#lcc10 Keras Saryan - Clausal negation in Xwere Gonom

details & slides: https://conlang.org/lcc10/#saryan
speaker: Reddit u/keras_saryan, Discord keras_saryan#4307, email keras.saryan@gmail.com, https://keras-saryan.github.io/

In this paper, I describe negation in Xwere Gonom [ˈxʷɛɾɛ kɔˈnɔ̃], with a particular focus on clausal negation.

Clausal negation is expressed by way of negative particles that typically occur in pre-verbal position (though these may occasionally be found elsewhere in the clause). In declarative clauses, the default negator is xen [xɛ̃]; however, there also exist various other negative particles and which one it is appropriate to use in a given utterance can depend on factors such as clausal mood, clausal time reference (Xwere Gonom is morphologically tenseless), the continuity of events or expectations regarding the occurrence or successfulness of an event. Those negators used in declarative clauses are not generally found in non-declarative clauses such as imperatives. In this case, the prohibitive particle ke’ [kʼɛʔ] is preferred.

Negation in general also shows interactions with the morphological aspect-marking system of the language, with a reduced number of aspectual distinctions being available in negative contexts. For example, the separate perfective, immediative and terminative forms of verbs in the affirmative are collapsed into a single perfective form when negated.

References

Xwere Gonom: https://keras-saryan.github.io/xwere-gonom/
Miestamo, Matti. 2000. Towards a typology of standard negation. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 23(1). 65–88. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/033258600750045787.
Miestamo, Matti. 2005. Standard negation: The negation of declarative verbal main clauses in a typological perspective (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 31). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197631, https://www.academia.edu/download/32571954/Standard_Negation.pdf
Miestamo, Matti. 2017. Negation. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology (Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics), 405–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316135716.013. URL: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/310771/Negation_CHLT_Miestamo_prefinal_web.pdf.
Payne, John R. 1985. Negation. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, volume I, Clause structure, 197–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Available at LCS Lending Library & WorldCat.

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