Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.
Negation without negators (Miestamo)
This week's paper was submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate and presents a survey of multiple languages which all feature a peculiar property, viz. the expression of negation by means of omitting morphological material that is present in the affirmative clause. An initial example is from Old Kannada (Dravidian, India): no:ḍ-uv-eṃ see-FUT-1SG "I will see", no:ḍ-id-eṃ see-PST-1SG "I saw", no:ḍ-eṃ see-1SG "I do / did / will not see". In this TyPoW you can tell us how negation works in your language, and if "Zero Negative" constructions (as they are called in the paper) are a thing in your language! Now onto the prompts:
- What negation strategies are there in your language?
- Is negation symmetric or asymmetric? How are negative clauses derived from affirmative ones?
- How do negative constructions act syntactically? Are there any restrictions on where one negation strategy might (not) occur?
- Does your language feature Zero Negative constructions as described in the paper? Does your language differ from the findings of the paper?
Remember to try to comment on other people's languages
Submit your papers here!
So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!