Re: "to be" or "not to be"
| From: | Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, June 14, 2008, 20:19 |
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On Jun 13, 2008, at 8:45 PM, Scotto Hlad wrote:
[...]
> Anyway. I was looking in my Roget's Thesaurus and in the front, Roget
> has the Tabular Synopsis of Categories. This seems like a good
> compendium of root meaning that I could work from as a basis for some
> roots for my new lang. Under existence, there is an entry for
> "Inexistence." Roget has a pile of words that related to this, but it
> got me thinking. Is there a language that has a specific word for non
> existence eg. "not to be"? I find it fascinating to think in those
> terms
> and would like to see how it might have worked elsewhere.
WALS has some interesting info on negation:
112. "Negative morphemes" <http://wals.info/feature/112>
113. "Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation" <http://wals.info/
feature/113>
114. "Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation" <http://wals.info/
feature/114>
115. "Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation" <http://
wals.info/feature/115>
139. "Irregular Negatives in Sign Languages" <http://wals.info/
feature/139>
The first and last seem especially relevant here.