A Typological and Comparative Perspective on Negation in Arawak Languages (2014) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Negation in Arawak Languages (2014)
Final authors'/editors' version; "Negation in Arawak Languages" presents detailed descriptions of negation constructions in nine Arawak languages (Apurinã, Garifuna, Kurripako, Lokono, Mojeño Trinitario, Nanti, Paresi, Tariana, and Wauja), as well as an overview of negation in this major language family. Functional-typological in orientation, each descriptive chapter in the volume is based on fieldwork by authors in the communities in which the languages are spoken. Chapters describe standard negation, prohibitives, existential negation, negative indefinites, and free negation, as well as language-specific negation phenomena such as morphological privatives, the interaction of negation with verbal inflectional categories, and negation in clause-linking constructions.
2014
GARIFUNA NEGATIVES b. M-óumuguu-tina. NEG-sleep:N-T1SG 'I didn't sleep.' (23) a. Busíyen-tina dúna. want:B-T1SG water 'I want water.' b. M-abúsiyen-tina 9 dúna. NEG-want:N-T1SG water 'I don't want water.' (24) a. Gúndaa-tina. be.happy-T1SG 'I am happy.' b. M-agúndaa-tina. NEG-be.happy:N-T1SG 'I'm not happy.' (25) a. Dará n-umu-tu gáfu. open:B PR1SG-TRAN-T3F box 'I opened the box.' b. M-adáru n-umu-tu gáfu. NEG-open:N PR1SG-TRAN-T3F box 'I didn't open the box.' Taylor (e.g., 1952a: 150) refers to this "adjectivalizing" prefix as "privative" mA-, 10 and indeed, examples like (23)-(25) suggest that a prefix ma-is added to the basic verb stem. However, the vowel after the prefix is not always a, e.g. in verbs that begin with a vowel other than a, as in (22b), so it seems best to analyze the prefix as simply m-. 2. Negative verb stems 20 GARIFUNA NEGATIVES c. N-ídii ba. PR1SG-go:PS ba 'I will go.' In many of our examples the negative stem (N) is the same as the PS stem, but this is not always the case, as illustrated below: (31) a. N-adúnra bo-u Jena. PR1SG-touch:PS ba-D3F Jena 'I'm going to touch Jena.' b. M-adúnru n-umu-tu Jena. NEG-touch:N PR1SG-TRAN-D3F Jena 'I didn't touch Jena.' (32) a. N-abûrüha ba. PR1SG-write:PS ba 'I'm going to write.' b. M-abûrühaa-tina. NEG-write:N-T1SG 'I didn't write.' (33) a. L-áhuyu yan húya. PR3M-rain:PS INC rain 'It's raining.' b. M-áhuyun-ti húya. NEG-rain:N-T3M rain 'It didn't rain.' Thus, the PS and N stems may be the same, they may end in different vowels (31), they may have a longer final vowel in the N stem (32), 13 or they may have a final nasal vowel in the N stem (33). The appearance of the nasal vowel supports the claim of Suazo (38) a. Hanúfude-tuwa. be.afraid:B-T1PL 'We're afraid.' b. M-anúfude-tuwa. NEG-be.afraid:N-T1PL 'We're not afraid.' 16 We've recorded wuríba, wuíba, and wríba for this verb (as well as variants with ü replacing u). The second and third variants reflect a strong tendency toward deletion of (some, primarily but not only) intervocalic r's and an opposite tendency to drop an unstressed vowel before a stressed syllable starting with r (e.g. in furése / frése 'be fast'). 17 Taylor (1952b: 225) suggests that the h-we discuss here is a "rare alternant" of the gin section B.3.3. Perhaps this was true at one time, but it does not seem to be the case today. G-only occurs on stative verbs, but 'whip' (40) (to cite one example) is neither stative nor apparently derived from a stative verb. (There are certainly other differences as well, not the least of which is that h-initial verbs can freely be prefixed, while g-initial verbs normally cannot, except in the reanalysis cases we discuss in section B.3.4.) 