Where's where

[Richard Madsen]

Dear all,

to the best of my knowledge neither Hungarian, nor Danish uses
interrogatives as emphatic negators.

Best
Richard

David Gil <gil at EVA.MPG.DE> den 19. marts 2005 kl. 13:33 +0000 skrev:
>Dear all,
>
>
>As we have seen, there has been a minor deluge of reports of languages
>in which 'where' (or some other content interrogative word) is used to
>express emphatic negation.  But as is typically the case, nobody has
>thought of offering data of a negative character, to say that "Well in
>this language there's nothing of the sort".  Given that the attestations
>of the phenomena in the LINGTYP discussion so far would seem to span a
>single isogloss extending from German through the Middle-East and South
>Asia all the way to Indonesia, I am curious to know whether the absence
>of any attestations from, say, sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, the
>Americas, and various other regions is reflective of a real absence, or,
>as is often the case, an absence of attention on our part as linguists.
>
>
>Hence this call: please send me examples of languages in which (you are
>sure that) the phenomenon of 'where' or some other content interrogative
>word being used to express emphatic negation is NOT present.  One such
>language is English.  Please let me know of others.  Of course, I would
>still be interested in examples of other languages which have the
>phenomenon.
>
>
>If I get enough responses, I will post a summary (perhaps even a map).
>
>
>David
>
>
>--
>David Gil
>
>
>[currently in Indonesia]
>
>
>Department of Linguistics
>Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
>
>
>Telephone: 49-341-3550321
>Fax: 49-341-3550119
>Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
>Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/