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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Dear all,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> <FONT size=3>It is somewhat
surprising to see that a logical, or cognitively motivated, link is
proposed between nasality and negation, just because many languages express
one by means of the other. It is true that the number of such
languages that have been mentioned so far in this discussion is impressing.
It is also true that since many languages have more than one way of expressing
negation (depending on mood, aspect, subordination, nominal or verbal sentence,
etc.), one must be cautious before affirming hastily that a language does not
use a nasal in negative forms: Corean has <EM>ops-ta</EM> "not to exist", but
also <EM>ani-ta</EM> "not to be"; Standard Indonesian has <EM>tidak</EM> "no"
but <EM>bukan</EM> "is not", and Jakarta spoken Indonesian has <EM>nggak</EM>
"no"; Georgian has <EM>ar</EM> "no", but also prohibitive <EM>nu</EM>, and as
for the negative potential <EM>ver</EM> "cannot", it begins with a
voiced labiodental which has some features in common with a nasal.
</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> <FONT size=3> But</FONT> <FONT
size=3>although it is true that theoretical attempts to interpret the link
between nasals and negations may have a local application scope,
and that, to that extent, one cannot deny that they may shed some light on
the nature of negation, such attempts remain shaky. The main reason for this is
not far to seek: the number of languages that give the lie to
these attempts is no less impressive that the number of those that support them.
To mention only a few: Tagalog has <EM>huwag</EM>, Malagasy has
<EM>tsi</EM>, Palauan has <EM>diak</EM> (and for that matter, negations
containing nasals are rare overall in Austronesian languages); Israeli Hebrew
has <EM>lo; </EM>neither Hausa nor Fulani have negations containing nasals
(but is true that Wolof, though West-Atlantic like Fulani, has nasals in some of
the negative pronouns of its verbal paradigms); in many of the languages where
the main clause negation is in fact a verb "to not", there is no support for the
hypothesis of a nasality~negation relationship: such languages are, for
example, Finnish (and Estonian), Comox and other Salishan languages.
</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> <FONT size=3> I am just
mentioning here languages that occur to my mind now, and I have no time to
pursue the inquiry further, although I suspect that Eskimo-Aleut,
Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Na-Dene, Penutian, Dravidian, many Caucasian languages
deserve to be examined in that respect. A large-scale inquiry would no
doubt bring a lot of other counter-examples to the (interesting) hypothesis of a
nasality~negation link, essentialy based on Indo-European languages and others
from some other groups.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>All best,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Claude Hagège, Collège de France,
Paris.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>