24.2396, Sum: Lexicalizations of Negative Senses

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LINGUIST List: Vol-24-2396. Wed Jun 12 2013. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 24.2396, Sum: Lexicalizations of Negative Senses

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Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:07:52
From: Ljuba Veselinova [ljuba at ling.su.se]
Subject: Lexicalizations of Negative Senses

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Dear All,

Back in January, I posted a query about the cross-linguistic occurrence of
lexicalizations of negation. An example of such a lexicalization is given here
from Tundra Nenets:

(1) jexerasj ‘not know’ vs. ténewasj ‘know’ (standard negation is expressed by
a negative auxiliary n’i- in this language).

I received a number of replies for which I am very grateful. My warmest thanks
go to Martine Bruil (Ecuadorian Siona), Timur Maisak (Udi), Mike Morgan and
Calle Börstell (Sign languages), Ana Bravo (Spanish), Lameen Souag (Berber,
Songhay and Ancient Egyptian), Johannes Heinecke (Welsh).

The data sent to me confirmed the trend in my own dataset: the most common
lexicalization appears to be of the sense ‘not know’/’I don’t know’ followed
by senses such as ‘not want’, ‘not need/not have to’ as well as special
expressions of the prohitibitive.

Some examples include:

(2) Ecuadorian Siona: 'wehsë' ‘not know’ vs guahcha ‘know’ (Martine Bruil)
(3) Udi: tezava 'I don't know' (= te-z-ava 'NEG-1SG-know') > /hezava/ or
/heza/ (Timur Maisak)

(4) Spanish no tener por qué ‘not have to (Ana Bravo)

(5) Welsh Paid ‘do not’ (Johannes Heinecke)

I am still working on this topic so any comments or new data are very welcome.
Once again, many thanks to all who responded!

My best wishes,

Ljuba
 

Linguistic Field(s): Typology






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