*Ya'* dem.prox *sap* rprt.ui *pu=x-maax-ka'* sens=cop-know-stat *na=m-pai'* sub=3pl.sbj-adv *daghia'* grab [*gu* det

3 S and O orders are equally free in matrix and subordinate clauses.

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

> *chio'ñ*]*sbj* man [*gu* det *ubii*]*po..* woman 'Here one could tell where they grab her, the man to the woman.' (Text\_082011\_CRG\_GGS\_El mito, 00:11)

DPs are not marked for case, instead grammatical roles are indicated through verbal argument affixes. Subjects are marked with a subject suffix, or preverbal free form as in (7), and a prefix on the verb that agrees with the primary object. By primary object, we mean that only one object is marked on the verb even if the clause contains more than one object.4 The object that is marked on the verb is generally the most prominent (i.e. human, animate), although the exact factors that determine primary objecthood are still unknown. Both verbs in (6) and (7) realize the same object marking, the 3pl marker *ja-*. The primary object marker in (7) refers to the plural recipient rather than the theme5 because the recipient is more prominent.

While O'dam currently exhibits verb-initial order, it maintains elements of the verb-final order of Proto Uto-Aztecan—these are shown in Table 2 (García Salido 2014, García Salido & Reyes Valdez 2015, also see Langacker 1977: 24–26 for a reconstruction of Proto Uto-Aztecan word order).

In the next section we describe the attested strategies in O'dam for expressing existential meaning. First, we consider the non-verbal existential predicate *jai'ch*, then we consider other strategies based on locative constructions and a copular construction.

4Note that the notion here of "primary object language" is somewhat different from the primary object alignment system. Dryer (1986) defines a primary object marking language as that which treats the recipient of a ditransitive sentence in the same way as the object/patient of the monotransitive sentence. However, O'dam primary object marking is somewhat less consistent.

5Mass nouns like *koi'* 'food' are morphologically and syntactically singular so 3pl *ja-* can only refer to the overtly plural recipient.

### 14 Existential negation in O'dam

# **3 Existential constructions**

Here we consider an *existential construction/existential* to be a construction that expresses a proposition about the existence of some entity (McNally 2011: 1829). In many languages these constructions are atypical in one or more ways: noncanonical subject order, lack of agreement between the subject and predicate, special morphology, specialized negation, etc. However, as we discuss in this section, existential constructions in O'dam do not appear to be encoded differently from non-existentials, therefore we cannot turn to such diagnostics. We also follow other authors in this volume, as well as Veselinova (2014, 2016) in assuming the definiteness restriction, where existential constructions are constrained to indefinite nominals, although see Ziv (1982), Reuland & ter Meulen (1987), Abbott (1997), Beaver et al. (2006), McNally (2016) for further discussion and criticisms.

O'dam uses several strategies to encode existential meaning. The primary strategy is the non-verbal existential predicate *jai'ch*, shown in (8-11). García Salido (2014: 93) analyses *jai'ch* as a non-verbal predicate because it takes morphology that otherwise only appears on non-verbal predicates, such as the stative marker *-ka'* in (11).

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

'"Is there lime in the spring?" Juan asked. "I have heard that there is" said Pedro' (Willett & Willett 2015: 76)

(11) *Cham* neg *jai'ch-ka'* ex-stat *na=m* sub=3pl.sbj *tu'* something *jugia'..* eat 'There was nothing to eat.' (Text\_072011\_PSC\_GGS\_elcuidadodelamujer1, 9:40)

The *jai'ch* predicate is also used for locative predications, as in (12-13). There is no clear syntactic difference between locative and existential *jai'ch*. Both take standard subject marking, as in (8) and (12), and standard V-initial word order. One possible difference is that in our data existential predications are only attested with overt DPs. In contrast, *jai'ch* in locative contexts is attested without a DP referring to the subject. Posture seems to have a cultural significance—in our corpora women tend to be associated with sitting posture *daa*, men with standing *kɨɨk* and we believe that *jai'ch* is possibly used here for things that are bad or taboo (i.e. they lack posture). In our experience, mestizo doctors (12), as opposed to Tepehuan *curanderos*, are rarely talked about, and the second reference to *animales* (from Spanish 'animals') in (13) refers to animals under the influence of a demon. Thus both apparently postureless subjects here appear to be taboo or bad, although, we must admit that this is tentative and requires further invstatigation. 14 Existential negation in O'dam

Positional verbs in O'dam are generally used for locative constructions (García Salido 2017) but in (14-15) we see them used for existential meaning. Similarly, the verb *oilhia'* 'move'6 can be used for existential meaning, as in (16).

Positional verbs and *oilhia'* 'move' appear to be compatible with both definite and indefinite existential and non-existential locative meanings. The determiner *gu* is underspecified for definiteness and can be pragmatically linked to (in)definiteness based on context or the appearance of certain quantifiers. Notice in (10),

6This is a suppletive verb—*oilhia'* is the form for singular subjects, while *oipo* is the form for plural subjects.

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

reproduced below, that *gu jabook* is not referring to a definite referent, only the existence of some referent. Later in the same utterance *gu Juan* and *gu Peegro* both have definite and specific referents. For further discussion of O'dam determiners and definiteness see Everdell (2018: 25–28).

