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Re: Ong Rokbeigalmki (A Rokbeigalmki Chant)

From:Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...>
Date:Thursday, September 30, 1999, 20:46
On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> From the human brain? I doubt it. There are plenty of languages > that make negation an integral part of the verb morphology. The > language I'm studying right now, Atkan Aleut, has a whole series > of paradigms for negation on the verb itself. I believe Japanese > has similar inflections. >
Indeed, Nepali has a completely separate negative verbal paradigm: to be (location) person postive negative 1s ma chu ma chaina 2sLGH ta chas ta chainas 2sHGH pai hunuhuncha tapai hunuhunna 3sLGH yo cha yo chaina 3sMGH uni chan uni chainan 1p hami(haru) chau~ chainau~ 2pLGH timi(haru) chau chainau 3pLGH yiniharu chan chainan 3pHGH yahaharu hunuhuncha hunuhunna The Nepalese verbal system is quite complex, and what's mostly used are participles, not finite verb forms. The simple indefinite tense suffixes are derived from the verb 'to be', and every verb is this inflected with either affirmative or negative suffixes. _ma garchu_ 'I do' vs. _ma gardina~_ 'I do not'. And there are alternative negative suffixes for another class of verb: _ma ja:nchu_ 'I know' vs. _ma ja:nna_, 'I don't know'. (There's no really good Nepali grammar available - the best one can do is Matthews' A Course in Nepali, published by the School of Oriental and African Studies, from which I've taken this paradigm.) Of course, in Denden, negation is expressed by a prefix to the finite verb: _sero tajonire_ 'I didn't know', so that's an integral part of verbal morphology, too. Boudewijn Rempt | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt