Re: "to be" or "not to be"

On Jun 14, 2008, at 4:37 AM, David J. Peterson wrote:

> Scotto:
> <<
> Can you name a few of the languages that do have the negative copula?
> >>
>
> Sadly, I cannot.  I *know* I've seen these examples, and that
> some have come from Africa, and some may have come from
> the Caucausas, but it's so long, and you see so much data going
> through school...  I'm sure that while I've seen examples that
> look like the made-up example I cited, they're probably more
> complex as you change tenses, change person, add arguments,
> etc.
I believe (some?) Uralic languages have a negative verb which is used
for negating pretty much everything. I don't know if it's considered
a copula, though.

>
> Eugene:
> <<
> What language is that, David? I'd like to know. (:
> >>
>
> That was a made-up example (I should probably make a note
> of it when I do that); not a natural language, or an actual conlang.
> It's an facsimile of natural language data I've seen.
>
> This, however, does look pretty close:
>
> Eugene's data from Korean:
> <<
> Chingu ga isseoyo.
> Friend SUBJ have.POLITE
> "I have friends." / "My friend is there."
>
> Chingu ga opseoyo.
> Friend SUBJ don't-have.POLITE
> "I don't have friends."
>
> Saram eun opseoyo.
> People TOPIC don't-have.POLITE
> "There are no people (around here)."
> >>
>
> Somewhat similar to Turkish's yok/var that Philip mentioned.
One should keep in mind that, in some languages, the existential verb
"there is/are" is not the same as the copula.

> I wonder where one might search for something like this... I
> wonder what Payne has to say about negation.
>
> There is some, but not enough about copulae, I'm afraid.  Here
> are the relevant examples:
>
> Tagalog
> Wala akong pera.  "I don't have any money."
> Hindi ko alam.  "I don't know."
>
> These are two different types of negative verbs.  Unfortunately,
> these examples aren't glossed (d'oh!).  Perhaps someone familiar
> with Tagalog could help us out, and tell us how "I'm not a teacher"
> vs. "I am a teacher" works?
>
> Diegeno (Yuman):
>
> ?n_ja:-tS ?-a?m-x ?-ma:w
> /I-sub. 1sg-go-IRR 1sg-Neg/
> "I didn't go."
>
> Payne points out that the main verb is a negative verb (verb final,
> and the second verb, "go", is marked with the irrealis suffix,
> indicating
> that it's subordinate).
Cool! Dhakran works almost exactly like that. I wish I could remember
if that was an idea I came up with myself, or if I read about it.
(Again, this is like the Uralic way, except that I'm not sure if
Uralic uses an irrealis form.)

Dhakran uses a generic negative verb for most negations, but I think
that it might have a few negative verbs with specific meanings, e.g.
"not do", "not know", "not be able", etc. In general those verbs
could be glossed a few different ways, e.g. "not do"="fail or refuse
to do".

On the natlang front, Japanese and Ainu both have verbs meaning
"there is/are not": Jp nai, Ainu isam. (Interestingly, isam seems to
be used at times as a sort of perfective marker; I wonder if its
original sense was "be finished", and later came to mean "no longer
exist" and thence "not exist"!)

>
> Unfortunately in the section on copulae, Payne doesn't use any
> negative examples; only positive ones.  At this point, all I can
> do is dig through notes, or search almighty Google.  :(
>
> -David
> *******************************************************************
> "sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
> "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
>
> -Jim Morrison
>
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