(17) *Jai'ch=aa* ex=q *gu* det *jabook* light *matai* lime *mi'-ñi* dem.med-vis *bibiatam* spring *jup-kai'ch* iter-say *gu* det *Juan* Juan *pui'-ñ* sens-1sg.sbj *dho* direv *t/e-k/e/e-ka'* dur-hear-stat *na* sub *sap* rprt.ui *jai'ch* ex *jup-kai'ch* iter-say *gu* det *Peegro.* Pedro

'"Is there lime in the spring?" Juan asked. "I have heard that there is" said Pedro' (Willett & Willett 2015: 76)

It is unsurprising that O'dam uses locative predicates for both locative (18-19) and existential meaning (14-16), even though it also has a separate existential predicate. The relationship between locatives and existentials has been well documented, including from a diachronic perspective (e.g. Breivik 1981, Gaeta 2013). The full set of positional verbs is shown in Table 3, because they are suppletive for number, we show their singular and plural forms.

The final existential strategy we find in O'dam is a copular construction with a PP or noun. Copular constructions in O'dam are formed by a copula that appears as a preclitic on the predicate expression. The element derived by the copula is treated as part of the predicate and is not treated as a syntactic object (i.e. it does not receive a coreferenced object prefix). The copula construction is limited to intransitive valency and the aspectual suffixes *-ka* 'stative' and *-t* 'imperfective'. The aspectual restriction García Salido (2014: 88ff) considers to be diagnostic of their status as non-verbal predicates.

### 14 Existential negation in O'dam

Table 3: Positional verbs in O'dam (Everdell & García Salido 2019)

(20) *Na=p* sub=2sg.sbj *jir=*[*xib-kam*]*-ka'.* cop=today-from-stat

'When you were new.' (García Salido 2014: 89)

In existential copula constructions, the nominal appears as either a bare N, as in (21), or as derived with a postposition, as in (22). The most common copula used for existential predication is *jir=*. 7

(21) *Dhu* direv *sap* rprt.ui *buimuk* tomorrow *mo* doubt *bhai=r-piasta-ka'* dir=cop-fiesta-stat *ji* foc *bhai'-ñi* dem.med-vis *dam-dɨr* up-from *na-ø-pai'=r-iskuel.* sub=3sg.sbj-where=cop-school 'Supposedly, tomorrow there is a party up here where there is a school.' (Text\_092011\_MMC\_GGS\_Elborrachoylamuerte, 14:46)

(22) *Para* for *dhi* dem.prox *balh-cha'm* basket-on *pai'* where *ja'p* dir *pai'* where *jɨ'k* some *na=ø* sub-3sg.sbj *jir=ki*∼*kcham.* cop=pl∼house 'For those in The Basket over there where there are houses.' (García Salido et al. 2021)

While we generally find the copula construction being used for existential predication, we see in (23-24) that it is also compatible with locative predication. The sentences below are minimally changed from (21) and (22), respectively. We use possessor prefixes to force a locative reading, because attributive possession presupposes possession and existence (Mithun 2001).

7O'dam has a second copula *jix=*, which is related to temporary states, while *jir=* is used for permanent states (Martínez Córdova 2016).

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

(Elicitation\_082019\_WG\_MSE)

Now that we have discussed the expression of existential predication in O'dam, we turn to negation. First we discuss standard negation strategies in §4.1, then we discuss the use of standard negation in existential predications in §4.2 and an existential negation strategy that does not have an attested positive syntactic counterpart.

# **4 Negation**

### **4.1 Standard negation**

Miestamo (2005: 1) defines standard negation as the negation of "declarative verbal main clauses"; in the following subsections, we show that O'dam uses the same strategy for both standard negation and existential negation. Standard negation in O'dam is marked using the particle *cham tu'* and its shortened form *cham* (García Salido 2014: 109). The two negation strategies are distinguished by the position of the particle, but both can be used for clausal or constituent negation. For clausal negation, the negative particle precedes the verb, as in (25) and (26). For constituent negation, the negation particle follows the negated elements (e.g. DPs), as in (27). The negated element in these examples in underlined. It is rare but there are a few attested examples where *cham tu'* precedes a negated element that is not a verb, like in (28-29), although this is not attested for *cham*.

(25) *Karabiñ-kɨ'n* carabine-with *tɨi* nrint *pu=p* sens=it *jiñ-ma'yasa* 1sg.po-shoot *na=ñich* sub=1sg.sbj *cham* neg *oi.* go.pfv 'With a rifle he wanted to shoot me because I did not go.' (Text\_062011\_ESS\_GGS\_susamores, 04:51)

14 Existential negation in O'dam

In addition to clauses and noun phrases, *cham* and *cham tu'* are used to negate directionals and demonstratives (30) and pronouns (31-32).

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

Finally, when negating a dependent clause,*cham* appears inside of the dependent clause but still precedes the verb, as in (33), while *cham tu'* always immediately precedes the subordinator (34).

Beyond positional differences, it is not clear what the differences in usage are between *cham* and *cham tu'*. The former may be somewhat more emphatic because García Salido (2014: 136–140) finds that negative commands are only formed with *cham* + *ap* '2sg.sbj', as in (35). However, we do not have clear evidence that emphaticness distinguishes the two negators otherwise.