18 We have discovered only a few exceptions to the h-drop rule, among them haláguwa 'break', which has negative forms máhalashagu (transitive) and mahálagashu (intransitive). Note that the h-drop cases cannot be analyzed as involving h-insertion in the B stem, since there are many vowel-initial verbs that never begin with h-, such as abínaha 'dance', éiha 'see', ínyu 'be tall', óumuga 'sleep', úwa 'not exist', and ûhüran 'shoot'. think:B-T1SG 'I think.' b. M-éitagu-tina. NEG-think:N-T1SG 'I don't think.' (40) a. Hóungura l-umu-tina. whip:B PR3M-TRAN-T1SG 'He whipped me.' b. M-óunguru l-umu-tina. NEG-whip:N PR3M-TRAN-T1SG 'He didn't whip me.' 3.3. Affirmative g-/ negative m-alternations A number of stative verbs appear with gin the affirmative (gA-19 "attributive" for Taylor, e.g., 1956a: 5), m-in the negative. The most productive of these are morphological potential forms like those in (41) and possessive verbs derived from nouns, as in (42): 20 (41) a. G-erémuha-dii-tina. AF-sing-POT-T1SG 'I can sing.' b. M-erémuha-dii-tina. NEG-sing-POT-T1SG 'I don't sing; I can't sing.' (42) a. G-abûdügü be-i. AF-POSSED.store ba-D3M 'He will have a store.' b. M-abûdügü be-i. NEG-POSSED.store ba-D3M 'He won't have a store.' (50) Giyára-ti n-erémuha. be.able:B-T3M PR1SG-sing:PS 'I can sing.' 25 (51) Siyán-ti n-erémuha. be.unable:B-T3M PR1SG-sing:PS 'I can't sing.' But siyán can also be negated (as noted by Taylor 1952a: 164): (52) M-ásiyanruu-tina. NEG-be.unable:N-T1SG 'I'm not unable.' This suggests that (for contemporary speakers at any rate) there is a convergence between two paradigms, one defective, rather than simple suppletion. 4.2. Subúsi / Abúdei The two verbs for 'know' are subúsi 'know' and abúdei 'not know': (53) Subúsi-ti úraga n-ún. know:B-T3M story PR1SG-DAT 'I know the story.' 26 (54) Abúdei-ti úraga n-ún. not.know:B-T3M story PR1SG-DAT 'I don't know the story.' In this case, it seems that neither verb can be negated with m-(or in any other way). 5. Verbs that cannot be negated Some auxiliary-like or modal verbs have no negative counterpart and cannot be negated. Diyú 'should' is one example: 25 These two verbs take a clausal complement, which agrees as third person masculine. The same is true of diyú in B.5. 26 These examples illustrate the oblique subject construction described in Munro (2007). Both verbs can also occur in normal transitive constructions. f. M-óumuga tan. NEG-sleep:H PR3F-an 'Don't let her sleep.' g. N-óumugu ba. PR1SG-sleep:PS ba 'I will sleep.' h. M-óumuguu ba-dina. NEG-sleep:N ba-DX1SG 'I won't sleep.' (58) a. Hóu ban ! eat:B PR2SG-an 'Eat!' b. Hóu wa-man. eat:B PR1PL-an 'Let's eat.' c. Hóu tan. eat:B PR3F-an 'Let her eat.' d. M-éiga ban ! NEG-eat:H PR2SG-an 'Don't eat!' e. M-éiga wa-man. NEG-eat:H PR1PL-an 'Let's not eat.' f. M-éiga tan. NEG-eat:H PR3F-an 'Don't let her eat.' g. N-éigi ba. PR1SG-eat:PS ba 'I will eat.' (25) a. ma-shikoa-thi PRIV-home-NL.M 'a homeless man' b. ka-shikoa-thi ATR-home-NL.M 'a man with home'
Negation in Amharic and Ezha: A comparative perspective
Macrolinguistics
：This article offers a description of negation marking in the two Ethio-Semitic languages: Amharic and Ezha. The description has been made from the perspective of synchronic comparison. The article discloses that both Amharic and Ezha make use of negative prefixes in order to reverse the truth condition of an affirmative expression. The negative morphemes employed by each of the two languages have two allomorphic variants whose alternation is grammatically conditioned. The two allomorphs of the negative marker in Amharic are al-which occurs with perfective and imperative verbs, and a-that surfaces with imperfective and jussive verbal conjugations. Similarly, the Ezha negative prefix appears as an-with perfective verbal bases, and as a-with imperfective, jussive and imperative verb forms. In both languages, the negative prefixes attach to verbs preceding person prefixes and following subordinators in negative subordinate clauses. When it comes to copular and existential verbs, as compared to prototypical verbs, negation in both languages can be expressed in two ways: in some cases, the aforementioned negative prefixes are employed; and in some other cases, completely different verb forms rendering negative readings are introduced, hence, lexical negation via suppletion.
