on the relation between double clausal negation and negative concord
TRANSCRIPT
On the relation between double clausal negation and negative concord1
Lauren Van Alsenoy & Johan van der Auwera
University of Antwerp
1. Introduction
Negative concord and double clausal negation are separate phenomena. In double negation,
there are two clausal negation markers (e.g. ne and pas in (1)), but in negative concord at least
one negation is marked on a pronoun or an adverb of time, place, or manner (e.g. personne in
(2)).
(1) French
Je ne le vois pas.
I NEG him see NEG
‘I do not see him.’
1 Thanks are due to the Science Foundation Flanders (predoctoral project 4750, first author)
and to the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (visitor fellowship second author).
We are also grateful to Nada Gbegble (Winneba, Ghana) for her help with the Ewe data, and
also to Volker Gast (Jena). This paper is partially based on Van Alsenoy (2011).
2
(2) French
Je n’ ai rien vu.
I NEG have nothing seen
‘I have seen nothing.’
Yet the two phenomena show striking similarities, the main similarity being the fact that
negation is formally expressed more than once, but semantically only once. These similarities,
discussed in section 2, have made people hypothesize on whether and how these two are
related. Thus De Swart (2010) expressed the hunch that negative concord could be a
necessary condition for double negation and, earlier, Zeijlstra (2004) made a proposal that
went in a similar direction. These claims are tested on a sample of 103 languages. After
refuting these two claims, we have a closer look at Ewe and Karok, the only two languages of
the sample that exhibit both negative concord and double clausal negation. We elucidate the
non-French ways in which the two phenomena can be intertwined. In a final section we
briefly discuss the seven languages that exhibit negative concord only, thereby shedding a
non-French light on this phenomenon
2. Some obvious similarities and differences
In (1) double negation, henceforth abbreviated as ‘DN’, is illustrated with French and French
is probably the best studied case. But the phenomenon is widespread, see e.g. the illustration
from the Zeela dialect of the Bantu language Luba in (3).
3
(3) Luba, Zeela dialect (Kabanga Mukala p.c.)
kà-kùpííl-éè-pó mwáàná
NEG.1-hit-FIN-NEG 3.child
‘Father has not hit the child (at all).’
‘DN’ typically arises from what is known as the ‘Jespersen Cycle’. The term is due to Dahl
(1979), referring to an important account offered by Otto Jespersen in 1917.2 In this account
DN is a stage in a scenario through which a simplex negation is replaced by another simplex
negation. The middle stage has both the old and the new negation. The cycle is represented in
(4).
(4) NEG1 → NEG1 NEG2 → NEG 2
For a language such as French, each of the three stages is documented. In (1) ne is the old
NEG1 and pas is the new NEG2. In colloquial spoken French ne is dropped, resulting in (5).
(5) French
Je le vois pas.
I him see NEG
‘I do not see him.’
2 This account is arguably neither the first nor the best, a good contender being Meillet
(1912). On Meillet (1912) and a proposal for a wide definition, see van der Auwera (2009,
2010).
4
In earlier stages, only ne, the successor to Latin non, appeared and there are relic uses even
today (see Muller 1991: 227-245).
(6) French (example from Le Monde 1982, Muller 1991: 230)
La réalité, c’ est que la France ne peut
the reality it is that the France NEG can
pratiquer une politique fondamentalement différente
practise a policy fundamentally different
des autres pays à économie comparable
of.the other countries at economy comparable
‘In reality, France cannot have a policy that is fundamentally different from
countries with a similar economy.’
With negative concord, henceforth also ‘NC’, one single negative meaning is also expressed
twice, and in the typical case one negation is expressed on a pronoun or adverb. In (2) the e
negation is expressed both through the particle ne – the same as the one in (1) and (6) – and
through rien ‘nothing’. A further parallel is that spoken colloquial French simplifies the
doubling pattern of (2) into a pattern with just one exponent of negation.
(7) French
J’ ai rien vu.
I have nothing seen
‘I have seen nothing.’
5
So in both (1) and (2) it is the negative particle ne that is deleted. Note, however, that though
the double exponence pattern of both DN and NC go to simple exponence patterns, it is only
the DN pattern which historically derives from a single exponence pattern. The DN pattern
with just ne is not paralleled by a NC pattern with just ne (in (8)).
(8) French
*Je n’ ai vu.
I NEG have seen
*‘I have seen nothing.’ (OK for an incomplete sentence ‘I have not seen …’)
There are more parallels. For both DN and NC doubling some linguists have argued that
though doubling needs two exponents, it does not follow that both are themselves ‘truly
negative’. The view that in present-day French ne is not negative (any more) is called ‘the
standard view’ by De Swart (2010: 177).3 Voices of authority often referred to in this context
are those of Damourette & Pichon (1911-1930, 1: 131, 138) and Tesnière (1959: 111). The
former are responsible for the terms ‘discordantiel’ for ne and ‘forclusif’ for pas. What ne
does, in the view of Damourette & Pichon, is to express discord (‘une discordance’) or, in the
clearer terms of Tesnière (1959: 111):
3 De Swart (2010: 177) traces the standard view back to Bréal (1897: 221-222), but the latter
only says (1897: 222) that pas, point, rien etc. became negative through contamination
(contagion) by the negative particle ne, not that ne lost its negative force.
6
Le discordantiel ne forme pas à lui seul la négation. Il la prépare seulement. Et c’est le
forclusif qui la réalise.4
The claim that the second element of the doubling is not really negative either is also found.
Present-day French personne, for instance, still has a non-negative use, as in (9), and when ne
... pas was long in place, pas too had non-negative uses, as in (10).
(9) Present-day French
Elle le fait mieux que personne.
she it does better than anyone
‘She does it better than anyone else.’
4 Note that the text is not that clear. On the one hand, Tesnière says that ne is not negative by
itself, which is not the same as saying that ne is negative at all. On the other hand, he says that
ne prepares for the negation, and a preparation is not the same thing as that which it prepares
for, viz. the realization of the negation. Also, whereas the idea that ne is not really negative is
arguably standard, there is no standard view on what ne is instead. For Tesnière (1959), it is
something that prepares for the negation, for De Swart (2010: 177) ne is a scope marker, and
for Breitbarth (2008) it is a negative polarity item.
7
(10) 18th century pas (Muller 1991: 25)
C’est la plus jolie fille qu’ y a pas
this is the more pretty girl that there has ??
dans le canton.
in the canton
‘This is the prettiest girl there is in the canton.’
So both DN and NC doubling have seen both of their exponents accused of not really being
negative – and this is a similarity.
A further similarity is that for both DN and NC the multiple exponence is not restricted to
a factor of two. Thus both have tripling variants. For NC this is not special at all and it has
long been realized. (11) is an English non-standard example.
(11) I didn’t say nothing to nobody.
‘I didn’t say anything to anybody.’
For DN, the recognition that the Jespersen scenario of weakening and strengthening can have
the doubling stage followed by strengthening and the addition of a third negative marker
instead of weakening and the deletion of the first negative marker took some time. Possibly
the first linguist to discuss triple exponence in the context of the Jespersen cycle was the
Austronesianist Robert Early, when he discussed the Vanuatu language Lewo (Early 1994a:
200). (12) is one of his examples.
8
(12) Lewo (Early, 1994b: 411)
naga pe Ø-pa re poli
3SG R.NEG 3SS-R.go NEG NEG
‘He hasn’t gone.’
Here too, though, the similarity is limited. With NC, multiple exponency is less restrained
than with DN. Negation can easily spread over four, five, six or seven words. (13) is a West
Flemish example with seven markers.
