positive and negative existential items

[Richard Valovics]

In case no one has mentioned these cases, first Hungarian then Russian:

Hungarian has a special negative copula but it is used only in 3rd
person present indicative. In all other tenses, moods and
person/number combinations the usual positive copula is used with
the usual negator. The negative copula is inflected for number.
Interestingly

1)	Nincs kutya a ház-ban.
	neg.copula-3SG dog-SG-NOM the house-SG-INESS
	There is no dog in the house

2)	Nincs-enek kutyá-k a ház-ban.
	neg.copula-3PL dog-PL-NOM the house-SG-INESS
	There are no dogs in the house

By contrast

3)	Nem vagy-ok a ház-ban.
	not copula.PRS-1SG the house-SG-INESS
	I am not in the house.

4)	Nem volt-ak kutyá-k a ház-ban.
	not copula.PRT-3PL dog-PL-NOM the house-SG-INESS
	There were no dogs in the house.

Remark that the negative copula is used only to express the
subject's non-existens or non-presens. If a non-verbal predicate is
negated or there is a contrastive negation in the sentence, the
ordinary copula is used with the ordinary negator. Note that the
ordinary copula is omitted in 3rd person present indicative when
there is a non-verbal predicate (subject complement) present in the
sentence. The negator is placed immediately before the negated
constituent.

5)	A kutyá-k nem csúnyá-k.
	the dog-PL-NOM not ugly-PL
	The dogs are not ugly.

6)	A kutyá-k nem a ház-ban van-nak.
	the dog-PL-NOM not house-SG-INESS copula.PRS-3PL
	The dogs are not in the house (but somewhere else).

Notice that one can very well use the negative copula with a
definite subject. Such a sentence is then a mere declaration of the
subject's non-presens, there is no contrastive negation as opposed
to in 6):

7)	A kutyá-k nincs-enek a ház-ban.
	the dog-PL-NOM neg.copula-3PL the house-SG-INESS
	The dogs are not in the house.

Hungarian has a further negative copula which is a contraction of
sem+nincs (neither+neg.copula)

8)	A kutyá-k sincs-enek a ház-ban.
	the dog-PL-NOM neither.neg.copula-3PL the house-SG-INESS
	The dogs are not in the house either.

Russian

One might consider as a case in point the use of the genitive in
Russian to express non-present subjects:

9)	V dom-e net sobak-i.
	in house-SG.LOC not dog-SG.GEN
	There is no dog in the house.

as opposed to

10)	V dom-e est' sobak-a.
	in house-SG.LOC is dog-SG.NOM
	There is a dog in the house.

"net" is a negator used to negate the presence or existence of the
subject and is a contraction of ne+est'. "net" is used only in
present indicative, much like the Hungarian negative copula. But
unlike the Hungarian negative copula, "net" is used in all persons
and numbers, though invariably, without agreement with the
subject. "est'" is - as far as I can fathom - used only to underscore
the presence/existence of the subject. It is e.g. not used with
subject complements or if the subject has attributes.

11)	Sobak-a malenk-aja.
	dog-SG.NOM little-SG.NOM
	The dog is little.

12)	V dom-e malenk-aja sobak-a.
	in house-SG.LOC little-SG.NOM dog-SG.NOM
	There is a little dog in the house.


Richard Valovics
University of Education, Denmark
Skelagervej 313
DK-8200 Aarhus
Tel.: +45-86 10 96 16
Mobile: +45-61 67 02 53