nasality and negation (fwd)

[Michael Noonan]

I'm forwarding the following from Larry Hyman:

>Hi Martin & Östen - Greetings! I don't think I can email to LINGTYP, but
>just wanted to add that off the top of my head I can't think of a single
>Bantu or other Niger-Congo language that I've worked on that expresses
negation with a nasal. If correct, that's a lot of languages!

And:


>
>Marianne - I find this exchange rather odd (I bet Frans agrees!). The
>claim is based on so little, but linguists just won't let go of the idea
>that certain phonological features tend to be used (or not to be used) to
>express certain concepts. The same discussion could be had on whether
>negative markers tend to have coronal consonants! Here's what I wrote to
>Martin and Östen (I'm not authorized to email to LINGTYP for some
>reason!). Best, Larry


At 12:21 PM -0500 8/30/07, Michael Noonan wrote:
>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 BarbareÒo Chumash
>>  (Chumashan family), indigienous to the Southern California Coast, is the
>>  verbal prefix -e-.
>>
>>  BarbaraÒo 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 Nat¸rlichkeit", in ß5.2 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 Nat¸rlichkeit. Wiesbaden:
>>  Athenaion. (= Mayerthaler 1988)
>>  Mayerthaler, Willi. 1988. Naturalness in morphology. Ann Arbor: Karoma.
>>
>>
>>  ÷sten 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.
>>  >
>>  > ÷sten 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
>University of Wisconsin
>Milwaukee, WI  53201
>USA
>
>Office:	  414-229-4539
>Fax:	  414-229-2643
>Messages: 414-229-4511
>Webpage:  http://www.uwm.edu/~noonan