(13) West Flemish (Vandeweghe 2009: 13)
Hij en heeft sedertdien nooit nievers met
he NEG has since never nowhere with
niemand niet vele geen leute niet meer g’had.
nobody not much no fun not more had
‘Since then he never had much fun with anyone anywhere.’
For clausal negation, however, marking with three negations is fairly rare already, making it
with four negations is exceedingly rare and nothing more than four has been attested (van der
Auwera et al. 2013, Vossen & van der Auwera this volume). Still, for both phenomena
multiple exponence is not restricted to doubling.
A final point of similarity is that at least in a language such as French, DN can be
analyzed as a kind of NC or, better, as a later development, and both can be seen as
developments of negative polarity constructions. Personne and rien¸ for instance, originally
‘person’, and ‘thing’ had a general use, but in negative polarity contexts they implied ‘even
one person’ and ‘even one thing’. In a negative context the emphasis carried by the ‘even’
9
sense bleached and ne contaminated them to ‘nobody’ and ‘nothing’. Pas has a similar origin,
‘not even one step’, originally in the context of movement verbs, the ‘step’ meaning also
bleached and got contaminated, but in addition, the nominal negative sense gave way to a the
sense of clausal negation (‘not’).5 This evolution is sketched in (14).6
5 Not every indefinite often considered to be in the same paradigm as personne and rien
underwent the same evolution, however. See Hansen (2011).
6 Note that we are fully aware of the fact that rien and esp. personne retain negative polarity
uses. We are thus committed to accepting two meanings or uses for these words. But this
conclusion is forced upon us anyway: in elliptic answers, both rien and personne occur
without ne and must thus be negative all by themselves. See (a).
(a) - Qui est venu ce soir?
who is come this evening
‘Who has come this evening?’
- Personne.
nobody
‘Nobody.’
The debate on whether words like rien and personne can really be negative is a version of the
debate on the true nature (negative or not) of ne and pas, briefly sketched in the above.
10
(14) negative polarity context NC DN
personne ‘person’ ‘even one person’ ‘nobody’
rien ‘thing’ ‘even one thing’ ‘nothing
pas ‘step’ ‘even one step’ ‘no step’ ‘not’
So at least in the case of French, there is a sense in which DN presupposes NC. As we will see
in the next section, there are two accounts that take facts such as those of French into a
typological forum.
3. A typological relation?
In 2010 Henriëtte de Swart suggests a direct connection between DN and NC. After a
typological analysis of the Jespersen cycle and NC, in general, and of their French versions, in
particular, she continues:
In fact, the analysis developed here suggests that a crucial condition for the
development of a discontinuous negation along the lines of French is for the language to
[...] display strict negative concord. It would be worth exploring this issue in more
detail, but currently I do not have all the cross-linguistic data needed to substantiate this
claim, so the connection is left for future work. (De Swart 2010: 184)
Let us look at this quote in some detail. First, a condition can be necessary or sufficient. De
Swart (2010) uses the term ‘crucial condition’. We take this to mean ‘necessary condition’,
11
implying that DN ‘along the lines of French’ will only happen if the language also has NC.
Second, the NC has to be of the type called ‘strict’, which means that it is obligatory. The
other type is non-strict, and in this case, irrelevant then, NC depends on the position of the
negative indefinite vis-a-vis the verb. French, the language de Swart has in mind here, is
analyzed as exhibiting strict NC.7 Third, the ‘discontinuous negation’ of the quote is, strictly
speaking, only one type of DN, i.e., the one where the two negations are not next to one
another, but it seems that for De Swart all double negation is discontinuous with the negations
embracing the verb.8 Fourth, the link between DN and strict NC would only concern DN
‘along the lines of French’. This expression is vague: just how similar does the DN of a
7 The phrase left out in the quote says that a language must be a so-called ‘Type III language’.
This means, in her framework, that a language will have so-called ‘non-strict NC’. Yet the
quoted passage continues with requiring the language to have ‘strict NC’ and since standard
French has strict NC, we take it that the deleted phrase has a typing error.
8 De Swart (2010) is by no means the only linguist to interpret the Jespersen cycle as a
scenario taking the language from an obligatorily preverbal negation via an obligatorily
discontinuous negation to an obligatorily postverbal one. The idea seems to have originated in
Vennemann (1974). Interestingly, neither Jespersen (1917) nor Meillet (1912) – see note 2 –
took word order facts as an ingredient of the Jespersen cycle. See also van der Auwera &
Neuckermans (2004: 459-460). It is true that DN very often involves a combination of an
older preverbal and a newer postverbal component – see also Vossen & van der Auwera (this
volume), but not always. Latin, for example, had a minimizer oenum ‘one thing’ and an older
negator ne, but instead of embracing the verb with a postverbal minimizer contaminating into
a negator, the two elements underwent univerbation, yielding the new negator non. Or take
Navajo, discussed further down: Navajo has DN with preverbal and postverbal parts, but the
new negator is not the postverbal, but the preverbal one.
12
language have to be to qualify as DN ‘along the lines of French’? And finally, De Swart
realizes that she does not have sufficient typological support for substantiating the claim.
Indeed, De Swart’s data are strongly Eurocentric and so the decision to leave the issue for
future work is the right one.9
In (15) we reformulate De Swart’s conjecture in a simple format.
(15) Strict NC is a necessary condition for DN ‘along the lines of French’
Note that although De Swart does not set out to support the universal with cross-linguistic
evidence, her book contains statements on the frequency of both NC and DN that are at least
favorable to (15). DN, De Swart (2010: 10) claims, is a rare phenomenon, whereas NC – at
least the general type, both strict and non-strict – is claimed to be widespread (De Swart 2010:
21; see also Israel 2011: 43). Abstracting from the fact that (15) is about strict NC and not
about NC as such, these frequency claims are in accord with the frequency implied in the
universal of (15): some NC languages will have DN and some not, hence the number of NC
languages will be higher than the number of DN languages.
Interestingly, a few years before, Zeijlstra (2004) studied both DN and NC, again mostly
on European languages, he too ventured a typological claim and considered DN to be
definitionally discontinuous and embracing, i.e., with one preverbal and one postverbal
negation. His claim (2004: 146-147) is the one in (16) – ‘PreVN’ stands for ‘Preverbal
negation’.
9 Bernini & Ramat (1996) is an earlier typological work, which explicitly focusses on
European languages and advances the hypothesis that European negation is special enough to
constitute a feature of ‘Standard Average European’.
13
(16) NC is a necessary condition for PreVN10
A few remarks are in order. First, for clarity’s sake we added the word ‘necessary’ to this
formulation. We think that it captures what Zeijlstra had in mind. Second, his NC does not
have to be strict. Third, the clausal negation does not have to be double, all that is required is
that there is a preverbal negation. This is always the case with DN, according to Zeijlstra, but
a preverbal condition can, of course, occur without a postverbal one. So the hypothesis does
not really concern the relation between DN and NC, but because of the similarity to De
Swart’s claim, we discuss it anyway. Finally, Zeijlstra does not wait for ‘future work’ and
already provides evidence in support of his claim. If (16) holds, it will allow for three types of
languages: (i) languages with PreVN and NC, (ii) languages without PreVN but with NC, and
(iii) languages without PreVN and without NC. One language type is predicted not to exist: a
language with PreVN and without NC. Zeijlstra’s data set consists of 21 languages and for
some also different dialects. In this dataset only English is registered with two dialects, i.e.,
Standard English and NC English. As the name ‘NC English’ suggests, this is the variant
allowing constructions such as (17).
(17) I don’t see nobody.
In our version of Zeijlstra’s analysis, all of the languages support his claim, as shown in Table
1, a simplified and slightly adapted version of Zeijlstra (2004: 147). Each of the three
10 This universal is part of a more wide ranging and more specific universal, involving the
distinction between so-called ‘strict’ and ‘non-strict’ NC and the one between so-called ‘true’
and non-‘true’ negative imperatives. These details do not matter here.
