Re: "Roumant", or whatever it may be called. Part VI

En réponse à Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:

>
> >VERB PARADIGMS:
> <...>
>
> Oh, you don't fear homonymy, do you? ;)
>
Don't forget I'm French :) . If there's something I don't fear in languages it's
homonymy :) .

> >but some categories of verbs allow the use of other particles for
> simple
> >negation. For instance, verbs of movement or transformation often use
> pas
> /pa/:
> >"not a step", etymologically identical to French "pas" and to "Roumant"
> pas:
> >step, while verbs of speech use mostly the particle palavre /pa'lavr/:
> "not
> a
> >word". However, this last particle, from its length, keeps some of its
> >insistance value. So, the phrase: "ne dic palavre" means more "I don't
> say
> a
> >word" than "I don't say".
>
> Interesting. I feel there can be funny shades involved with
> different negations for same verb.
>
Indeed.

> >Ne also has a so-called
> >emphatic form nõ /nO~/ which, used instead of ne, but still needing a
> second
> >part (when nõ is used instead of ne, reim is often omitted however),
> means:
> >not at all, absolutely not, not even. Nõ also means "no" and is opposed
> then to
> >ouc /u/: yes. This use of unstressed ne or stressed nõ looks a lot like
> the
> use
> >of "ne" and "non" in Old French. Yet I didn't know Old French could use
> "non"
> >instead of "ne" with verbs when I devised this feature :) .
>
> For those less versed in Old French (like me), any details?
>
In fact, in Olf French "non" was used with verbal forms lacking tonicity and
autonomy (that's to say: nominal forms of verbs, like participles and
infinitives, verbs losing their meaning because of a purely suppletive use -
like the expression "non fach": "I don't do it", meaning "not at all" -) while
"ne" needed a normal autonomous predicate. In "Roumant", the use of nõ is more
frequent. It can be used with normal predicates, meaning "not at all" (or
repeated, where it means: neither... nor). But except for this feature, ne and
nõ are used mostly like ne and non in Old French, as I explained.

> What do you use when the verb itself is omitted?
>
Then nõ is generally used. Ne is unstressed and thus needs another term (mostly
verbal but in fact any predicative phrase can be used) to be used. Still, the
second term (mostly reim, pas or palavre) must be used.