Syntax of negation in Russian
Different languages express negations in different ways. In this paper we will try to see how negation system of the Russian language can be interpreted within the boundaries of syntax.
In modern Russian language negation is primarily expressed by the negative marker ne, which normally precedes the verb. However there are some exceptions when an adverb can be inserted between ne and a verb:
Mi ne vsegda hodim v trenazherniy zal.
We NEG always go to gym.
We do not always go to the gym.
The Russian language has two types of clausal negations – morphologically negative constituents, or NI-words, which are licensed in and only in the scope of overt clause mate negation; and the language-specific Genitive of Negation, the optional case-marking of the internal argument of a negated verb. (Brown 1999:1). In this paper we’d like to focus our attention on clausal negation.
Negative concord
Negative Concord means that two or more negative elements in a clause are interpreted only as one instance of negation and do not give rise to double negative interpretations.
Negative Concord (NC) phenomena in natural language NC is defined … as ‘two or more negative elements yielding one semantic negation’, following Labov’s (1972) observation. NC has been a widely studied phenomenon, since it exhibits morphosyntactic behaviour that should intuitively be ruled out by semantics. (Tsurska: 2010)
Russian NI-words are formed by adding the negative prefix –ni to a WH-element:
Kto – nikto Kak – nikak
Chto – nichto Kogda – nikodga
Gde – nigge ...
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... in Russian occur in negative sentences with the emphatic function:
Ni kapli/ni kapel’ki/ni kapelushechki – not a drop
Ni chut’/ni chutochki – not a little bit
Ni gramma/ni grammulechki – not a gram
Ni skolko/ni skolechki - nothing
Ni razu – not once
The following structure shows how minimizers function in a sentence:
NE+V+minimizers,
(10) Ya ne s’ela ni gramma.
I NEG V minimizer
I didn’t at a thing.
However, a construction like minimizer+NE+V is also grammatically possible.
(11) Ya ni gramma ne s’ela.
I minimizer NEG V
I didn’t eat a thing.
Works Cited
Brown, S. (1999) The syntax of negation in Russian: A Minimalist approach. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Tsurska, O. (2010). Clausal architecture and sentential negation in Slavic.
Zeijstra. H. (2008). Negative Concord in Syntactic Agreement. Retrieved from http://ling.auf.net/lingBuzz/000645
All languages could be successfully analyzed in terms of mathematical equations. In this sense, language is mathematics. This thesis enables us to explain why languages usually have different word orders, and why any language could be highly flexible.
The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright. Berlin [etc.]. Mouton De Gruyter, 1998. Print. The.
By using negative diction, the the author is saying that everything… For instance, in the text it states
These statements assert that the negative ( or contradictory) of an alternative proposition is a conjunction which the conjuncts are the contradictions of the corresponding alternants. That the negative of a conjunctive is an alternative proposition in which the alternants are the contradictories of the corresponding conjuncts.
Knobe, Joshua. "Intentional Action and Side Effects in Ordinary Language." Oxford Journals 63.3 (2003): 190-94. JStor. Oxford University Press.
Web. 18 Mar. 2014. Яблоков, Евгений. " Беспокойное Собачье Сердце, или Горькие Плоды Легкого Чтения." Review.
I have to remember using negative words such as not, is not positive and in professional writing.
What is the difference between a '' and a ''? Moscow: Foreign Languages House, 1962. 179-83. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary'. Marxist Internet Archive - "The Marxist Archive" Web.
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Svartvik, J. (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Essex: Longman Ltd.
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. An Introduction to Language. 8th ed. Boston: Thomson, 2007.
Philosophical approaches, deixis can be as indexical expressions may be usefully approached by considering how truth-conditional semantics deals with certain natural language expression. For example:
In her analysis, Mona Baker investigates all text equivalences: apart the object of this paper, she studies the grammatical equivalence, the textual equivalence and the pragmatic equivalence. However this paper will be centered only on the micro level.
Let’s start with something simple. Oxymorons. Let’s say you’re getting ready for a job interview and as you’re leaving the house, someone yells out behind you, “Just Act Natural, you’ll be fine.” You get in the car and the only thing you get on your mind is “acing natural.” A person can’t act and be natural at the same time and the entire time you’re driving to the job interview, you’re thinking, what can I do to act more natural. That, my friend, is an oxymoron and can easily be mis-interrupted. You’ve heard of them before. They can easily be defined as a couple of words contradicting one another but used as a fixed expression. A couple of examples, found missing, same difference, good grief, and airline food.
Center for Applied Linguistics. Why, How, When? N.p.: Center for Applied Linguistics, n.d. www.cal.org. US Department of Education. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
Syntax is the study of how words are combined to create phrases and causes in the sentences of a specific language (Freeman and Freeman, 2014). Syntax helps us to make clear sentences that “sound right,” where words, phrases, and clauses each serve their function and are correctly ordered to form and communicate a complete sentence with meaning. The rules of syntax combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences. Not only does it focus on the correct word order for a language, but it also helps show the relationship between the meaning of a group of words. Without proper syntax, a sentence can be meaningless. It is key to understand that while every language does have certain syntax, the syntax does vary from language to language. It