	- b. *Cha'=p* neg=2sg.sbj *ñiok-da'* speak-cont *tɨɨ* nrint *gu-m-taat* det-2sg.poss-father *na=t-jax* sub=3sg.sbj.pfv-how *dhoda* do.something.to.person 'Shut up, you do not know what he did to your father.' (Text\_092010\_HSA\_GGS\_Elcuento, 04:28)

### **4.2 Existential negation**

In terms of the negative existential cycle, O'dam is a Type A language, where standard negation strategies are used for existential constructions. Notice in (36-

### 14 Existential negation in O'dam

39) *jai'ch* is negated by an immediately preceding negation particle and that the negation strategy is the same regardless of whether the existential occurs in a matrix clause (36-37) or a subordinate clause (38-39). It seems that singular nouns are only used to negate the existence of a singular referent (e.g. the demon), while plural nouns are used to negate the existence of sets (e.g. women, plants). This appears to contrast with O'dam treatment of mass nouns, which are morphosyntactically singular but may have individuated units.8

Standard negation strategies are also used for existential constructions where the predicate element is other than *jai'ch*. In (40-41), the standard negation strategy is used for the copular existential construction in a subordinate and main clause, respectively.

8 For example, tortillas, potatoes and apples are all mass nouns in O'dam but Everdell & Denlinger (2019) find that they can trigger plural state marking on resultatives and statives.

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

While constituent negation is well attested in non-existential contexts, in existential constructions we have no attested cases of postverbal constituent negation. Instead, apparently constituent negation must take place before the verb, as in (42) where the demonstrative *ya'* is negated. In (43) and (44) we see examples of negation of preverbal indefinite pronouns, where DPs cannot appear.

We only find examples of non-clausal negation of indefinite pronouns (no + somebody, no + thing, etc.) in existential constructions; we have no examples of negated preverbal subject pronouns. Thus, in O'dam clausal negation appears to rely on the definiteness of the verbal arguments. We show indefinite existential

### 14 Existential negation in O'dam

negation through the clausal negation strategy in (45-46). In both examples, the subordinate clauses expressing the negated referent use the indefinite pronouns *tu'* 'something' and *jaroi'* 'someone', respectively.

It may be that existential constructions in O'dam entirely disallow postverbal constituent negation or that it is simply unattested. Our findings for O'dam (negative) indefinite pronouns align with typological work showing that negative/negated indefinite pronouns can often function as direct negation markers (Haspelmath 1997, Veselinova 2013, Van Alsenoy 2014). At this point, we do not find any difference in the use of negated *jai'ch* + indefinite pronoun versus a negated indefinite pronoun, unlike in Swedish (Bordal 2017). However, our current corpus is relatively small so we do not discount statistical tendencies.

In addition to the use of standard negation on attested existential construction types, we also find several cases where a negative existential meaning arises out of a construction that is not attested in positive existential contexts. The verb *maax* 'see, notice' can express an existential meaning when negated. In (47), *maax* is being used to express that there are no footprints but speakers report that the footprints discussed in the sentence are not visible because they do not exist.9 However, in positive contexts like (48a) and some negative contexts like (48b), the verb expresses visibility rather than existence.

(47) *Na=m-gu'* sub=3pl.sbj-adv *cham* neg *maax.* see 'Because there are no footprints.' (Text\_092011\_MMC\_GGS\_elseñorqueperdiósusanimales1, 03:49)

(i) *...pero* ...*pero mi=x* dem.med=cop *jai'ch-am* ex-3pl.sbj 'but they are there.'

9Our consultants report that (48b) is quite odd if followed up with something like (i) that contradicts the existential negation meaning of the original sentence.

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

	- b. *Moo* doubt *ja'p* dir *cham* neg *maax* see *jia* ret *na=ø-jax* sub=3sg.sbj-how *dhuu-ka-t* rain-est-ipfv *tu-iipuñi-dha'* dur-grow-cont *sia* exps *na=r* sub=cop *tu'.* something 'See how you cannot tell when the plants are sprouting.' (Willett & Willett 2015: 120)

In (49-50) we see two cases where the negated existential construction is expressed through zero-derived denominal verbs, *juuk* 'pine' and *busiñ* 'pass', respectively. This construction type is, thus far, unattested for positive existential meanings but is attested in negative predicative possession constructions, as in (51).

In addition to overt negation, there appear to be attested cases where the negative sense is expressed, but there is no overt marker. This comes across with the adverb *ampɨx* 'only' and the verb *jugia'* 'finish' (52-54). There does not appear to be a similar construction for positive contexts so that this construction appears to be restricted to negative meaning when used in existential contexts. However, this structure is attested outside of existential contexts, where *ampɨx* appears to add the meaning that 'everything' will be finished, as in (54).

14 Existential negation in O'dam

Now that we have discussed existential negation in O'dam, we turn to standard and existential negation in several Southern Uto-Aztecan languages.

# **5 Existential Negation in Southern Uto-Aztecan**

O'dam is on the Tepiman branch of Uto-Aztecan, which is a subgroup of the Southern Uto-Aztecan branch (a full tree is shown in the Appendix). Northern Tepehuan is a Tepiman language spoken in Chihuahua and Northern Durango. It appears to be a Type B language where there are distinct strategies for standard and existential negation. Standard negation is indicated through the negative particle *mai* and the negative adverbial *tomali*, as shown in (55-56). As we discuss in §6, it is plausible that *mai* is cognate with the /m/ in O'dam *cham*.

