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Ago Künnap. More on the Origin of the Negative Particles ei, ep and es in Estonian and Other Finnic Languages |
2007, nr. 12 |
As a rule, negative simple tenses of the Finnic
verb consist of two components – a negation word and verb.
Inform other than the imperative form the negation word is usually
an e-stemmed negative auxiliary verb that agrees with the
subject only in person and number, while the main verb mostly
lacks such an agreement. According to common understanding the
forms ei, ep and es are "particlized"
forms of the negative verb in 3PSg, originally having a temporal
marker. The most extensively spread particle of the three Finnic
particle-type forms of the negative auxiliary verbs – the
particle ei – occurs in the whole Finnic area except
the Votic language. The particle ep is used in all Southern
Finnic languages (Votic, Estonian and Livonian). The particle
es occurs only in Estonian languages (North and South Estonian)
and Livonian. In Finnic negation the agreement of the main verb
is rather an extensive phenomenon, which often is, however, based
on a development of recent local origin.
The use of the negation particles ei, ep and es
shows that originally they have not necessarily been 3PSg forms
of the negative verb. If, however, they were not finite forms,
it is pointless to search them for temporal markers in them. It
is interesting to mention a conclusion by Trond Trosterud: in
Uralic languages there is a definite relationship between the
occurrence of the copula of 3PSg predicate constructions and the
preterite form of the negative auxiliary verb – they exclude
each other. Consequently, it can be supposed that in Finnic languages
as languages with copulas the negative auxiliary has no preterite.
Keywords: Finnic languages, verbs,
negative simple tenses, negative particles, symmetric and asymmetric
negation.
Ago Künnap (b. 1941), PhD, University
of Tartu, Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, Department
of Finno-Ugrian Studies, extraordinary senior researcher
ago.kunnap@ut.ee
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