Special Negators in the Uralic Languages : Synchrony, Diachrony and Interaction with Standard Negation

This study covers data from 26 Uralic languages and has both a synchronic and a diachronic orientation. The synchronic part includes a detailed description of the negation strategies in sentences such as (i) Mary is not a nurse and (ii) There are no wild cats. The negators used in such clauses are referred to as special negators because they often differ from standard negation. Their formal and semantic features are discussed but they are also viewed in a broader typological setting. As regards diachrony, the origin of the special negators is traced and the Negative Existential Cycle (Croft 1991) is tested on the Uralic data. Some modifications of the model are suggested as a result of this application.

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