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

Existential negation is indicated by the negative existential *tiípu(ka)*, shown in (57-58). The negative existential is apparently compatible with the negative particle *mai*, as shown in (59), although it is not clear if the construction in (59) is used for emphasis.

'I found a little hive in a tree and there were no more bees.' (Bascom & Molina 1998: 15)

Bascom (1982) finds that positive existential predications in Northern Tepehuan are either expressed through juxtaposition (noun-noun, noun-pronoun, question word-noun, adjective-noun, or quantifier-noun), as in (60), or through the verb *oidy ága*, as in (61). Based on Bascom (1982)'s brief discussion, Northern Tepehuan may separate locative from existential predications. Bascom (1982) does not list examples of locative predications with the juxtaposition or the existential verb strategy. Instead, Bascom (1982) only gives examples of locative predications with positional verbs.

	- b. *Ši=ɨɨ́ki-du-ka-tadai ́* q=how.many-quant-stat-pst.cont 'How many were there?' (Bascom 1982: 282)

14 Existential negation in O'dam

(61) a. *Oidy ága* there.are *múí-dy* many-some *kií*∼*ki.* pl∼house 'There are many houses.' (Bascom 1982: 282)

The positive existential predicate *oidy ága* is related to O'dam *oilhia'* 'move'. The Northern Tepehuan form is from Proto-Tepiman *\*oida* 'to follow', while the O'dam form is from the related form *\*oimɨrai* 'to walk about' (Hill 2014). Bascom (1982: 281) notes that the positive existential *oidy ága* can co-occur with the standard negation particle *mai*. However, he does not offer examples nor does he explain possible differences between the negative existential *tiipú(ka)* and *mai* + *oidy ága*.

Pima Bajo, a Tepiman language spoken in Sonora, appears to be a Type A language. Estrada Fernández (2014: 149) finds that Pima Bajo has two suppletive existential forms that are probably historically related: one for existential predicates of plural or mass entities (62) and another for singular existential predicates (63). In addition, Estrada Fernández (2014: 154) lists several other verbs used for existential meaning: *maasi* 'seem, be, exist', *tu'ig* 'stay', and *is* 'be'.

Standard negation in Pima Bajo is expressed by means of the negative particle *im* (64-65) or by the emphatic negative particle *kova* (66), both in preverbal position (Estrada Fernández 2014).

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

Standard negation is also used for existential predications (Estrada Fernández 2014: 155). Notice in (67) that the standard negation marker *im* is used so that existential negation is accomplished through the same means as standard negation.

(67) *As* rprt *hɨgi* 3sg.sbj *im* neg *maasi* seem *ɨrav* inside *kuid-am.* below-loc 'He said there does not seem to be anything down in there.' (Estrada Fernández 2014: 155)

Cora, a Corachol language spoken in Nayarit immediately to the south of O'dam, appears to be a Type B language. It uses the particle *ka* to express standard negation (68). This particle usually appears in first position in the clause and is followed by second position enclitics that encode subject (Vázquez Soto, p.c.).

(68) *ɨ́* det *Juan,* John *ka* neg *pu* s3sg *wa-mɨ'ɨ́* compl-die.sgs 'As for John, he did not die.' (Vázquez Soto 2001: 201)

Cora differentiates between a positive (69) existential copula10 that suppletes for number and a negative existential copula that does not supplete (70). The standard negation particle *ka* is also apparently obligatory in negative existential constructions.

A verb of posture can co-occur with the existential copula in Cora, as in (71), however, it is unclear whether this co-occurrence is possible with indefinite subjects, see (Vázquez Soto 2013: 180ff).

(71) *Núh* evid *náimi'i* all *ma-tíh* 3pl.sbj-sub *mána'a* 3pl.sbj.emph *pwá'ame* cop.ex.pl *wi-ráa-uu.* adh:hole-inside-be.standing.pl 'They say that all of them are inside.' (Vázquez Soto 2013: 181)

10Vázquez Soto (2013) shows that Cora can use the existential copula for locative constructions of definite referents, especially in questions.

### 14 Existential negation in O'dam

Vázquez Soto (2013: 181) argues that in the case of negative locative descriptions of the existential type the postural verb is ungrammatical, as in (72). Instead only the negative existential copula may be used, as in (73). Thus, it seems that all negative existential constructions in Cora require both the standard negator *ka* and the negative existential copula *mé'e*.

Huichol, a Corachol language spoken in Nayarit just to the south of O'dam, appears to be a Type B language where a separate negative existential verb *mawe* is used for existential negation,11 compare (74) and (75).

Unlike in the closely related Cora, in Huichol the negative existential apparently does not co-occur with the standard negation prefix *ka-*, as in (76). However, the negative existential *mawe* can alternate with the standard negation prefix plus existential *xuawe*, as shown in (77). Bierge (2017: 115) notes that the *ka-* + *xuawe* construction is less frequently used than the negative existential *mawe* and it is probably borrowed from Spanish *no* + *existir*. We tentatively do not consider Huichol to be intermediate between Type A and B, because the Type A strategy seems to be so marginal.

11The phonological and functional similarities between Northern Tepehuan *mai*, Cora *mé'e*, and Huichol *mawe* are such that they may be cognate, although we hesitate to make a more definitive claim here because the exact vowel correspondences and the correspondence between Cora /'/ and Huichol /w/ are not otherwise attested (Stubbs 2011).