14
admitted language types is attested and there are no attestations of the non-admitted type.11 Of
course, as remarked already, the languages are nearly all European, the only exceptions being
Tamazight Berber and Hebrew. To base a typology – and this is indeed what Zeijlstra (2004)
aims to be doing – on this kind of heavily biased sample is dangerous and at best only a
highly tentative ‘pilot typology’ (van der Auwera 2012).
11 In the original version of the table, there is actually one counterexample, viz. Standard
English. In Zeijlstra’s analysis, English not is considered preverbal and the verb that matters
is the main verb, not the auxiliary. Yet he does not consider the fact that Standard English
goes against his generalization to be too problematic. What saves Standard English, in his
view (2004: 145), is that it allows NC-like behavior with negative polarity items such as
anybody in (a).
(a) I didn’t see anybody.
A more satisfactory analysis, it seems to us, is to consider Standard English to have
postverbal negation and to consider the relevant verb to be the auxiliary. In any case, even
under his analysis it seems that the generalization in (16) is backed up by a good number of
languages.
15
PreVN NC
Possible
Czech, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian; Catalan, French
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian; Greek;
Hungarian; Tamazight Berber, Hebrew
+ +
Quebecois; Bavarian, Yiddish, NC English − +
German, Norwegian, Swedish, Standard English − −
Impossible Ø + −
Table 1. Languages studied by Zeijlstra (2004) and supporting the claim in (16)
4. Negative concord as a prerequisite for Double Negation or Preverbal Negation
In this section we will test De Swart’s claim on data coming from the Austronesian and
Austro-Asiatic families and from the families from Africa and the Americas (see Appendix
A). These languages are taken from a representative 179-language sample based on the one
used by Miestamo (2005). Though there are still gaps in the sample and the language families
do not cover the whole world12, we think that we have sufficient information to put her
hypothesis to the test. In total we have found relatively reliable information for 103
languages. Table 2 classifies them according to the four subtypes defined in the universal in
(15), the three possible ones and the impossible one. For DN we consulted WALS (Dryer &
Haspelmath 2011). In contrast to WALS, however, Quechua and Navajo were classified as
double negation languages (for Quechua, see Cole 1982: 86, for Navajo, see Van Gelderen
2008). We counted both obligatory and optional DN. For NC there is often not enough
12 Whole world coverage is the aim of Van Alsenoy (in prep.).
16
information to say whether it is strict or not. For this reason, we did not tabulate strict NC, but
NC tout court. This is still relevant: the hypothesized impossible language type will have DN
but no strict NC. If we find languages with DN and no NC tout court, these will also count as
languages with DN and without strict NC. It is also true that we often lack information of the
uses of the relevant items in negative polarity contexts and elliptic answers. In such cases our
‘null hypothesis’ was to take them as NC items. It is more likely therefore that we took too
many items – rather than not enough – to be NC items. To give a very rough indication of
where the languages are found, we group the languages in three ‘macro-areas: ‘Af’ for Africa,
‘Am’ for the Americas, and ‘Au’ for Austronesian and Austro-Asiatic.
17
DN NC
Possible
Af: Ewe / Am: Karok (2 languages) + +
Af: Kanuri, Kunama, Somali / Am: Huave, Chiapas Zoque, Páez
/ Au: Chamorro (7 languages)
− +
Khoekhoe, Ju’huan, Diola-Fogny, Yoruba, Igbo, Nupe, Ijo,
Bagirmi, Ngiti, Ma’di, So, Maasai, Dongolese Nubian, Murle,
Masalit, Koyraboro Senni, Masa, Iraqw, Maale, Pacoh, Pnar
(Khasi), Khmer, Nicobarese, Khmu’, Vietnamese, Seediq,
Kambera, Maori, Biak, Paiwan, Tagalog, Tukang Besi, Karo
Batak, Greenlandic, Plains Cree, Yuchi, Koasati, South East
Puebla Nahuatl, Comanche, Pima Bajo, Makah, Bella Coola,
Lilloeet, Kutenai, Klamath, Nez Perce, Seri, Wappo, Sochiapan
Sochiapan Chinantec, Chalcatongo Mixtec, Otomí, Chocho,
Purépecha, Misantla Totonaca, Mam, Epena Pedee, Tuyuca,
Andoke, Warao, Waorani, Yagua, Shipibo-Konibo, Jaqaru,
Nadëb, Apalaí, Mekens, tapieté, Canela-Krahô, Trumai, Kwazá,
Wari’, Paumarí, Movima, Mosetén, Chipaya, Pilagá, Mapuche,
Gününe Küne (78)
− −
Impossible Af: Gbeya-Bossangoa, Degema, Supyire, Kresh, Tera, Egyptian
Arabic / Am: Navajo, Haida, Wiyot, Kiowa, Tsimshian, Wintu,
Maricopa, Awa Pit, Araona, Imbabura Quechua (16 languages)
+ −
Table 2. Languages chosen to test the claim in (15)
18
What we can conclude from Table 2 is first and foremost that the hypothesized impossible
language type does exist. There are 16 languages that have DN but no NC. Only 2 languages
exhibit DN as well as strict negative concord, namely the Kwa language Ewe, spoken in
Ghana, and the nearly extinct isolate Karok, spoken in the United States. Based on these
results, we consider the claim or – to be fair – the hunch that NC is a necessary condition for
DN to be wrong. Second, we can also comment on De Swart’s frequency claims. Is it the case
the DN is rare and NC frequent? The answer is negative: in our sample there are 18 DN
languages (16 + 2) vs. only 9 NC languages (7 + 2).
Note that our sample of Austronesian and Austro-Asiatic languages did not contain a
single DN language. That does not mean, of course, that DN is not attested there. At least for
the Austronesian languages Vossen & van der Auwera (this volume) show that DN is not rare
at all. For 24 of their DN languages (see Appendix B) we checked whether they also exhibited
NC. None of them did. So they all instantiate the ‘impossible’ language type.
We can also test the claim that Zeijlstra made about the relation between PreVN and NC.
The number of languages for which we had sufficient information is 103, as in Table 2.
19
PreV N NC
Possible
Af: Ewe, Somali / A: Chiapas Zoque, Huave, Karok / Au:
Chamorro (6 languages)
+ +
Af : Kanuri, Kunama / Am: Páez (3 languages) − +
Af: Khoekhoe, Diola-Fogny, Igbo, Nupe, Ijo, Bagirmi, Ma’di,
Nubian, Masalit, Masa, Iraqw, Maale / Am: Eskimo
Greenlandic, Koasati, Wappo, Chocho, Epena Pedee, Tuyuca,
Warao, Waorani, Shipibo-Konibo, Apalaí, Mekens, Tapieté,
Canela-Krahô, Trumai, Kwazá, Mapuche / Au: Biak (29
languages)
− −
Impossible Af: Ju|’Hoan, Gbeya-Bossangoa, Yoruba, Degema, Supyire,
Kresh, Ngiti, So, Maasai, Murle, Koyraboro Senni, Tera,
Egyptian Arabic / Am: Navajo, Haida, Plains Cree, Wiyot,
Yuchi, Kiowa, Nahuatl, Comanche, Pima Bajo, Makah, Bella
Coola, Lillooet, Kutenai, Klamath, Nez Perce, Tsimshian,
Wintu, Seri, Maricopa, Sochiapan Chinantec, Mixtec, Otomí,
Purépecha, Misantla Totonaca, Mam, Awa Pit, Andoke, Yagua,
Imbabura Quechua, Jaqaru, Nadëb, Wari’, Paumarí, Araona,
Movima, Mosetén, Chipaya, Pilagá, Gününe Küne / Au: Pacoh,
Pnar, Khmer, Nicobarese (Car), Khmu’, Vietnamese, Seediq,
Kambera, Maori, Paiwan, Tagalog, Tukang Besi, Karo Batak
(65 languages)
+ −
Table 3. Languages chosen to test the claim in (16)
20
The conclusion is clear: more than half of the languages studied are counterexamples to
Zeijlstra’s claim that NC is a necessary condition for PreVN. So we should consider
Zeijlstra’s universal to be wrong.
