Re: going without "without"

On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, John Cowan wrote:

> 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.
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".  So in Valdyan you
say things like "None of us aren't going to the store", much as in
Russian.  Tokana has the same rule.  Compare:

  Ne      Tsion nelhotun
  the.Abs John  leave-Neg-Pst
  "John didn't leave"

  Tunton enelhotun
  nobody Foc-leave-Neg-Pst
  "Nobody left"
  (lit. "Nobody didn't leave")

[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.]

Matt.