nasal negation

[Frans Plank]

As to the IE negation-nasality connection (and do read Jespersen's 
Adversative Conjunctions as well as his Negation in English and Other 
Languages), it is perhaps worth noting that it can be severed without 
much ado.

Thus, it is widespread in Alemannic (an Upper High German dialect) 
for N-ICHT 'not' to have alternative forms with and without initial 
N-, the old IE negator.  On some 20 years of first-hand experience, I 
believe that in genuine Konstanz speech you in fact *only* hear i.ta 
'nicht' -- with an unstressed low central vowel added at the end 
(word minimality), fricative /x/ deleted before /t/ (sound law), and 
initial /n/ suppressed (which I don't think is a regular phonological 
rule with atonic items).  The other negatives keep their initial 
nasal:  n-it 'nothing' (standard n-icht), n-ei(n) 'no', n-ie 'never', 
n-iemad 'no one', n-ierne 'no where', etc.

Konstanz is like Africa, then:  no nasal in standard negator.  Or 
indeed worse:  Africa can only be blamed for not innovating nasal 
negatives;  Konstanz's failure is to have lost one.

Frans Plank
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