Note also that Table 3 shows preverbal negation to be more common than postverbal
negation (71 vs. 32 languages). This relates to a principle called ‘Neg(ative) First’ by Horn
(1989: 292), associated with Jespersen (1917: 5) and cross-linguistically confirmed by Dryer
(1998) and Van Olmen (2010).
So far we have established that NC is not a necessary condition for either DN or PreVN.
Note that NC is not a sufficient condition for DN or PreVN either. Table 2 shows that there
are 7 NC languages without DN and Table 3 shows that there are 3 NC languages without
PreVN. We can also check whether there is a statistically significant relation between NC and
either PrevN or DN. Consider first Table 4, with figures extracted from Table 2.
properties number of languages properties number of languages
+NC +DN 2 22% -NC +DN 16 20%
-DN 7 78% -DN 80 80%
Table 4. Correlation between the presence of negative concord and double negation
It says that of the 9 languages with NC 2 have DN and 7 don’t, whereas in the 96 languages
without NC 16 have DN and 80 don’t. The proportion of languages with and without DN is
roughly the same, independently of whether or not the language has NC. That a language
would have DN does not seem to depend on whether it has NC, an impression confirmed by a
Fisher’s Exact Test. There is also no statistically relevant correlation between the data sets
21
shown in Table 5: knowing that a language has DN has no predictive value for answering
whether the language has NC not.
properties number of languages properties number of languages
+DN +NC 2 11% -DN +NC 7 9%
-NC 16 89% -NC 80 91%
Table 5. Correlation between the presence of double negation and negative concord
Tables 6 and 7 show data sets for the Zeijlstra claim involving NC and PrevN, with the
figures rearranged from Table 3. From glancing at the proportions and checking it with a
Fisher’s Exact, it is clear that NC is not a predictor for PrevN and neither is PrevN a predictor
for NC.
properties number of languages properties number of languages
+NC +PreVN 6 67% -NC +PreVN 65 69%
-PreVN 3 33% -PreVN 29 31%
Table 6. Correlation between the presence of negative concord and preverbal negation
22
properties number of languages properties number of languages
+PreVN +NC 6 9% -PreVN +NC 3 10%
-NC 65 91% -NC 29 90%
Table 7. Correlation between the presence of preverbal negation and negative concord
At the typological level therefore, we must conclude that NC, on the one hand, and DN and
PreVN, on the other hand, are independent phenomena. That still doesn’t imply that there
can’t be an interesting relation on the language-particular level. For French, for example,
there clearly is an interesting relation between NC and DN, viz. a diachronic one, for the latter
is a development from NC. In the next sections, we will have a closer look at the sample’s 9
NC languages. We will start with the two languages that have both DN and NC.
5. Languages with both DN and NC
In French the relation between DN and NC is first and foremost a semantic one. Put in
diachronic terms: pas got contaminated by the negative polarity context (‘even a step’), then
by the negative context (‘not even a step’), and the meaning further changed from nominal to
clausal negation (‘not’). Contamination, we will see, is important for Ewe, but what happened
in Ewe, is also rather different. In Karok, however, the relation is first and foremost a formal
one: one of the exponents of clausal negation merged with the pronoun. We will start with
Ewe.
23
5.1. Ewe and contamination
Ewe is a DN language, with a preverbal negative prefix me- and a clause-final negator particle
o.
(18) Ewe (Ameka 1991: 64-65)
Kofí mé vá afí sia o
Kofi NEG come place this NEG
‘Kofi did not come here.’
For ‘somebody’ Ewe uses the generic noun ame together with a determiner aɖe ‘one, some’,
thus yielding the phrase ame aɖe, but when the pronoun is in the scope of negation, it is not
ame aɖe that appears, but ame aɖeke, in which –ke is an emphatic marker, comparable to
ever, as used in the English free relatives whatever, whoever, whenever, etc. A positive, free
choice use is illustrated in (21).
(19) Ewe (Nada Gbegble, p.c.)
ame aɖe fe le abɔ la me
person one play at garden the in
‘Somebody played in the garden.’
24
(20) Ewe (Nada Gbegble, p.c.)
ame aɖeke me-fe le abɔ la me o.
person no NEG-play at garden the in NEG
‘Nobody played in the garden.’
(21) Ewe (Nada Gbegble, p.c.)
àmè kà ké-é lè …
person INT EMP-FOC is…
‘whoever it may be, …
Though aɖeke is originally an emphatic form of aɖe ‘one’, paraphrasable as ‘even one’ or as
stressed any in English, the use of ame aɖeke in (20) is restricted to negative sentences, like
French personne. However, it is not “as negative” as French personne, in that it cannot
function as an elliptic answer to questions. The correct negative answer to the question Who
played in the garden? is (22).
(22) Ewe (Nada Gbegble, p.c.)
me-nye ame aɖeke o
NEG-be person one NEG
‘Nobody.’ (lit. ‘It was nobody.)
Another parallel with French, is that more than one negative quantifier can occur with only
one semantic negation.
25
(23) Ewe (Nada Ggegble, p.c.)
Ame aɖeke me-kpɔ ame aɖeke o
person no NEG-see person no NEG
‘Nobody saw anybody.’
But different from French, in full clauses the ‘nobody’ construction does not combine with
just one of the exponents of DN (ne in standard French French, pas in Québec French (see
(39) below), but with both. Ewe thus truly exhibits a triple exponence. Of course, what we are
discussing here is not a pronoun, but a determiner: ame and aɖeke are still taken as separate
words. For ‘nothing’, however, the corresponding generic noun nú ‘thing’ has merged with
aɖeke¸ yielding naɖéké/nánéke ‘nothing’ (Ameka 1991: 46).
The presence of scalar focus markers on negative indefinites is addressed and described
by Haspelmath (1997: 157-164), who notes that there are two possible pathways. First, the
constructions may develop from non-specific free relative clauses or from concessive
conditional clauses, as schematically represented by the pseudo-English example in (24)
(24) Pseudo-English (based on Haspelmath 1997: 121)
You can go, where-even/ever it may be. >
You can go wher-ever.
Second, the scalar focus particles may combine directly with the generic or interrogative,
depending on what the derivational base of the indefinite is. Again a pseudo-English example
can be used for illustration as in (25):
26
(25) Pseudo-English
I never saw even-person.
In this case, the process of grammaticalization can be compared to the grammaticalization of
minimal-unit expressions, like French pas, personne and rien. In Ewe, the focus marker is
indeed used for non-specific free relatives, but as (21) shows, there is also an interrogative
element (ka). It seems safer therefore to assume that the negative indefinite resembles the
scenario of (25) rather than that of (24).
Adding a scalar focus marker seems to be a common means of derivation. Haspelmath
(1997: 157-158) mentions the use of scalar focus markers in negative indefinites in Selkup,
Nivkh, Japanese, Chechen, Hebrew and Lezgian. In our sample, we also see it in Kanuri
(Cyffer 2009: 86), Degema (Kari 2004: 131), Somali (Saeed 1999: 184) and optionally on the
indefinites in negative contexts in Shipibo Konibo (Valenzuela 2003: 370). It seems that in all
these cases we are dealing with the formation of negative indefinites by directly adding the
scalar marker to the base. None of these languages, however, is a DN language. Only Ewe is,
and what we thus see in an Ewe ‘nobody’ or ‘something’ sentence is a combination of DN
and NC.