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

Finally, Guarijío, a Taracahitan language located in the West Sierra Madre Mountains in Chihuahua and the border of Sonora, also appears to be a type A ∼ B language. For existential negation, speakers can choose to use a standard negation strategy with the positive existential predicate, Type A, or use a dedicated negative existential predicate without the standard negator, Type B. For standard negation Guarijío uses the clitic *ki=*, which apparently attaches to the negated element (78-79).

The positive existential *maní* (80) contrasts with the negative existential verb *ki'te*, as in (81). However, the standard negation particle can also attach to the positive existential marker, as in (82). Félix Armendáriz (2006) makes no comment on the different uses of the dedicated negative existential versus the negated positive existential.

### 14 Existential negation in O'dam

Table 4: Negation strategies among Southern Uto-Aztecan languages

(82) *Ki=maní-re nerói.*

> neg=ex-pfv water

'There is no water.' (Félix Armendáriz 2006: 115)

In light of the other negation elements in Guarijío (*kái* 'negative answer', *katé* 'negative imperative'), it seems likely that the negative existential *ki'té* consists of a fossilized form of the negation particle *ki=* that fused with some element *té*, although we do not discount the possibility that *ki=* is a reduction of *ki'té*.

To summarize the discussions here, we present the standard and existential negation strategies in our sample of Southern Uto-Aztecan languages in Table 4.

Now that we have discussed the existential negation types in a sample of Southern Uto-Aztecan languages, we take a historical view and posit a developmental path for existential and standard negation in O'dam.

# **6 A possible pathway of change**

Southern Uto-Aztecan languages in general seem to be Type B languages, where existential constructions are negated by a special strategy. The exceptions are O'dam and Pima Bajo, which are both Type A, where standard negation is used in all cases, and Guarijío, which seems to be both Type A and B. In the standard and existential negation strategies in Table 4 we find a significant amount of

### Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

replacement and change. This suggests that in Southern Uto-Aztecan languages, the development of standard and existential negation occurs along quite different paths. Especially in Tepiman languages (O'dam, Northern Tepehuan, Pima Bajo), both existential and standard negation appear to be highly susceptible to change, but their change cannot obviously be linked in any way.

Langacker (1977: 32–33) reconstructs *\*ka* as the Proto Uto-Aztecan basic negative morpheme. Across Southern Uto-Aztecan, Tepiman appears to be unique in lacking reflexes of *\*ka*. 12 All of the non-Tepiman languages discussed in this chapter maintain a reflex of the particle, summarized in Table 4. Aztecan languages, which form a subgroup with Corachol, appear to use cognates of Classical Nahuatl *a'mo* (Launey 1981) for standard negation and express existential negation through negated indefinite pronouns.13 Hill (2014) and Langacker (1977) say that *a'mo* is a reflex of the aforementioned Proto Uto-Aztecan *\*ka*. Pima Bajo is possibly the only Tepiman language that maintains *\*ka* in its negative emphatic marker *kova*, which is likely derived from a combination of the basic negator *\*ka* plus *\*pa*, which Langacker (1977: 32) reconstructs as an emphatic affirmative.

Looking to Northern Tepehuan, *mai*, if *\*tia=mai* was a negative Proto-Tepehuan construction, then *cham* would be the expected reflex if O'dam speakers froze the full construction and Northern Tepehuan speakers only maintained the ending *mai*. The initial consonant [ch] appears in O'dam due to palatalization when /t/ is immediately adjacent to /i/ and the Southwestern Tepehuan negation particle *jiam*, suggests that *\*i* in the Proto-Tepehuan form followed the initial *\*t*. O'dam would have then placed stress on the initial syllable and deleted the final diphthong (Willett 1982).

Langacker (1977: 33) reconstructs *\*\*\*ta* as a Proto Uto-Aztecan emphatic particle that gained its negative meaning through its common use in negative expressions. This could be the source of the *\*tia* element in the possible Proto-Tepehuan construction, however it does not explain the high vowel. A possible source for the high vowel lies in Pima Bajo *im*, which suggests there could have been a Proto-Tepiman construction *\*\*ta-imai*. It is then possible that Proto-Tepehuan or Southern Tepehuan metathesized the diphthong in the initial syllable, however, such *\*\*ai* > *ia* metathesis is otherwise unattested in O'dam reflexes so this seems unlikely. Additionally, *\*\*imai* does not have a clear source as we do not find negative or emphatic morphemes in other Uto-Aztecan languages with a similar phonological shape. The possible pathway of developments is shown in

12This includes the Tepiman language Tohono O'odham, which uses the negation particle *pi*.

13See Hausteca Nahuatl (Beller & Beller 1979), Mecayapan Nahuatl (Wolgemuth 2002), Michoacán Nahuatl (Sischo 1979), North Puebla Nahuatl (Brockway 1979), Tetelcingo Nahuatl (Tuggy 1979), Tlaxcala Nahuatl (Flores Nájera 2019), and Pipil (Campbell 1985)

14 Existential negation in O'dam

Figure 1: Possible development of O'dam *cham*

Figure 1, however without an in-depth look at negative and emphatic particles (beyond the scope of this chapter), we can only speculate on the origins of O'dam *cham*.

