nasality and negation

[Michael Noonan]

To Marianne's examples we can add Tamangic [Sino-Tibetan, Bodish] a-
(<*ma-); the Krongo [Nilo-Saharan] circumfix a...e; the Ga [Niger-Congo,
Kwa] negation of the past, progressive, and habitual tenses, consisting of
a high (or mid) tone on the verbal root and a lengthening of the final
vowel; etc.

Mickey Noonan

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007, Marianne Mithun wrote:

> But we do know that negatives can in fact consist of just a vowel, even if 
> it is not common. The regular form of the negative in Barbareño Chumash 
> (Chumashan family), indigienous to the Southern California Coast, is the 
> verbal prefix -e-.
> 
> Barbaraño Chumash
> 
> s-qantun-us
> 3.sg.subject-obey-3sg
> 's/he obeys him/her'
> 
> s-e-qantun-us
> 3sg.subject-NEG-obey-3sg
> 's/he does not obey him/her'
> 
> 
> Marianne Mithun
> 
> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
> Date: Thursday, August 30, 2007 3:24 PM +0200
> From: Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at EVA.MPG.DE>
> To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Subject: Re: nasality and negation
> 
> Willi Mayerthaler discussed the alleged association between negation and
> nasality in his 1981 book "Morphologische Natürlichkeit", in §5.2 on
> phonetic iconism. He cites a forthcoming paper "Phonetisch ikonische
> Kodierung von Negationspartikeln", but apparently this paper never appeared.
> 
> In the half-page remarks in the 1981 book, he claims that negative markers
> never consist of only a vowel, and that it is striking how often the
> consonant is a nasal, also outside of Indo-European. He associates this
> with a culturally widespread tendency to signal denial by the interruption
> of sensory contacts.
> 
> Martin
> 
> Mayerthaler, Willi. 1981. Morphologische Natürlichkeit. Wiesbaden:
> Athenaion. (= Mayerthaler 1988)
> Mayerthaler, Willi. 1988. Naturalness in morphology. Ann Arbor: Karoma.
> 
> 
> Östen Dahl wrote:
> > Otto Jespersen claims in his "Negation in English and other languages"
> > (1917) that there is a natural tendency for negative words to begin in n-.
> > When I did research on the typology of negation around 1980 I tried to see
> > if there were any such tendencies but the claim did not seem to be
> > confirmed in my materials. I do not know if anyone has done any more
> > systematic count since.
> >
> > Östen Dahl
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Discussion List for ALT [mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG]
> >> On Behalf Of Kaoru Horie
> >> Sent: den 30 augusti 2007 00:51
> >> To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> >> Subject: Re: nasality and negation
> >>
> >> Dear Eduardo,
> >>
> >> I remember having read a similar statement, possibly in Talmy Givon's
> >> 1978 paper.
> >> Horn's book may also provide some relevant information.
> >>
> >> Kaoru Horie
> >> **************
> >> *Talmy Givon. (1978) Negation in language: Pragmatics, function,
> >> ontology. In Peter Cole,
> >> editor, Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9 (Pragmatics), pages 69-112.
> >> Academic
> >> Press, New York.
> >>
> >> *Horn, L.R. (1989) A natural history of negation. University of Chicago
> >> Press, Chicago.
> >>
> >> At 18:33 07/08/29 -0400, you wrote:
> >>
> >>> Dear colleagues,
> >>>
> >>> I remember having read somewhere, quite a while ago, about a
> >>> cross-linguistic tendency for negative morphemes to present similar
> >>> forms (involving nasal phonemes) in unrelated languages.  I
> >>> unfortunately am unable to recall where I read this, and I couldn't
> >>> find any reference to this subject among my textbooks or class notes.
> >>>
> >>> Could anyone help refresh my memory?  Any bibliographical references
> >>> would be very much appreciated.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks in advance,
> >>>
> >>> Eduardo
> >>>
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
> Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6	
> D-04103 Leipzig      Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616
> 
> Glottopedia - the free encyclopedia of linguistics
> (http://www.glottopedia.org)
> 
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
> 

Michael Noonan			
Professor of Linguistics
Dept. of English		
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