[Lingtyp] Does bipolar polysemy exist?
David Gil
gil at shh.mpg.de
Fri Jun 1 08:55:11 UTC 2018
Interesting. This use of a verb (prototypically but not exclusively
"know") with a negative meaning (when prototypically but not exclusively
associated with a specific intonation contour) seems, from the preceding
discussion, to be a Southeast Asian (mainland plus island) areal
phenomenon, occurring in Lao, Indonesian, Tukang Besi and Tagalog.
Though an alternative hypothesis would be that it was merely a group of
Southeast Asianists who were first to comment on this phenomenon in this
thread, and that it is actually more widespread ...
On 01/06/2018 01:42, Nick Enfield wrote:
>
> In Lao:
>
> 1. The verb cak2 means ‘know’, and can be negated as in man2 bòò1
> cak2 [3sg neg know] ‘S/he doesn’t know.’ But when used alone, with
> no subject expressed, often with the perfect marker (as in cak2 or
> cak2 lèèw4) it means “I don’t know.”
> 2. The verb faaw4 means ‘to hurry, rush’, and can be negated as in
> man2 bòò1 faaw4 [3sg neg rush] ‘S/he doesn’t hurry/isn’t
> hurrying.’ But when used alone as an imperative, with no subject
> expressed, often repeated, or with an appropriate sentence-final
> particle (as in faaw4 faaw4 or faaw4 dee4) it means “Don’t hurry,
> Stop hurrying, Slow down”.
> 3. Often, both positive and negative readings of verbs are available
> when the irrealis prefix si is used (with context or perhaps
> intonation doing the work); eg khaw3 si kin3 [3pl irr eat] could
> mean ‘They will eat it’ or ‘They will definitely not eat it’ with
> a meaning similar to the colloquial English expression “As if they
> would eat it.” The second meaning is made more likely by insertion
> of the directional paj3 ‘go’ before the verb (khaw3 si paj3 kin3
> [3pl irr go eat] ‘As if they would eat it.’).
>
> Nick
>
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> *N. J. ENFIELD *| FAHA FRSN | Professor of Linguistics
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> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf
> of Mark Donohue <mark at donohue.cc>
> *Date: *Friday, 1 June 2018 at 7:13 AM
> *To: *David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
> *Cc: *"LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG"
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] Does bipolar polysemy exist?
>
> In Tukang Besi, an Austronesian language of Indonesia, the verb 'know'
> is dahani; verbs are generally prefixed to agree with the S,A
> argument, thus
>
> ku-dahani 'I know'
>
> 'u-dahani 'you know'
>
> etc.
>
> In some contexts (imperatives, emphatic generic (TAME-less)
> assertion), the prefix can be omitted.
>
> dahani 'I/you certainly know'
>
> Now, I've heard this (and only this) verb used, in the absence of any
> inflection, with exactly its opposite meaning
>
> Dahani 'I don't know'
>
> in what might be a sarcastic sense. Unlike the antonymic uses of many
> adjectives in many languages, including English, this use of dahani is
> actually a simple (though emphatic) negation of the verb's 'normal'
> meaning.
>
> -Mark
>
> On 1 June 2018 at 04:43, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de
> <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
>
> Yes, as Matti points out, negative lexicalization is not quite as
> rare as I was implying. Yet at the same time, I suspect that it
> might not be as common as Matti is suggesting. Looking at the
> examples that he cites in his Handbook chapter, I suspect that in
> some cases, the negative counterpart isn't "just" negative, but is
> also associated with some additional meaning components.
>
> Matti doesn't list "good"/"bad" as being such a pair, though,
> citing work by Ulrike Zeshan on sign languages, he does mention
> other evaluative concepts such as "not right", "not possible",
> "not enough". in English, at least, "bad" is not the negation of
> "good", it is the antonym of "good"; there's all kind of stuff in
> the world which we attach no evaluative content to, and which
> hence is neither good nor bad. (It's true that in English, in many
> contexts, the expression "not good" is understood as meaning
> "bad", which is interesting in and of itself, but still, it is not
> necessarily understood in this way.) While I have no direct
> evidence, I would strongly suspect that in languages that have
> lexicalized expressions for "not right", "not possible", and "not
> enough", the meanings of these expressions will be the antonyms of
> "right", "possible" and "enough", and not their negations.