Indefinites with scalar markers are not only used for negative indefinites. Just like
minimal-unit expressions like French pas and rien in French, scalar indefinites are also often
used in negative polarity contexts. We also found this in our sample, e.g. in Eskimo
Greenlandic (Bittner 1995: 76), Awa Pit (Curnow 1997: 314), Quechua (Cole 1982: 86) and
Seediq (Henningsson & Holmer 2008: 36). In Ewe, however, emphatic indefinites are
restricted to negative contexts and cannot occur in other negative polarity contexts.
27
5.2 Karok and negative absorption
Ewe aɖeke is originally positive but a negative context contaminates it and it becomes
negative. The form aɖeke itself is morphologically interesting too, as it is a univerbation of
ordinary aɖe ‘one, some’ and an emphatic marker. The latter is not independently negative.
This is different in Karok. Here we also see univerbation, but what gets added to the positive
marker is a directly negative marker. We call the univerbation of a positive pronoun or
determiner with a negative marker ‘negative absorption’, as defined in Haspelmath (1997:
205).
Karok is a DN language with as the main negative strategy a combination of a prefix pu-
and a suffix –(h)ara (Bright 1957: 137). Although doubling is the main strategy, the
postverbal element is absent under certain morpho-syntactic circumstances (whenever there is
a personal morpheme containing –ap on the verb or a ‘fourth-order class suffix’). It is also
absent when the verb contains the emphatic marker –xay. The prefixal negator pu- can have
different hosts: it freely attaches to ‘any word which stands before the predicate in a
predication’ (Bright 1957: 138). It can thus also attach to the indefinites fâˑt ‘what,
something’, ʔakáray or yíθθa ‘one’, and this way we get negative pronouns or determiners, at
least in some cases, and with our permissive attitude on NC status, we take the combination of
the negative pronoun or determiner and the negative predicate to constitute NC. Bright (1957:
140) lists the negative indefinites pu-ffa·t ‘nothing’, pu-ʔakára ‘nobody’, but he doesn’t
provide any examples. He does provide an example of a sentence starting with the negative
marker pu- and the indefinite determiner ‘one’.13
13 This emphatic element –xay is, remarkably, also the element that can replace the second
negator, as in (a).
28
(26) Karok (Bright 1957: 140)
pú-yíθθa-xay ká·n θa·nê-·ra
NEG-one-EMP lady lay-NEG
‘Not a single lady lay there.’
The negative absorption we see in Karok is a process found elsewhere. In Africa we only
found it in Egyptian Arabic (see below), in Austronesian only in Nicobarese14, but in our
(a) Karok (Bright 1957: 138)
pú-xay vúra-xay ʔamkú·f-xay
NEG-EMP just-EMP was-EMP
‘There was no smoke at all.’
This suggests that the –xay marker competes or may have competed with the postverbal –
(h)ara because they might have shared or still share, at least in some contexts, an emphatic
meaning.
14 Not surprisingly, negative absorption doesn’t occur often in Austronesian or Austro-Asiatic
languages, since these are often isolating languages. Apart from that, negative indefinites in
these languages are often expressed by means of a positive indefinite and a negative
existential verb. In contrast to affixes and particles, negative verbs are unlikely to be
absorbed. An example from Austro-Asiatic is Pnar, in which negative indefinites are always
expressed by mean of a negative existential verb plus a generic element, an indefinite NP, the
indefinite numeral ‘one’ or a relative clause (Koshy 2009: 46).
29
sample it is common in the Americas: Chinantec, Chalcatongo Mixtec, Otomí, Chocho,
Comanche, Pima Bajo, Nahuatl, Misantla Totonac, Yuchi, and indeed Karok, all of them in
North America, and in South America also in Paumarí and Mekens (Galucio 2001: 93). Of
course, we know the phenomenon from European languages too, e.g. English and German,
and also, in a certain way, Russian and Spanish, which will be discussed below.
For the process of negative absorption, there are at least three parameters of variation. We
will characterize Karok in terms of these parameters and compare it to languages that have
different parameter settings.
A first parameter concerns the nature of the negative element that absorbs into the
indefinite. What combines with the indefinite in Karok is the preverbal part of a DN. This is
also the case in e.g. older West Germanic, too. In Old German (27), for instance, the negative
indefinites are composed of the positive indefinite, e.g. ieman, ioman ‘someone’ and n(i)-/nih-
/ne(h)-. The negative element ni/ne also serves as the preverbal part of the DN construction
ne/ni …nicht, illustrated in (28).
(27) Old High German (Jäger 2008: 206)
(a) ɨm-em wa yoʔsuk ya-o
NEG-have RP like ACC-3MSG
‘Nobody likes him.’ (lit. ‘there is not who likes him.’)
Other languages that resort to the use of negative existential verbal constructions for the
expression of indefinites without indefinites through negative absorption are the African
languages Iraqw (Mous 1992:100,121, 211), Kinyarwanda (Kimenyi 1979:186), the
American languages Wayampi (Jensen 1994:346), Lillooet (Davis 2005:20), Kutenai
(Boas&Goddard 1927), the Austronesian language Chamorro (Cooreman 1987:45).
30
nioman nimag zuueion herron thionen.
nobody NEG-can two lords serve.
‘Nobody can serve two lords.’
(28) Old High German (Jäger 2008: 61)
Ih nehábo nîeht in geméitun sô uîlo
I NEG-have not.at.all/NEG in vain so much
geuuêinot
cried.
‘I did not cry that much in vain.’
Like Old High German n(i)-/nih-/ne(h)-, the Karok negator pu- is probably the older negator.
The postverbal –ara is the newer one and it was probably emphatic. One recognizes –ara in
the emphatic forms vura ‘just’ (Bright 1957: 15) and hara ‘and all’ (Bright 1957: 150),
whereby it seems likely that the second part used to mean something like ‘at all’, adding
emphatic force. Interestingly, negative absorption is not obligatory. As one can see in (29),
elements can occur in between the indefinite and the first negator, in this case two emphatic
markers.
(29) Karok (Bright 1957: 140)
pú-xay vúra fâˑt mah-ára
NEG-EMP EMP what V-NEG
‘He didn’t see anything.’
31
A variant on Karok negative absorption is found in Egyptian Arabic, which also has DN,
as illustrated in (30), but in this language both parts get absorbed – see (31).
(30) Egyptian Arabic
ma-saafir-t-š
NEG-traveled-1SG-NEG
‘I did not travel.’
(31) Egyptian Arabic (Haspelmath 1997: 207)
ma-ħaddi-š yiʕraf yi-ʔra xåt̥t̥-i
NEG-one-NEG can read writing-1SG
‘Nobody can read my writing.’15
Yet another variant, which was not found in our data consists of the absorption of a negative
scalar focus particle meaning ‘not even’. This kind of absorption is different from the
absorption of a clausal negator, since a negative scalar focus particle obviously does not take
part in clausal negation. It is found in Russian and Spanish where the negative indefinites
contain the scalar focus particle ni, e.g. Russian nikt ‘nobody’ and Spanish ninguno ‘no’. Of
course, even in the case of these negative scalar focus markers, we are dealing with a
contraction of the clausal negator and a non-negative scalar focus particle, preceding the
contraction to negative indefinites. According to Haspelmath (1997: 222), indefinites of this
type are more closely related to indefinites that are formed with positive scalar focus
markings, as described for Ewe, than to indefinites that arise by negative absorption. The
15 Haspelmath (1997: 207) writes the preverbal negator ma and the indefinite ‘one’ as two
separate words, but Lucas (2009: 205-206) considers maħaddiš to be a negative quantifier.
