Re: Russian "a" and Norwegian "ikke/ingen" (was: Re: Question about Latin.)

Quoting Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>:

> Hi!
>
> Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> writes:
> >...
> > By the way, I came upon an interesting case on my
> > Norwegian Yahoo:
> >
> > "Denne meldingen har ikke flagg".
> > (This message has no flag)
> >
> > In French (if I may call that French) we would say: "Ce message n'a
> > pas de flag". But if I had to retranslate it into Norwegian, without
> > knowing the context, I would incline to say:
> >
> > "Denne meldingen har *ingen* flagg".
>
> Hmm, actually, some other Scandinavian languages (that I know better
> than Norwegian) prefer to use 'not' (ikke) in this case, too, instead
> of 'no' (ingen).  I'd therefore think that the 'ikke' sentence is
> better in Norwegian, too.
>
> E.g. Icelandic:  Eg hefur ekki bil.
> Or Swedish:      Jag har inte bil.
>
> Both: 'I have no car', lit.: 'I have not car.'
>
> (I hope it's correct, I'm not fuent in either language...)
It's worth noting that the normal positive version of this, in Swedish, is _jag
har bil_, lit "I have car". _jag har en bil_ "I have a car" is possible, but
suggests the relevant piece of information is it being óne car, as opposed to
several.

If the meaning isn't possession, the article is mandatory; _jag har en bil
väntande runt hörnet_ "I've got a car waiting around the corner" (said, for
instance, by someone who's just broken into his friend's prison cell and is
explaining how they're to get away).

The to me most intuitive analysis is that _att ha bil_ "to have a car" is a kind
of compound verb, which in _jag har ingen bil_ is being negated just like any
other intransitive would be.

                                                        Andreas