Re: OT: Negation as the indicative standard

From:    Doug Dee <amateurLinguist@...>
> In a message dated 1/18/2004 12:37:56 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> axiem@FASTMAIL.FM writes:
>
> >What he was curious about is if there's a language that does it the other
> >way around. That is, a standard indicative sentence is normally negative,
> >and an extra word/morpheme/something must be added to make it an
> >affirmative.
>
> I seem to recall reading somewhere that no natural language does this, but
> one comes close, in that a negative sentence needs a negative particle and a
> positive sentence needs a positive particle, so that both are equally marked.
>
> Now, if only I could recall where I read that and what language was alleged
> to have that feature . . .
Some languages mark negation only as a fusional inflection
on the verb.  Thus, such languages may be interpreted to have
*no* basic form of the verb:  just two different paradigms,
one positive and one negative.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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