32
important point, he notes, is that ‘although the negative focus particles [as in Russian or
Spanish ni] are negative in some sense, they are quite independent of (and sometimes
formally unrelated to) the verbal negator which expresses sentence negation’. Still we decided
to treat them together with other cases of negative absorption. Though it is true that the
negative scalar focus marker and clausal negator are unrelated in Finnish for example, they
are clearly related in the case of Russian and Spanish, the clausal negators being ne and no
respectively. In addition, it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that both Russian and Spanish
exhibited or still exhibit non-strict negative concord, the absence of a clausal negator on the
verb being a side-effect of negative absorption. This will be discussed in more detail below.
The second parameter is the strength of the absorption. In German, Russian and Spanish,
the negative element(s) and the positive pronoun are inseparable, but in Karok and in
Egyptian Arabic, they are separable. For Karok this is shown in (29), for Egyptian Arabic in
(32).
(32) Egyptian Arabic (Lucas 2009: 207)
ma-šaf-nī-š ḥadd
NEG-see.PRF.3MSG-me-NEG anyone
‘No one saw me.’
In (32) ma and –š embrace the verb, not the pronoun, and note that what (31) and (32) have in
common is that the negation comes early in the sentence, which is an illustration of the Neg
First principle, appealed to before when it came to explaining why most languages prefer
preverbal to postverbal negation.
An interesting variation is Navajo. Navajo has double negation. The postverbal part seems
to be the oldest part (Van Gelderen 2008: 220), its verb is clause-final and the preverbal part
33
has a variable position. But when there is an indefinite, the preverbal part is attracted to the
indefinite16. This attraction resembles the one in Karok in that other elements are still allowed
in between the preverbal negative and the indefinite (see the emphasizer xay in (29)), but the
preferred pattern has the indefinite immediately following the negator. Unlike in Karok, the
attraction has not reached the morphological level – the Navajo preverbal negator still has
word status – and does not therefore constitute absorption.
(33) Navajo (Hale & Platero 2000: 73)
doo háída níyáa-da
NEG anyone 3.go-NEG
‘No one has arrived.’
(34) Navajo (Hale & Platero 2000: 75)
i-zhé’é béégashii doo nayiisnii’-da
my-father cow NEG 3.buy-NEG
‘My father did not buy a cow.’
16 “What is essential here is that the negative particle doo must precede the indefinite, despite
the fact that the unmarked position for this element […] is just before the verb” (Hale &
Platero 2000: 75).
34
The third parameter of variation in negative absorption concerns the relation with NC. In
Egyptian Arabic there is no NC17, for the indefinite attracts either both parts of the DN or
none – both in example (31) and none in example (32). In Karok and German, we see NC and
the absorption is the result of the fact that the preverbal part of a DN is attracted to the
indefinite. We assume that the NC constellation in (27) was predated by a constellation in
which negation was only marked on the indefinite, which is very sporadically found in Old
High German, as shown in (35).
(35) Old High German (Jäger 2008:207)
Inthemo noh nu níoman ingisezzit uuas
in-which still nu nobody put was
‘in which nobody had been put yet’
The constellation in (35) is undesirable, however, so Haspelmath (1997: 203) argues: the
absorbed negation semantically still has sentence scope, i.e., it does not create a negative
word in a positive sentence, as with un- in the negative word undesirable in the positive
sentence (36).
(36) This outcome is undesirable.
What the language then does to make the semantics clearer is to add a clausal negator,
resulting in NC. This, we assume, happened in Old High German. It probably also happened
17 Possibly the language has some kind of negative concord, depending on the analysis, but
only with the determiner wala ‘not even’, ‘no’ (for an extensive discussion, see Lucas 2008:
209-214).
35
in Russian, which had non-strict NC, which was (slightly) preferred in Old Russian
(Haspelmath 1997: 211), as an intermediate stage, and also in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese,
but they truly stopped at non-strict NC, the ‘first stage of restoration’ (Haspelmath 1997: 212-
213).
In Russian and German, the order got restored by adding the old, preverbal negator
again, but a new negator can also restore the order. This can be illustrated with Quebec
French, and here we furthermore see that this process is independent of whether or not the
negative indefinite shows absorption. Québec French personne had lost NC with ne, like
colloquial French (see examples (2) and (7)), resulting in the undesirable constellation just
described, but different from colloquial French, it now allows clause scope pas, thus
reinstating NC.
(37) Québec French (Haspelmath 1997: 205)
Le samedi soir, au mois de juillet, il y a pas
the satuday night in.the month of july there is NEG
personne en ville à Québec.
nobody in city in Québec
‘On Saturday nights in July, there is nobody in Quebec city.’
The constellation with only a negative pronoun and no clausal negator is, of course, not
only found in the progressive colloquial French illustrated in (7) and older German, but also
in the other Germanic languages English and Dutch. Haspelmath (1997: 202) claims that it is
typical for Europe and rare elsewhere. In his sample, it is only represented by European
languages. This might have something to do with the Eurocentricity of the sample.
Haspelmath (2011) notes that it is common in Mesoamerican languages too. This is confirmed
36
by our sample. As already suggested when we listed the languages in our sample that have
negative absorption, it seems quite common in the Americas, as e.g. in Chalcatongo Mixtec.
In (38), the negator is on the verb, but in (39) it is on the indefinite.
(38) Chalcatongo Mixtec (MacCaulay 1996: 120)
tu-nixížaa-ró
NEG-were.located-2
‘You weren’t there.’
(39) Chalcatongo Mixtec (MacCaulay 1996: 124)
tú-ndéú nikii=Ø
NEG-who came=3
‘Nobody came.’
Another illustration is Mekens, which is particularly interesting, for it shows that the
absorption need not be prefixal, but can be affixal as well. In Mekens there are two clausal
negators, among which –bõ/-õ, depending on the phonological form to which they attach
(Galucio 2001:93). It can attach to verbs as in (40) but also to indefinites, as in (41).
(40) Mekens (Galucio 2001: 94)
e-aso-bõ ẽt
2SG-bath-NEG you
‘Do not bathe.’
37
(41) Mekens (Galucio 2001: 93)
arob-õ ki-iko ke te te ose
thing-NEG 1PL-food that truly FOC we
‘Nothing is our food, we are like that.’
Apart from the fact that the pattern of marking clausal negation on the indefinite only
seems more frequent than previously assumed, it is also found in languages in which it was
hypothesized to be impossible. According to Haspelmath (1997: 206), negative absorption is
predicted not to occur in verb-initial languages. But this is wrong. Tepetotutla Chinantec18 is
verb initial. Negation is normally a verbal prefix.
(42) Tepetotutla Chinantec
caL-ʔnioL teLH zóL ʔiHkuï̜ʔM
NEG-want Esther to.go Oaxaca
‘Esther doesn’t want to go to Oaxaca.’
(Westley 1991: 71)
In order to say ‘Adolfo didn’t say anything’, however, one would expect a sentence of the
type ‘not-saw … something’, but instead Chinantec negativizes the pronoun and puts it in first
position.
18 Strictly speaking, this variety is not part of the sample. The latter contains Sochiapan
Chinantec.
38
(43) Tepetotutla Chinantec (Westley 1991: 17)
caᴸ-ʔeᴹ kaᴹhuáʔᴹ zïᴹdoᴹᴴ
NEG-what said Adolfo
‘Adolfo didn’t say anything.’
