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Volume 9, Issue 2
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Abstract

Abstract

This study reconstructs the development of a negative existential and a negative pro-sentence in the Arawan language Kulina (Brazil-Peru). We demonstrate that the two elements forming the negative existential construction are involved in a double polarity swap: (i) an originally neutral lexical item (the dynamic verb ‘show’) has become negative through contamination, and (ii) an originally negative element , which was responsible for the contamination, is bleaching into a semantically neutral auxiliary. This lexeme , with the auxiliary used only optionally, also functions as a negative pro-sentence now. Thus, synchronically we have a negative pro-sentence that has its origin in a semantically-neutral lexical item. Neither the source of the negative pro-sentence nor this diachronic path has surfaced in the literature on negation so far and thus they are instructive from diachronic and typological perspectives. The hypothesis enriches the literature on both the Jespersen Cycle and the Negative Existential Cycle.

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2019-10-29
2023-09-29

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Negation in Kulina
Journal of Historical Linguistics 9, 208 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.18007.kra
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): diachrony of negation; Jespersen Cycle; negative existential; Negative Existential Cycle; negative pro-sentence; semantic bleaching

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