[Lingtyp] Negation marks adverbial clauses

Thu Jan 13 01:07:19 UTC 2022

Dear Mohammad,

there is a similar construction (as in, Paolo wrote, many other languages) in German:

"Bevor ich das Geld nicht gespart habe, kann ich mir kein Auto kaufen."

Here, "nicht" is logically superfluous. My explanation for its occurrence was always that this is a hybrid temporal/conditional clause where "bevor" shows semantic features of the conditional conjunction "wenn".

Best,
Ludwig Paul
Hamburg

________________________________
Von: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> im Auftrag von Paolo Ramat <paoram at unipv.it>
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 12. Januar 2022 12:30
An: Hartmut Haberland
Cc: LINGTYP LINGTYP; Fariba Sabouri
Betreff: Re: [Lingtyp] Negation marks adverbial clauses

There exists a large literature on non-negative NEG marks  of the type exemplified by Françoise Rose  :  avant qu’elle n’arrive, …. It is the so-called 'expletive (or vacuous) negation' we find in many languages:  Je suis parti avant qu’il ne soit arrivé , i.e at the moment of my departure he was not yet arrived. But the meaning of  Je suis parti avant qu’il  soit arrivé would be the same . Along with the important book by Dobrushina (see mail of Tanaku Tsunoda) you may consider  A Twofold Classification of Expletive Negation by Matteo Greco, Conference paper, Aug. 2019 at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339285297. See also P. Ramat , La comparazione negativa, «Archivio Glottologico Italiano»  87/2002: 223-229.

Regards,

Prof. Dr. Paolo Ramat
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
'Academia Europaea'
'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)

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Il giorno mer 12 gen 2022 alle ore 10:14 Hartmut Haberland <hartmut at ruc.dk<mailto:hartmut at ruc.dk>> ha scritto:
I do not know if this phenomenon in Danish is related.
“Ikke så snart Amsterdam-traktaten trådte i kraft, begyndte Europa-Kommissionen …” literally ”Not as soon [as] the Amsterdam treaty came into force …”
One could translate this into English with “no sooner” and one might ask if a difference between “no sooner” (with negation) and “as soon as” (without negation) always is observed by all speakers, as subtle it may be.
Hartmut Haberland
Professor emeritus
[RUC]

Roskilde University
Department of Communication and Arts
Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> På vegne af Françoise Rose
Sendt: 12. januar 2022 09:53
Til: mohammad rasekh <mrasekhmahand at yahoo.com<mailto:mrasekhmahand at yahoo.com>>; LINGTYP LINGTYP <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
Cc: Fariba Sabouri <faribasabouri at gmail.com<mailto:faribasabouri at gmail.com>>
Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] Negation marks adverbial clauses

Dear Mohammad,
this is a very common phenomenon in (rather formal) French:

avant qu’elle n’arrive, ….
before she arrives (lit. before she does not arrive)

Unfortunately, I don’t have any reading recommendation on the topic!

Best,
Françoise ROSE (fʁɑ̃swɑz ʁoz)
Directrice de Recherches 2ème classe, CNRS
Laboratoire Dynamique Du Langage (CNRS/Université Lyon2)
16 avenue Berthelot
69007 Lyon
FRANCE
www.ddl.cnrs.fr/ROSE<http://www.ddl.cnrs.fr/ROSE>

De : Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> De la part de mohammad rasekh
Envoyé : mardi 11 janvier 2022 16:18
À : LINGTYP LINGTYP <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
Cc : Fariba Sabouri <faribasabouri at gmail.com<mailto:faribasabouri at gmail.com>>
Objet : [Lingtyp] Negation marks adverbial clauses

Dear All,
I hope you have started a happy new year.
In the corpus of one of my students in Hamedani Persian (a variety spoken in Hamedan, west of Iran), we have found some adverbial clauses in which the verb is marked by negative prefix, but it does not mean negative. These adverbial clauses mark Time (meaning 'as soon as') and Reason, or both at the same time. Some examples:

1.        i               ke            kur          na-šod, man         diye          ruz-e xoš                 na-didam

        he            that         blind       NEG-become, I    anymore day-EZ happy     NEG-see-1SG
        As soon as he got blind, I had no good times.

2.      das       ke         ne-mi-keš-i                               ru harči,                       xāk-e

       hand     that      NEG-IND-touch-2SG               over     everything,       dirty-BE.3SG

    As you touch everything, it is dirty.
I wonder if there is any other language in which the adverbial clause is negative in form but not in meaning. I searched to find some evidence or some sources which mention this, but I was not successful. I appreciate your comments.
Best regards,
Mohammad

Mohammad Rasekh-Mahand
Linguistics Department,
Bu-Ali Sina University,
Hamedan, Iran.
Postal Code: 6517838695
https://basu.academia.edu/MohammadRasekhmahand
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