Re: going without "without"

On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, John Cowan wrote:
>=20
> > Irina Rempt-Drijfhout wrote:
> >
> > > Better; much better, even though it goes against the school-grammar
> > > rule that the verb should always be negated if anything else in the
> > > sentence is.
> >
> > Say what?  "None of us are going to the store" negates, but not the
> > verb.  *"All of us aren't going to the store" is absolutely impossible
> > in English, thanks to the rule of negative attraction.
>=20
> I'm sure Irina was referring to a rule of *Valdyan* school grammar,
> and the rule is "if anything in the sentence is negated, the verb
> must include an additional marker of negation".
Right; sorry if it wasn't clear that I wasn't talking about English
grammar when explaining a Valdyan construction. The rule is, in fact,
more like "If the subject of a sentence is negated, the verb is
usually negated as well; if the object is negated, the verb is always
negated." In the woman-with-a-stick example there's not even an
object involved so the rule wouldn't be enforced rigidly, but
pedantry and hypercorrection abound even in Valdyas.

I'm working on negations right now (inspired by all the discussion
about "without" and what Boudewijn is doing), and finding a lot of
half-forgotten little facts, like ways to ask a negative question
expecting different answers. ("Isn't it true?" "Why yes, of course it
is")

> So in Valdyan you
> say things like "None of us aren't going to the store", much as in
> Russian.=20
You *can* even say "All of us aren't going to the store" in some
contexts. It means, of course, "None of us are going to the store"
but defines "all of us" as a single body rather than a collection of
individuals each with their own plans.

> Tokana has the same rule.  Compare:
>=20
>   Ne      Tsion nelhotun
>   the.Abs John  leave-Neg-Pst
>   "John didn't leave"
I like "the John"! Is the article only for case marking, or is it
always used (except when talking *to* John, I presume)?

In my abortive Thunder Rock language, names had the "definite unique"
marker -n=F3 as well as a gender marker, -ai- for feminine, and I think
(never wrote that down) -=E9- for masculine; so "Matt" would come out
as "Matt=E9n=F3" and "Irina" as "Irinain=F3" when somebody is talking about
us, we'd address one another in writing with the direct-object marker
-i ("Matt=E9n=F3i") and use each other's plain names only when talking
face to face when it's absolutely clear that you're male, I'm female,
there's only one of each of us and we're talking to each other.

But I'm digressing again: let's get back on topic.

Arin     na  le  fulut
Arin-NOM NEG RFL take.away-3s-PRT
"Arin didn't leave"

("Arin" is the most common man's name, the nearest equivalent of
"John")

>   Tunton enelhotun
>   nobody Foc-leave-Neg-Pst
>   "Nobody left"
>   (lit. "Nobody didn't leave")
Nalea  na  le  fulut
NEG.3A NEG RFL take.away-3s-PRT
"Nobody left"

In some dialects, _nalea_ takes a plural verb even though the number
of people it refers to is of necessity zero: _nalea na le fuluyt_,
literally "nobody didn't take themselves away".

> [Note: The verb prefix "e-" indicates that the preverbal noun
> phrase "tunton" is in focus.  There's a rule in Tokana which
> restricts negative quantifiers like "never" and "nobody" to the
> preverbal focus position.]
Can "never" be a noun phrase in Tokana (for instance, a time noun in
the locative)? Or does this go for all negative quantifiers?

   Irina


            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
                     irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
       http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/index.html (English)
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)