Negation?

        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.

        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