[Lingtyp] Ironic negative constructions

[Heath Jeffrey]

Sometimes "negative" = emphatic positive clauses are covert rhetorical questions without an overt interrogative element. I find this in some West African languages, highly conventionalized and indistinguishable in form from actual negation. A pain in the butt for fieldworkers analysing texts.
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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Nestor Hernandez-Green <nestorhgreen at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2020 1:14 PM
To: Bastian Persohn <persohn.linguistics at gmail.com>
Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Ironic negative constructions

In some regions of Mexico, there is a negative construction with similar effects:

Casi/no/es/borracho
almost/no/is/drunkard.MASC
"he's a heavy drinker" (lit. he's not much of a drunkard)

I don't know if this has been researched yet in Spanish.

Hope this helps

= Néstor Hernández-Green =
Sitio web: http://goo.gl/jsw4zs

[Este mensaje puede haber sido escrito utilizando funciones de dictado en Android]

El vie., 24 de enero de 2020 11:16, Bastian Persohn <persohn.linguistics at gmail.com<mailto:persohn.linguistics at gmail.com>> escribió:

Dear group members,

I am posting the below on behalf of a student of mine. Any input will be greatly appreciated, be it on similar conventionalized uses of negation and irony in other languages of the world, general thoughts, or even specific remarks regarding isiXhosa (or the larger Nguni branch of Bantu).

Best regards,

Bastian


I would like some help with finding resources/getting more information on ironic negative constructions, which are a rather frequent device in isiXhosa (Bantu, South Africa). I’m not sure if they go by any other name, I found this term in Oosthuysen’s (2016) Grammar of isiXhosa. He describes it as “The use of a grammatical negative to convey a predicate with an emphatic positive connotation”. So, these constructions read as negative statements but in actual fact mean the opposite. The prosody is different which helps in realising that it’s the ironic negative. Here are some examples (numbers indicate noun classes, FV is the default final vowel morpheme):


A-ka-se-m-hle lo mntwana
NEG-SBJ.NEG.1-still-1-pretty PROX.1 1.child
'This child is so/very beautiful' (lit: 'This child is no longer beautiful')


A-ni-sa-hlafun-i
NEG-SBJ.2PL-still-chew-NEG
'You are chewing so much/so loudly' (lit: 'You are no longer chewing')


A-ndi-sa-dinw-anga
NEG-SBJ.1SG-still-be(come)_tired-NEG.PFV
'I am so/very tired.' (lit: 'I am not tired anymore')

Be-ndi-nge-minc-e
REC.PST-SBJ.1SG-NEG-tense_up-PFV
'I was so very tense' (lit: 'I was not tensed up')

A-yi-nints-i imi-buzo ya-m
NEG-COP.4-many 4-question 4-POSS.1SG
'My questions are so many' (lit: 'My questions are not many')

Any input in the form of papers, books, tiny excerpt, noting that it you’ve encountered a similar thing in another language etc would be of great help.

Thanks!

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