Hill (2014) finds that the Proto Uto-Aztecan negator *\*ka* was maintained in all subgroups as a negation marker, except Tepiman, which entirely lacks reflexes of the form. In contrast with the rest of Uto-Aztecan, it seems that Tepiman has undergone quite a bit of innovation specific to the standard negation particles. We can only speculate on the origins of the Tepiman negation particles. The possible proto-form *\*imai* is not attested in any other parts of the family and is only weakly constructible based on present evidence. Moreover, the Tohono O'odham negation particle *pi* is not obviously connected to any elements in any other Uto-Aztecan language.14

O'dam also uniquely innovated the negation particle *cham tu'*. This particle almost certainly developed from the combination of the basic negator *cham* plus the indefinite pronoun *tu'* 'something'. While *tu'* seems to most often pronominalize nouns, it also seems to be able to have an irrealis non-specific function with dependent clauses, a property not unique to O'dam (Haspelmath 1997). In (83), *tu'* is the head of the bracketed subordinate clauses and essentially makes their meaning irrealis and non-specific. This structure mirrors that of standard externally headed relative clauses, shown in (84), where the head immediately precedes the subordinator (García Salido; submitted).

(83) a. *Tu'* something *na* sub *pix* mir *ba-ñ-pasaru-'.* compl-1sg.po-pass-irr 'Something is going to happen to me.' (Text\_092010\_MSM\_GGS\_Lavidatepehuana, 27:32)

14While it is possible that it developed out of a compound of the Proto Uto-Aztecan emphatic negator *\*\*pa* and our Proto-Tepiman *\*imai*, we seriously doubt this. First, Proto Uto-Aztecan *\*\*p* became *\*v* in Proto-Tepiman, so that we would expect *vi* rather than *pi*. Second, *\*pa=imai* would have had to lose its final CV segment and completely assimilate /a/ > /i/. While final vowel devoicing and deletion is almost a universal Tepiman process, deletion of final consonants, or full CV segments, is not attested in Tepiman, let alone Tohono O'odham.

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

Through frequent collocation, *cham* + *tu'* would become a frozen neg + 'indefinite head' construction. We must caution that the modern particle *cham tu'* differs in many ways from its plausible previous life as a negated external relative clause head construction. It can be used in realis and specific contexts, (85) and currently we do not know of any semantic constraints that *cham tu'* places on the negated element that would follow from it being a relative clause head. As discussed in §4.1, *cham* can only precede negated verbs (clausal negation) and must follow all other negated constituents. In addition, it must occur inside of negated dependent clauses. Conversely, *cham tu'* can precede negated verbs and constituents and occurs outside of dependent clauses. Thus, the position of the particle follows from its development from an external relative clause head.

(85) *Añ* 1sg.sbj *ubii* woman *ya'* dir *ai-ch-dha'* arrive-caus-appl *jumai'* another *cham tu'* neg *ap.* 2sg.sbj 'As for me, I am going to bring another woman (for me), not you.' (Text\_102010\_CFC\_GGS\_Cuandolacuranderaeraniña, 21:17)

It seems that Tepiman languages as a whole, including O'dam, are particularly prone to elaborating and replacing negative particles within the Uto-Aztecan family. It is not clear whether the O'dam and Tepiman forms were taken from common sources (e.g. emphatic negative particles) or whether they were simply innovated separately. However, the key point is that the development of standard negation in O'dam, and Tepiman more widely, is unconnected to existential negation.

Turning to existential predication in Southern Uto-Aztecan, we find that there is quite a bit of evidence for the (re-)emergence of negative existentials. In Table 5 we show the dedicated positive and negative existential predicates in each language in our sample. To our knowledge none of the forms are cognate with

each other, and they do not appear to be reflexes of attested Proto Uto-Aztecan cognates.

Table 5: Positive and negative existential predicates in our Southern Uto-Aztecan sample

We see that the Corachol subgroup (Cora, Huichol) seems to have derived their positive and negative existentials from a common source, or possibly one from the other. However, it is unclear where this source would be or what the origin of the /m/ initial segment is. The possible Proto-Tepiman *\*imai* seems an unlikely source because it is unattested in Corachol and truncation of /imai/ > /m/ would be otherwise unattested in Corachol.

The negative existential in Northern Tepehuan and Guarijío are completely unrelated to their positive counterpart. Most of the languages allow the negative marker to co-occur with either the positive or negative existential, and this is obligatory in O'dam and Pima Bajo. However, Guarijío is the only language that has plausible evidence for evolutionary interaction of standard and existential negation, because the /ki/ segment of *ki'té* could plausibly be from the standard negation clitic. All others do not show any obvious reflex of the standard negation particle in the positive or negative existential forms. Thus, while we do not know the source of the negative, or positive, existential predicates in Southern Uto-Aztecan, only Guarijío seems to have any evolutionary interaction between standard and existential negation.

# **7 Conclusion**

This chapter described the strategies that O'dam employs to express existential meaning and their negation. O'dam uses several types of constructions to express positive existential meaning; these include the non-verbal predicate *jai'ch*, locative positional constructions and a copular construction. We also described standard negation, which is accomplished through the use of two particles *cham* and *cham tu'* that are used for both clausal and constituent negation. O'dam is a Type A language because it uses standard negation strategies to negate existential constructions. Clausal negation seems to be preferred for existential negation and we find no attested cases of postverbal constituent negation. The apparent exception to O'dam's Type A status is the use of *ampɨx* + 'finish', which does not appear with any overtly negative elements and seems limited to 'there is nothing'. Finally, we discuss the place of other Southern Uto-Aztecan languages in the existential negation cycle, most of which appear to be Type B. O'dam and Pima Bajo appear to be unique as Type A languages. Standard negation particles and existential negators seem to be commonly replaced and emergent, especially in Tepiman. Thus, it seems that standard and existential negation in the history of O'dam, and likely Southern Uto-Aztecan, have not played roles in each other's development and evolution.