What could account for this pattern is the fact that, as in many other languages the indefinite
is based on an interrogative. In Tepetotutla Chinantec, the interrogatives are always in front
position (Westley 1991: 97), despite the verb-initial nature of the language. The details of this
kind of patterning are left for further research, but in any case, the Tepetotutla Chinantec facts
are not covered and are predicted not to exist if you let the absorption pattern depend on the
basic constituent order of a language.
6. Languages with NC but no DN
There are seven languages in our sample that have NC but no DN, viz. Kanuri, Kunama,
Somali, Chiapas Zoque, Huave, Páez and Chamorro. In three of them, the NC system seems
to be similar to that of Ewe, except that Ewe is a DN language and the three languages are
not. In another three languages, we see contact interference as an important factor.
The Kanuri, Kunama and Somali negative indefinites can be compared to the Ewe
indefinites. They also have some sort of emphatic marker on their negative indefinites. This is
not to say that the emphatic markers can fulfill the exact same functions in these languages.
The Kanuri marker ma, which is used to derive negative indefinites (sentence (44)), can be
used to express focus, as in sentence (45).
39
(44) Kanuri (Cyffer 2009: 86)
ndúmá ráksə lezə̂-nyí
who-NEG could go-NEG
‘Nobody could go.’
(45) Kanuri (Cyffer 2009: 86)
Bíntu-má íshin
Bintu-EMP will come
‘It is Binyu who will come.’
In Somali, the marker ba on the indefinite may correspond to English ever.
(46) Somali (Saeed 1997: 127)
méel-ta-aad tagtó-ba ...
place-the-you go-ever
‘Wherever you go …’
But ba can also function as an intensifier meaning something like ‘(not) at all’, ‘not ever’. In
sentence (47), one can see how a negative concord construction results.19
19 Somali can also derive negative indefinites by adding a negative nominal suffix. We do not
understand this process.
40
(47) Somali (Saeed 1997: 186)
waxbá má aan sɪ́n
thing-NEG NEG I gave
‘I didn’t give him anything.’
It seems that in Kunama, the negative indefiniteness marker is also related to an emphatic
marker. In Kunama, ‘nobody’ and ‘nothing’ are expressed by (dáat)éllá-ná ‘nothing’ and kéll-
ána ‘nobody’ respectively (Bender 1996: 22-23). The ending resembles the emphatic marker
ma, which can be used on positive as well as negative verbs (Bender 1996: 36). That the use
of the negative indefinites requires an additional verbal negation is illustrated in (48).
(48) Kunama (Bender 1996: 23)
ellana na-nti-mme
nothing I-saw-NEG
‘I didn’t see anything.’
Páez seems to exhibit NC and there is absorption, but the origin of the negative
determiner juxpa as used in example (49) is unclear.
(a) Somali (Saeed 1997: 186)
qóf-na má arkɪ́n
person-NEG NEG saw
‘I/you/he etc. didn’t see anyone.’
41
(49) Páez (Jung 2008: 196)
kɪ ̃x juxpa pija-me: wala:na ũs-taʔ
what NEG.DET grow.up-NEG learning DECL-3pl
‘They grow up without learning anything.’
Apart from these 4 languages, there are three others where the negative indefinites are
clearly at least partly borrowed from Spanish. These languages are Zoque, Huave and
Chamorro. Both in Huave and in Zoque, the negative marker ni is borrowed:
(50) Zoque (Faarlund 2012: 61)
te’ yomo’isñe ni-’isuna’ajk ji-’myujsje ñünji
the wife’s NEG-some NEG-know name
‘Nobody knew the wife’s name.’
(51) Huave (Kim 2008: 246)
como aj kuchu ñunch ngo mundiak, ngo mangoch
as the little boy NEG speak NEG answer
ñi-kwej.
NEG-what
‘Since the little boy didn’t talk, he didn’t answer anything.
In the example from Zoque, ni attaches to the indefinite pronoun i ‘some’ (Faarlund 2012:
61). In Huave, the base kwej ‘thing’ is used to express ‘nothing’ (Kim 2008: 217), and the
interrogative jang ‘who’ to express ‘nobody’ (Kim 2008: 238). In Zoque, negative concord
42
seems to be strict; both preverbal and postverbal examples of negative indefinites co-
occurring with clausal negation can be found (Faarlund 2012: 61). In Huave, only postverbal
negative indefinites were found, so nothing can be said on the nature of negative concord.
The Austronesian language Chamorro uses the same negative indefinite marker ni- to
derive negative indefinites. Like Huave and Zoque, it borrows the indefiniteness marker, and,
in most cases, it retains the original base.
(52) Chamorro (Chung 2009: 103)
Ti hubisita ni háyiyi ha’.
NEG visit not anyone EMP
‘I didn’t visit anyone.’
When there is a pronominally used ‘one’, however, Chamorro seems to use the Spanish
equivalent.
(53) Chamorro (Cooreman 1987: 45)
taya’ ni unu tumungo’ kao guaha si rai
NEG.EX no one know Q have/be UNM king
haga ña
daughter 3SG.POS
‘There was no one at all who knew the king had a daughter.’
As to the presence of strict versus non-strict negative concord, it seems that Chamorro
resembles Spanish.
43
(54) Chamorro (Chung 2009: 103)
Ni unu sin᷉a tasokni nu esti na chinätsaga
NEG one can blame OBL this L hardship.
‘We can blame no one for this hardship.’
It differs from Spanish in that it is only in focus construction that the indefinite can be the sole
marker of negation. Non-focussed negative arguments and adjuncts always have to follow the
negator, the clausal negator ti in the case of negative nonsubjects and the negative existential
verb taya in the case of subjects (Chung 2009: 103-104).
7. Conclusion
Despite similarities between NC and DN, the two phenomena seem to coincide only rarely.
We surveyed 103 non-European languages and we concluded that NC cannot be considered to
be a necessary condition for DN nor for preverbal negation, thus refuting two claims that have
been proposed in the literature. The peculiar constellation that we see in French, in which a
new negator grew out of NC concord, was not found in any other language of our sample. The
two other languages that have both NC and DN are Ewe and Karok. In Ewe we see a DN
system contaminating an indefinite pronoun into a negative pronoun, thus giving rise to triple
exponence. In Karok we see a DN system creating a negative pronoun out of an indefinite by
absorbing one of the clausal negators into the pronoun. We analyzed absorption in some
detail, distinguishing between three parameters of variation, and we also discussed NC as it
occurs in seven additional languages, i.e., languages with NC but without DN. We further
expressed our hunch that DN may be more frequent than NC and we argued, against other
claims in the literature, that the strategy of expressing clausal negation with only negative
44
pronouns or adverbs is not only typical for Europe but also for the Americas and that it is also
found in verb-initial languages.
Abbreviations
1 first person
2 second person
3 third person
DECL declarative
DET determiner
EMP emphatic
FIN finite
FOC focus marker
GEN genitive
INDEF indefinite
INEG incompletive negation
INT interrogative
MASC masculine
NEG negative marker
NEG.DET negative determiner
PL plural
POS possessive
PRES present
PT particle
Q question marker
R realis
S subject
SG singular
SS same subject
UNM unmarked
V verb
45
References
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dissertation, Australian National University.
Bamgbose, Ayo. 1966. A grammar of Yoruba. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bender, Lionel. 1996. Kunama. München: Lincom.
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Appendix
A. The sample
The languages between square brackets are the ones for which insufficient data have been
gathered.
Table 7. Languages in the RS, families, genera, and sources
Family Genus Language Sources
Africa
Khoisan Central Khoisan Khoekhoe Hagman 1977
Böhm 1985
Northern
Khoisan
Ju∣’huan Snyman 1970
Dickens 2005
Niger- Adamawa- Gbeya Bossangoa Samarin 1966
52
Congo Ubangian
Northern
Atlantic
Diola-Fogny Sapir 1965
David J.Sapir, p.c.
