Re: Uralic Negative Verbs (was RE: "to be" and not to be...)

> >It just occurs to me that the negative verb of Uralic languages sort of
> >counters this argument, but I don't know if any of them get by without a
> >neutral copula. Since they're fairly inflecting & I think mostly pro-drop
> >too, I'd however suspect not.
>
>Can the Finnish negative verb stand alone?  How about the Estonian one?  As
>far as I know, they can't, but I could be wrong.
It's always an auxiliary, but the main verb can be dropped when making a
yes/no statement (as juxtaposition or an answer)


>Speaking of which, why does the Finnish negative verb have a weird vowel
>quality in the 3rd person (_ei_ '(s)he is/does not', _eivät_ 'they are/do
>not')?  Did there use to be a consonant between the /e/ and the /i/?
Might be related to the archaic form of the 3SG suffix /v\i/. But where frex
both "soutavi" and "soutaa" are still recognizeable for 3SG of "to row", the
negative verb only allows "ei". If I'm guessing right, that got levelled
earlier.


>Also, can either language's negative verb inflect for tense?
>
>- Rob
I don't know much details about Estonian grammar, but Finnish only marks it
for person and either indicative or imperative mood.

But anyway,  my point was more that the concept of a negative verb could
counter the "there must be a copula to attach negation to" argument.

John Vertical