# **Abbreviations**

# **Acknowledgements**

This work was supported by funding from the following sources 1) The Calota Smith Fellowship and Joel Sherzer Fellowship to the first author and 2) UNAM-PAPIIT-DGAPA IA401619 to the second author. We want to thank the editors of this volume (Ljuba Veselinova and Arja Hamari) for their great comments and suggestions to improve this paper. Also, thank you to the anonymous reviewers for their extremely useful comments. We would also like to thank Inocencia Arellano, Martha Arellano, Wendy Gurrola, Elizabeth Soto and Humberto Bautista for their help and insights on the language.

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

# **Appendix: Uto-Aztecan family tree**

Uto-Aztecan family tree based on Haugen (forthcoming). Some subgroups are controversial, these are indicated with a (?).

14 Existential negation in O'dam

# **References**

Abbott, Barbara. 1997. Definiteness and existentials. *Language* 73(1). 103–108.

Michael Everdell & Gabriela García Salido

Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. *Indefinite pronouns*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

# **Part IV**

# **Theoretical approaches to cyclical processes**

# **Chapter 15**

# **The Negative Existential and other cycles: Jespersen, Givón, and the copula cycle**

# Elly van Gelderen

Arizona State University

Veselinova (2013) provides two sources for negative existential constructions: (a) the univerbation of a negative and a part of the existential construction, which needs not be verbal, and (b) the reanalysis of a lexical item with an appropriate, negative sense. I argue that this definition is both too narrow and too broad when examining the Negative Existential Cycle (NEC). Regarding (a), copulas and auxiliaries provide input to the NEC in addition to existentials, in e.g. Croft (1991), and regarding (b), verbs with a negative meaning are better seen as a separate development, as in Givón (1978). I will contend that copulas, auxiliaries, and existential verbs can all fuse with the negative and then disappear into the negative whereas negative verbs,such as *fail,* trade their semantic negative features into grammatical ones without fusion or loss. This paper will address three specific questions relevant to the NEC. The first is what are the source verbs in this cycle. A second question is whether or not the NEC is essentially a verbal cycle, in contrast to the nominal nature of the Jespersen Cycle (JC; Jespersen 1917). The third question involves the possible doubling of the negative, which is relevant to showing the NEC is different from the Jespersen Cycle. The role of verbal agreement and inflection sets apart the verbal cycles (NEC and the Givón Cycle) from the nominal one (JC) and the two verbal cycles are different in their renewal. The differences will be shown in their reanalyses in the last section.

# **1 Introduction**

The Negative Existential Cycle (NEC) was so named by Croft (1991) and was added to greatly by e.g. Veselinova (2013, 2016). The basic cycle is given in Fig-

Elly van Gelderen. 2022. The Negative Existential and other cycles: Jespersen, Givón, and the copula cycle. In Ljuba Veselinova & Arja Hamari (eds.), *The Negative Existential Cycle*, 589–610. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10. 5281/zenodo.7353629

### Elly van Gelderen

ure 1 and, by now, well-known: Type A involves standard negation and existential negation expressed by the same morpheme; Type B is (usually) where the negative has attached itself to the existential verb and is no longer the same as the standard negative; and Type C is where the Negative Existential of Type B is used for all negation, often with a null existential. Veselinova has argued for intermediate stages as well, which we'll see below. What is typical for the NEC

Figure 1: The NEC (Croft 1991)

is that the verb is renewed at the end of the cycle by a new existential or copula, in something that has been called the Copula Cycle (Katz 1996) where I take a copula in the broad sense as locative, equational, possessive, or existential. This copula can then again be the source to another NEC. Traditionally, two other negative cycles have been recognized, namely the Jespersen Cycle (JC) and the Givón Cycle. The Jespersen Cycle renews a negative with a minimizer or negative/indefinite quantifier while the Givón Cycle creates a new negative without co-occuring with another negative.

As the name NEC suggests, most scholars from Croft (1991) on have argued that the input verbs to the NEC are existential ones although Croft gives examples of other verbs. Veselinova, in various work, only includes existential verbs and negative verbs but not copulas and auxiliaries. She argues that existential constructions (negative ones included) are special. They have non-referential subjects, frequent non-canonical verb and subject marking, etc. Locatives, copulas, and possessives do not fall under her definition of existential (Veselinova 2013: 108–11), unless the particular verb is the same. Later in the paper, she defines NECs as originating from either (a) a univerbation of a negative and a part of the existential, which need not be verbal, or (b) the "reanalysis of a lexical item with an appropriate sense" (136). The (a) part is the traditional NEC while the (b) part makes it possible to extend the NEC to the JC where a negative indefinite can be reanalyzed as standard negation and to cases included in the Givón Cycle. So, Veselinova's formulation of the sources of negative existentials incorporates

### 15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

all negative cycles, NEC, JC, and the Givón Cycle but does not find auxiliaries and copulas as sources in her data. Veselinova (p.c.) herself doesn't see the JC as her focus but the quote in (b) makes it possible to do so.