Defoid Yoruba Ashiwaju 1968
Rowlands 1965
Bamgbose 1966
Edoid Degema Kari 2003
Kari 2004
Igboid Igbo Green & Igwe 1963
Nupoid Nupe Crowther 1864
Kwa Ewe Ameka 1996
Gur Supyire Carlson 1994
Ijoid Ijo (Kolukuma) Williamson 1965
Nilo-
Saharan
Bongo-Bagirmi Bagirmi Stevenson 1969
Kresh Kresh Santandrea 1976
Brown 1994
Lendu Ngiti Kutsch Lojenga
1994
Moru-Ma’di Ma’di Blackings & Fabb
2003
Kuliak So Carlin 1993
Heine & Carlin
(2010 (draft
dictionary online))
Nilotic Maasai Tucker and Tompo
ole Mpaayei 1955
Nubian Nubian (Dongolese) Armbruster 1960
von Massenbach
1963
Surmic Murle Lyth 1971
53
Kunama Kunama Bender 1996
Maban Masalit Leffel 2011
Saharan Kanuri Hutchison 1976
Cyffer 1998
Songhay Koyraboro Senni Heath 1999
Afro-
Asiatic
Biu-Mandara Tera Newman 1970
Masa Masa Caitucoli 1986
Eastern Cushitic Somali Saeed 1999
Southern
Cushitic
Iraqw Mous 1992
Omotic Maale Amha 2001
Semitic Arabic (Egyptian) Lucas 2009
Southeast Asia and Oceania
Austro-
Asiatic
Bahnaric Pacoh Alves 2006
Khasian Pnar (Khasi) Koshy 2009
Khmer Khmer Haiman 2010
Huffman 1970
Nicobarese Nicobarese (Car) Allan 1889
Das 1977
Braine 1970
Palaun-
Khmuic
Khmu’ Osborne 2009
Premsrirat 1987
Viet-Muong Vietnamese Nguyen & Nguyen
1997
Tran 2009
Austronesian Atayalic Seediq Asal 1953
54
Holmer 1996
Henningsson &
Holmer 2008
Central
Malayo-
Polynesian
Kambera Klamer 1998
Klamer 1994
Oceanic Maori Bauer 1997
South
Halmahera
West New
Guinea
Biak van den Heuvel 2006
Paiwanic Paiwan Egli 1990
Chamorro Chamorro Topping and Dungca
1973
Cooreman 1987
Meso-
Philippine
Tagalog Schachter & Otanes
1983
Sulawesi Tukang Besi Donohue 1999
Sundic Batak (Karo) Neumann 1922
Woollams 1996
North America
Eskimo-Aleut Eskimo Greenlandic Bittner 1995
Na-Dene Athapaskan Navajo Hale & Platero 2000
Haida Enrico 2003
Algic Algonquian Cree (Plains) Wolfart 1973
Okimāsis 2004
Wiyot Teeter 1961
55
Iroquoian Northern Iroquian [Oneida] Abbott 2000
Yuchi Linn 2000
Muskogean Muskogean Koasati Kimball et al. 1991
Kiowa Tamoan Kiowa Watkins 1984
Uto-Aztecan
Aztecan Nahuatl (South East
Puebla)
MacSwan 1999
Numic Comanche Charney 1993
Tepiman Pima Bajo Estrada Fernandez 1996
Wakashan Southern Wakashan Makah Davidson 2002
Salishan Bella Coola Davis and Saunders 1992
Davis and Saunders 1997
Interior Salish Lilloeet Davis & Caldecott 2007
Davis 2008
Chimakuan Chimakuan [Quileute] Andrade 1933
Kutenai Chamberlain 1909
Penutian
Klamath-Modoc Klamath Barker 1964
Maiduan [Maidu]
Sahaptian Nez Perce Deal 2010
Tsimshianic Tsimshian
Wintuan Wintu Pitkin 1984
Hokan
Pomo [Pomo (Southeastern) ] Moshinsky 1974
Seri Moser and Marlett 2005
Yuman Maricopa Gordon 1986
Karok Bright 1957
Wappo-Yukian Wappo Thompson et al. 2006
Oto-
Manguean
Chinantecan Chinantec (Sochiapan) Foris 2000
Mixtecan Mixtec (Chalcatongo) Macaulay 1996
56
Otomian Otomí (Mezquital)
Hekking 1995
Popolocan Chocho Veerman 2000
Tarascan Purépecha Foster 1969
Chamoreau 2000
Totonacan Totonaca (Misantla)
MacKay 1999
Mixe-Zoque Zoque (Chiapas) Faarlund 2012
Huavean Huave Stairs and de Hollenbach 1981
Kim 2008
Mayan Mam Collins 1994
South America
Chibchan Aruak [Ika] Frank 1990
Paya [Pech] Holt 1999
[Rama]
Choco Choco Epena Pedee Harms 1994
Páezan Páez Jung 1989
Barbacoan Awa Pit Curnow 1997
Guahiban [Cuiba] Berg & Kerr 1973
Tucanoan Tucanoan Tuyuca Barnes 1994
Andoke Landaburu 1979
[Betoi] Zamponi 2003
[Yaruro] Mosonyi et al. 2000a
Warao Romero-Figueroa 1997
Yanomam [Sanuma] Borgman 1990
Waorani Peeke 1994
Peeke 1991
57
Peba-Yaguan Yagua Payne and Payne 1990
Cahuapanan [Jebero] Bendor-Samuel 1961
Panoan Shipibo-Konibo Valenzuela 2003
Quechuan Quechua (Imbabura) Cole 1982
Aymaran Jaqaru Hardman 1966
Vaupés-Japurá Nadëb Weir 1994
Arawakan [Baré] Aikhenvald 1995
Cariban Apalaí Koehn and Koehn 1986
Tupian Tupari Mekens Galucio 2001
Tupi-Guarani Tapiete González 2005
Macro-Ge [Bororo] Huestis 1963
Crowell 1979
Ge-Kaingang Canela-Krahô Popjes and Popjes 1986
Trumai Guirardello 1999
Kwazá Van der Voort 2004
Chapacura-Wanhan Wari’ Everett and Kern 1997
Mura [Pirahã] Everett 1986
Arauan Paumarí Chapman and Derbyshire 1991
Katukinan [Canamarí] Groth 1988
Tacanan Araona Pitman 1980
Movima Haude 2006
Mosetenan Mosetén Sakel 2004
Uru-Chipaya Chipaya Cerrón-Palomino 2006
Guaicuruan Pilagá Vidal 2001
Araucanian Araucanian Mapudungun Smeets 1989
Zúñiga 2000
Chon Puelche Gününe Küne Casamiquela 1983
B. Austronesian languages with DN (based on Vossen & van der Auwera , this volume)
58
Biak South Halmahera (Eastern
West New Guinea Malayo-Polynesian)
Fehan (Tetun) Central Malayo-
Polynesian
Fordata Central Malayo-
Polynesian
Hiligaynon Meso-Philippine
Muna Sulawesi
Ambai (Lolovoli) Oceanic
Avava Oceanic
Kwaio Oceanic
Kwamera Oceanic
Lavukaleve Lavukaleve Solomons East-Papuan
Lenakel Oceanic
Lewo Oceanic
Nelemwa Oceanic
Nese (Northwest Malakula) Oceanic
Naman Oceanic
Paamese Oceanic
Raga Oceanic
Rapanui Oceanic
Rotuman Oceanic
Southeast Ambrym Oceanic
Tahitian Oceanic
Teop Oceanic
Tongan Oceanic
Toqabaqita Oceanic