Re: negatives and double negatives

Doug Dee wrote:
> In a message dated 8/28/2005 1:22:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> travis65610@YAHOO.COM writes:
>
 can anyone else >think of some other ideas expressable as
> negative constructions, and/or examples from >natlangs?
>
> I read somewhere that in some languages, verbs in "before" clauses are
> always
> negated, so that to express "I ate before you arrived" you would say
> literally "I ate before you didn't arrive."  The logic apparently is that
> at the
> moment of my eating you had not arrived, so "arrived" should be negated.
>
This jogged the ol' memory-- Latin timeo 'I fear' requires the negative _ne_
(not _ut_) to begin the subordinate clause; possibly other verbs too?

In Spanish, some verbs, like creer 'believe', take the indicative when
positive, but subjunctive when negative--

creo que viene 'I think he's coming'
no creo que venga 'I don't think he's coming'

?? creo que no viene 'I think he isn't coming' ???

ObConlang: Kash uses a double negative for emphasis:
talunda ne matikas 'I never saw him'
never him I-see

ta ne matikas talunda 'I _never_ saw him ~ I'll _never_ see him'
not him I-see never

(talunda of course already contains a negative, ta +lunda 'ever', so it's
actually a triple negative ^_^ )

and in the recent "Litany of Fear": ...ta yaleto tape-tapes 'there will be
nothing' (tapes also contains ta-, +mes(a) 'one')