The Formation of Indonesian and Japanese Affixal Negation
Journal of language and literature/Journal of Language and Literature, 2024
Article information There is still a lack of interest in researching affixal negation, especially among linguists, although the phenomenon of construction formation is interesting to explore. It has been understood that the negation dichotomy that Klima introduced is still commonly used in classifying the form of negation. It is classified into two forms: sentential and constituent negation. Based on Klima's negation dichotomy, it can be said that affixal negation is part of the subdomain in constituent negation. Indonesian and Japanese used the same strategy in constructing the affixal negation. Both languages use the negative prefix, which attaches to other constituents, to form the affixal negation construction. This research tries to explore and compare the process as well as the principles of forming the affixal negation in both Indonesian and Japanese. The main source of data used for this research is primarily taken from dictionaries and published articles related to negation. The comparison analysis is done using a theoretical contrastive analysis method to determine the contrast features and variables in Indonesian and Japanese affixal negation formation. The analyzed data shows that the borrowed affixes, change of sounds, word element, and derivation process are the main contrast features in affixal negation formation, especially in Indonesian and Japanese. In addition, the affixation process, role, and flexibility are the variable features during affixal negation formation in both languages.
NEGATION PATTERNS IN THE KWA LANGUAGE GROUP
Journal of West African Languages, 2018
There currently exists extensive literature written on the topic of negation but only recently have studies of negation begun to expand outside of the limited scope of Indo-European languages. Linguists are finding that certain patterns thought to be cross-linguistic occur mainly in this most heavily studied language family. The intent of this article is to provide a succinct survey of the negation strategies in a collection of Kwa (Niger-Congo) languages in order to contribute to the literature on negation. Commonly cited patterns such as Jespersen's cycle (Jespersen 1917) are almost entirely unattested in this language group. There is a consistent pattern of marking negation in Akan, Ewe, and the North Guang languages involving the use of a preverbal nasal morpheme. Interestingly three South Guang languages utilize instead a verbal prefix-. The Ga-Dangme languages stand out from other Kwa languages in their use of verbal suffixes rather than prefixes. The Ghana-Togo Mountain languages of the Kwa group also do not rely on preverbal nasal negation marking.
NEGATION IN SAMBALPURI: A TYPOLOGICAL STUDY
Language in India (www.languageinindia.com), 2023
The present study attempts to provide a descriptive analysis of negation in Sambalpuri language. Since Sambalpuri is a lesser-known language, the prime purpose of the current investigation is to document and analyse the linguistic properties of negation and its function in different environments. Sambalpuri is an unscheduled Indo-Aryan language with SOV typology. It is spoken in the western part of Indian state of Odisha. It is interesting to note that Sambalpuri has more than one variant of negative markers. However, the variants are used in different parts of western Odisha, but one that is used for non-clausal negation is different from the clausal negation. The position of the negative marker in this language is preverbal. Moreover, the language shows partial loss of some grammatical features as tense marker, person, number and agreement. So, this paper undertakes to elicit the data on negation in different syntactic areas namely, standard negation, negation in imperative, negation and honorific, agreement features, negation in question, and issues of negative polarity items (NPIs), deletion of different categories and scope of negation etc. and later on it provides an exhaustive description.
A TYPOLOGICAL STUDY OF NEGATION IN SINITIC LANGUAGES: SYNCHRONIC AND DIACHRONIC VIEWS
This paper investigates negative markers in five Sinitic languages: Min-nan, Yue, Wu, Xiang and Northern (Mandarin) with reference to cross-linguistic studies on negation such as Dryer A brief historical sketch is also made of Archaic Chinese (5 th c.-2 nd c. BCE) and in Medieval Chinese in the attempt to trace the origin of these different negative markers. We show that a syntactic, word-order based typology is insufficient to account for these data as Sinitic languages, particularly Min and Yue, possess a large set of semantically distinct negative morphemes, used in what is generally called standard sentence negation as well as in imperatives. These include volitional, perfective, irrealis and imminent kinds of negative markers that provide evidence of the close semantic ties between aspect, modality and negation, as Yue-Hashimoto has observed (1993: 89-92). The main outcome of this analysis is to construct a semantic typology for standard clause negation and imperatives in order to explain these phenomena. Negation has been treated by many linguists and philosophers of language as a symmetrical and logical relation so that for most utterance types such as questions, commands and declaratives, it is understood that corresponding affirmative and negative forms will exist. The following kind of logical analysis is often provided for these: If A means 'not B', then B means'not A'. This proves to be a rather controversial interpretation when applied to real language data, with many linguists reaching the conclusion that it does not and cannot account for all natural language phenomena (cf. Wierzbicka 1972: 203-220, Bybee 1985: 176 and particularly Givón 1979, 1984). Wierzbicka (1972: 204) proposes in fact that 'negation is not a reciprocal relation' but rather an expression of the speaker's judgement or belief about a state of affairs or an event in the real world. In other words, negation is a kind of modality. 2 Palmer (1986) similarly observes certain instances of semantic skewing due to the close relation of negation with the use of the subjunctive mood in certain languages which the affirmative form does not follow; the expression of certain