Genetic Descent

Vidhyanath Rao rao.3 at osu.edu
Fri Jun 8 19:36:43 UTC 2001


"Larry Trask" <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk> wrote:
> It is true that sentence operators, such as negation and tense, are
> most typically associated with verbs.  But this is not true without
> exception. For example, in Sanskrit -- I am told -- the negative
> marker can appear anywhere in a sentence at all, and need
> not be attached to the verb.
> (OK; I'm ready for flak from the Sanskritists on this list. ;-) )

No flak on this specifically. Just that when making statements about
Sanskrit, we must pay attention to diachrony and genre, due to the
length of time and substratum influences.

For a more detailed analysis, see Gonda's "La place de la particule
négative "na" dans la phrase en vieil indien.", Leiden, E. J. Brill,
1951.  I have forgotton the his precise conclusions. My impression is as
follows: In the oldest prose texts, negation (na') occurs most often in
the clause initial position or with the verb. In the medieval
commentaries,  the last position in the sentence is common and this
position starts appearing in Mahabhashya a 1st c. BCE commentary, but
this is generally considered to be Dravidian influence (where negation
is indicated by a particle cliticized to the finite verb that would
otherwise be at the end of the sentence).



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