>
> Under lexicalized negatives in the domain of tense/aspect, Matti
> lists "will not", "did not", "not finished". Well the one case
> that I am familiar with that falls into this category is that of
> the Malay/Indonesian iamative/perfect marker "sudah", which has a
> lexicalized negative counterpart "belum". However, "belum" isn't
> just "not sudah"; it also bears a strong (if not invariant)
> implicature that at some point in the future, the state or
> activity that is not complete will be completed — in fact, just
> like the English expression "not yet". (When people in Indonesia
> ask you if you're married, it's considered impolite to answer with
> a simple negation "tidak"; you're supposed to say "belum"
> precisely because of its implicature that you will, in the future,
> get married. By avoiding this implicature, the simple negation
> "tidak" is viewed as a threat to the natural order of things, in
> which everybody should get married.)
>
> I suspect that many if not all of the cases characterized by Matti
> as "lexicalized negatives" will turn out to be associated with
> some additional meaning component beyond that of "mere" negation.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 31/05/2018 20:06, Miestamo, Matti M P wrote:
>
> Dear David, Zygmunt and others,
>
> negative lexicalization is not quite as rare as David seems to
> imply. There is a cross-linguistic survey of this phenomenon
> by Ljuba Veselinova (ongoing work, detailed and informative
> presentation slides available through her website), and Zeshan
> (2013) has written on this phenomenon in sign languages.
> There's also a short summary in my recent Cambridge Handbook
> of Linguistic Typology chapter on negation (preprint available
> via the link in the signature below).
>
> Best,
> Matti
>
> --
> Matti Miestamo
> http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/~matmies/
> <https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/O7N4CL7rK8t5zx0kUBCq-Q?domain=ling.helsinki.fi>
>
>
>
> Zygmunt Frajzyngier <Zygmunt.Frajzyngier at COLORADO.EDU
> <mailto:Zygmunt.Frajzyngier at COLORADO.EDU>> kirjoitti
> 31.5.2018 kello 17.23:
>
> David, Friends
> Related to David’s post, not to the original query.
> In any individual language, there may exist a few of
> ‘Not-X’ items.
> In Mina (Central Chadic) there is a noun which designates
> ‘non-blacksmith’.
> In several Chadic languages there exist negative
> existential verb unrelated to the affirmative existential
> verb.
> Zygmunt
>
> On 5/31/18, 5:52 AM, "Lingtyp on behalf of David Gil"
> <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on
> behalf of gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 31/05/2018 13:37, Sebastian Nordhoff wrote:
>
> On 05/31/2018 01:18 PM, David Gil wrote:
>
> A point of logic. "Not X" and "Antonym (X)" are
> distinct notions, and
> the original query by Ian Joo pertains to the
> former, not the latter.
>
> but is there any (monomorphemic) lexeme which
> expresses not-X which is
> not the antonym of X?
>
> But how many (monomorphemic) lexemes expressing not-X
> are there at all?
> The only ones I can think of are suppletive negative
> existentials, e.g.
> Tagalog "may" (exist) > "wala" (not exist). Even
> suppletive negative
> desideratives don't quite fit the bill, e.g. Tagalog
> "nais"/"gusto"
> (want) > "ayaw", which is commonly glossed as "not
> want", but actually
> means "want not-X", rather than "not want-X" — "ayaw"
> is thus an antonym
> but not a strict negation of "nais"/"gusto".
>
> What is not clear to me about the original query is
> whether it is asking
> for negations or for antonyms.
>
> --
> David Gil
>
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>
> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
>
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>
> --
> David Gil
>
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>
> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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