Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 109. kötet (2013)
Tanulmányok - Simoncsics, Péter: Linguistic gestures: On negation, with special reference to the Permian languages 151
On negation, with special reference to the Permian languages 157 of the illabial initial of the negative auxiliary stem possibly goes back to Pre- Proto-Permian in both time and space. In addition to the present marker -g- the labialization of the illabial initial *eof the negative auxiliary duplicates the distinction of present and pushes past tenses into the background, where the logical nature of negation becomes more prominent, i.e. they are more analytic in nature, using particles éAvél and aAbu in Udmurt and Komi, respectively. Both Udmurt éAvél and Komi aAbu ’[there] isn’t; cf. Hungarian nincs(en)' are uninflected compounds consisting of a negative element and a remainder of the respective existential verb: Udmurt ё- is identical with the stem of negative auxiliary ё- of Uralic origin and ab- is probably a loan (see point 4. below). The main verb appears as a past participle with personal suffixes min—em-ed ’walk=PSTPARTIClPLE-PXSG2; cf. Hungarian men(e)=t-ed’ and set=em-riid ’give=PSTPARTICIPLE-PXSG2; cf. Hungarian ad=t-od\ The whole structure is in fact a negation of a participle without reference to tense with the meaning “there is no going/giving of yours; cf. Hungarian nines meneted/adtod, or nines menésed/adásod. The lack of representation of tense explains the free alternation of narrative past and present tense proper in folklore texts. E.g.: Narrative Past Udmurt éAvél min=em-ed ’you didn’t walk’ NEG.STEMAAe main verb=PSTPARTICIPLE-PXSG 1' Komi aAbu set=ém-id ’you didn’t give’ NEG.PARTA^ main verb=PSTPARTICIPLE-PXSG2 To the point above we may add that in Udmurt the optional variant of narrative past can occur even without a negative particle, e.g. tnini=m =te-jed ’STEM =PSTPARTICIPLE=CARITIVE-PXSG2; you didn’t walk [so they say]’ where a caritive suffix would suffice. Generally speaking, in analytical constructions specifically in past tenses and moods other than indicative and imperative - where personal involvement (and markedness) becomes weaker and/or fades away - the logical nature of negation comes to the fore and becomes more conspicuous. In Udmurt, for instance, the conditional in the singular can be wholly impersonal, through use of the negative particle éj (< negative auxiliary stem ё-) with the main verb in conditional without personal suffixes: éj mmi=sal T/you/(s)he would not walk’. Furthermore, in polar questions the question-tags -ё and -a are used in Komi and Udmurt, respectively. It is worth noting that (1) Komi is more archaic in this respect, too, as shown by the use of the “original” negative stem -ё, and (2) Ud- 1 1 A marks a compound consisting of the negating auxiliary / particle and the truncated stem of the existential verb ’to be’; be represents the truncated stem of the existential verb.
