"To be" or not "to be"?

From: "taliesin the storyteller"

> AFMCL, the things symbolized by words all implicitly exist; marking that
> something doesn't exist is done by prefixing ë- "non, not", saying that
> something lacks or is empty is done by prefixing aì- "no, no amount of".
>
> ry bren
> this car, this is a car
>
> ry ëbren / ëry bren
> this non-car, this isn't a car, not-this is a car
> (This would also be used for an illusionary car or imaginary car.)
>
> ry aìbren / aìry bren
> this without-car, this is without a car, without this car
>
> And what about double negation? Beats me. Negating a noun-phrase does
> not affect an eventual negation of a verb-phrase, well I'm not 100% sure
> whether you negate *words* or *phrases* yet... If it was the latter I'd
> expect all words in the phrase to be explicitly negated, at least if
> following the head, as they agree...
If I understand you correctly, this is kind of the way Géarthnuns works.
Negation falls on the nouns, but it's not a matter of saying that something
is a non-something, it's just that negation is attached to the noun. E.g:

I love my dog.
Sí la chö ngarebsöt síteböt söl.
I-positive present the-pos dog-acc/pos my-acc/pos love.

I don't love my dog.
Fí la vö ngarekhsöt fítekhöt söl.
I-negative pres the-neg dog-acc/neg my-acc/neg love.

All nouns within a given phrase must have the same "polarity". To shift
polarity within a phrase, you need to use words like "and" or "but".

The dog is not brown, but black.
Vö ngarekhs la dvaurhökh, arzhö éfüb, nöi.
the-neg dog-nom/neg pres brown-nom/neg, but black-nom/pos, be.

The dog is black, not brown.
Chö ngarebs la éfüb, arzhö dvaurökh, nöi.
the-pos dog-nom/pos pres black-nom/pos, but brown-nom/neg, be.

We gots both a copula and a word for "exist" which does double duty for
"there is, there are" sentences.

Kou