿势构造的相同形式类型，即作为主从句，其范围中的命题被编码为补语，而作为姿势副词被编码，其命题被编码为范围编码为独立子句。另一个相似之处是从句模式显示了两种使用方式，即词汇和语法使用。虽然“不”奇迹字符串的语法用法传达了和平的条件，但是“不”机会的语法用法字符串表示认知资格。语料数据的研究表明，在所研究的两个字符串之间，在子句和副词模式内，结构类型的可用性以及极性偏好方面存在差异，这些差异自然是由于各自历时发展中的差异所致。负极性虽然触发了“无聊”字符串中的语法（和平式）含义的发展，但并未在机会数据中动态认知（后来纯粹是认识论）含义的发展中发挥这一作用。这就解释了为什么奇迹在当今英语中主要以负极性出现，而没有观察到这样的偶然性。