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> Van: Christophe Grandsire <Christophe.Grandsire@...>
> Aan: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
> Onderwerp: Negation?
> Datum: dinsdag 6 juli 1999 9:47
>
> Hello everybody,
>
> I was wondering about negation in con- and natlangs. What I'd
like to know
> is if there are con- or natlangs without a formal negation (that's to say
a
> word or bunch of words used to negate any assertions).
>
> Well, I'm not very clear I think. So I'm going to explain it
better:
> - In English, verbs (assertions) are all negated by 'not' with an
auxiliary,
> - In French, we use 'ne', with 'pas', 'plus', etc...
> - In Spanish, there is 'no',
> - In Japanese, you use -nai or -masen (and compounds of them),
> - etc...
>
> What I would like to know is whether there are languages that
don't have
> such negations, I mean a language that has to use a different affirmative
> (at least in structure) assertion to negate another one.
Swahili comes to my mind. They use another pronoun to negate. I sthat what
you mean?
>
> I would like to know that because I use such structures in Notya,
and I
> feel Tj'a-ts'a~n works that way too. In Notya, I can remind at least four
> words used for negation. They are 'wa': to refuse to, refusal, 'tyo':
> contrary, 'phjukyo' /Bu'kjo/: stop, to stop to and 'itjo' /ido/: after,
> behind, to follow. They are used in positive ways, that's to say 'wa'
means
> 'refuse to...', 'tyo' is more like 'do the contrary of...'. As for
> 'phjukyo', it can be translated as 'not... anymore, no more', and 'itjo'
by
> 'still not'. Using 'wa' or 'tyo' depends on context, meaning, politeness,
> etc... 'phjukyo' and 'itjo' are more meaningful, so depend less on
context
> and politeness.
>
> As those words are used unstressed when meaning negation, they
tend to
> become a "formal negation" as I tried to explain it. What I want to do in
> Tj'a-ts'a~n is to negate assertions with affirmative assertions
constructed
> differently (with other modals or adverbial complements, etc...). For
> example, I think the negation of 'it must' (probability) could be 'it
> would' (hypothesis) (that's just an idea).
>
> So, do you know languages that have to use affirmative assertions
to
> negate other affirmative assertions like I described? Tell me if I wasn't
> clear enough. I feel hard to explain what I want.
>
> Christophe
Grandsire
> |Sela Jemufan Atlinan
C.G.
>
> "Reality is just another point of view."
>
> homepage :
http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html