Page 435 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

imperative modality, which is often expressed by a different verbal form—namely a nonreality form (imperative, subjunctive, optative, etc.). There are languages that make use of the same NEG marker for both, and there are languages which distinguish between them:
You do not eat fish (declarative) (30) as well as:
Do not catfish, John! (imperative) (31)
The distinction rests in this case on the opposition between indicative form with obligatory pronoun and imperative form without pronoun.
On the other hand the following is found:
In some cases there may be just an intonation differ- ence:
ModGk
versus:
Mtn pernds, GidnnS
NEG cross:2so voc 'Do not cross, John!'
(32) you NEG eat:2so fish (same meaning as (30))
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
(f) Lat
Wei
intonation only (example (41));
morphosyntax (examples (30/31));
different markings on NEG (examples (32/33)); different markings on verb (examples (34/35)); different markings on both NEGand verb (examples (36/37); (38/39));
different lexical choice: e.g.:
noli me tangere
don't want: 2SG.IMPER me touch (42) 'don't touch me'
(Su) den tro-s psdri
Notice that in Modern
junctive endings may not be distinguished: in this case the opposition is based solely upon the distinction de(ri)lrnt(ri). Italian offers the reverse strategy— whereas NEG remains unchanged, the 2so imperative has a special form:
Greek
Giovanni, non attraversare
J. NEGcross: ZSG.IMPERAT
versus:
Giovanni non attraversa
J. NEG cross: SSG.INDIC 'John does not cross.'
indicative
and sub-
(34)
(35)
Different verbal forms together with different NEG markers are found, albeit redundantly, in (36) versus (37), (38) versus (39):
Bernini G, Ramat P 1996 Negative Sentences in the Lan- guages of Europe. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/NewYork
Dahl O 1979 Typology of sentence negation. Linguistics 17: 79-106
ForestR1993Negations.EssaideSyntaxeetde Typologie Linguistique. Klincksieck, Paris
AncGk mt m' eredize
NEGme make angry:2so.iMPERAT
(36) Horn L 1989 A Natural History of Negation. Chicago Uni- versity Press, Chicago, IL
Jespersen O 1917 Negation in English and other languages. In: Selected Writings of Otto Jespersen. Allen and Unwin, London
LehmannWP(ed.)1978SyntacticTypology. Studiesinthe Phenomenology of Language. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX
Payne J R 1985Negation. In: Shopen T (ed.)Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Schwegler A 1988 Word-order changes in predicate negation strategies in Romance languages. Diachronica 5: 21-58 Taglicht J 1983 Message and Emphasis. On Focus and Scope
(39) inEnglish.Longman, London
Tesniere L 1966 Elements de syntaxe structural, 2nd edn.
Klincksieck, Paris
versus:
'don't make me angry'
ou m' ereOizeis
NEGme make me angry: 2so.iNDic 'you do not make me angry'
Lat ne cantes (38) NEC sing: 2sc.suBJ
'do not sing'
non cantos
NEC sing: 2so.iNDic 'you do not sing.'
versus:
(33)
French
versus
Jean ne traverse pas (40) 'John is not crossing'
Jean, ne traversepas! (41) 'John, do not cross!'
The cognitive-behavioral difference between declarative and prohibitive negation is basic and every language has a means to express the functional oppo- sition. In order to show this large possible variety, the following scale for marking prohibitive negation could be tentatively drawn:
Peidiwch d siarad!
stop:2pt with talk(ing) 'do not talk'
(43)
(see Bernini and Ramat 1996).
Bibliography
Negation
413