In this paper, I will advocate for at least three negative cycles that interact with each other as well as with the Copula Cycle. In doing this, I address three questions surrounding this cycle: the sources of the verbs involved, the verbal nature of the cycle, and the issue of negative doubling. The methodology is not that of a typological article; my aim has been to take a broad look at the various negative cycles to discover what they have in common and how they differ.

The outline is as follows. In §2, I further discuss Veselinova's (2013) definition and look at a number of cases where a copula and auxiliary are also the source of what looks like a NEC. In §3, Givón's (1978) examples of inherently negative verbs are discussed. I think it is better for the latter to be seen as their own cycle, e.g. named Givón's Cycle. §3 also considers the verbal nature of the NEC and §4 whether or not doubling is ever uncontroversially present with the NEC. §5 provides the structural characteristics of the three negative cycles and §6 is a conclusion.

# **2 Auxiliary and copula sources**

In this section, I examine which categories are input to the NEC. For instance, can copula and auxiliary verbs also be included as source verbs, in addition to existential verbs? Existential constructions display separate syntactic properties, e.g. the agreement is shared between the expletive and post-verbal subject, i.e. plural in (1).

(1) There aren't any ghosts in the closet.

Croft (1991: 12), by mentioning Marathi *nahĩ* [NEG.be], for instance, keeps the door open for other verbs to be involved as well. In §2.1, I will use data from Urdu/Hindi where a similar negative is found as in Marathi to show that this indeed appears to involve a NEC. §2.2 and §2.3 show the same for English and Arabic. §2.4 provides data that are inconclusive about the origin of the negative existential.

### **2.1 Hindi/Urdu**

Kellogg (1938)sees the development of the negative as going from the single *na* in Sanskrit (inherited from Indo-European) to a stage where *na* and *nehĩ* alternate to one where *nehĩ* is the main negative. In Kellogg's account, *-hĩ* is a remnant

### Elly van Gelderen

of an auxiliary verb; simple *na* remains with non-indicatives and a prohibitive *mat* occurs with imperatives in the modern language. I have put the changes involving *na* and *nehĩ* in a table with the stages from Croft's Cycle. The last stage is one where a "double" auxiliary is appearing.

Table 1: The stages of the NEC from Sanskrit to Hindi/Urdu

One piece of synchronic evidence that *nehĩ* is formed from *na* and an earlier inflected form of the verb/auxiliary *hona* 'to be' is that copulas and auxiliaries, i.e. typical uses of *hona* 'to be', are not necessary with *nehĩ*, as (2) and (3) show and are uncommon.

(2) Hindi/Urdu

*mẽ* I *student* student *nehĩ* not (*hũ*) am 'I am not a student.' (data checked with Sakshi Jain)

	- I here work not do am

'I don't (generally) work here.' (data checked with Sakshi Jain)

Currently, the last stage of the cycle is reached and the copula and auxiliary are used again, as in (4).

(4) Hindi/Urdu *koi* Any *bhi* even *Pakistani* Pakistani *bharat* India *me* in *nehĩ* neg *rah* live *raha* progr *hai* is 'No Pakistani is living in India.' (Lampp 2006: 17, her transliteration)

This "doubling" of the auxiliary verb (in stage C~A) would be expected, although, cross-linguistically, this stage is very rare.

Auxiliary verbs typically add tense, mood, aspect, or voice and accompany a lexical verb. They may agree with the subject and this is one of the reasons auxiliaries are less likely to be reanalyzed as negatives. Because they are inflected

### 15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

in many languages, the forms will be many and that stops the reanalysis. So how was the reanalysis from stage A to B in Hindi/Urdu possible? Numerous scholars have argued there is a second source that may have helped the NEC along. Whitney (1889: 413), Turner (1966: 404), and Bashir (2006: 7), to name a few, have argued that *na* was strengthened with an emphatic *hĩ*, which is still around in the language. Since the paradigm of *hona* 'to be' shows many forms, *hũ*, *ho*, *hẽ* [1sg, 2sg, 3sg], etc, it may be that the presence of *hĩ* helped solidify the form *nehĩ*.

Different cycles compete and that is visible in a minimizer that is sporadically used as negative, e.g. the one identified by Gul (2009), namely *thoRi* 'little', as in (5). When *thoRi* is negative, emphatic particles like *si*, *hi*, and *tu* cannot follow it, as in (5b), according to Gul, and that is a way to distinguish the negative from its adverbial origin, possibly shedding doubt on the emphatic origin of –*hĩ* discussed above. This renewal by a minimizer is typical of the Jespersen Cycle.

### (5) Hindi/Urdu

The verb *hona* 'to be', according to Platts (1884), also means 'to exist, subsist, be born' and a variety of other meanings typical of existential verbs but in presentday Hindi/Urdu compounds like *mowjud hona* 'be present' or *rehna* 'to live' are used instead. Such renewal of verbs that participate in the NEC is expected.

In this section, I have shown that a copula and auxiliary can be the source but that verbal inflection might be hindering the reanalysis as negative. What probably made it possible to see *nehĩ* as a negative particle in Hindi/Urdu, also an inflected language, rather than as verb, is the independent existence of *hĩ* in the language. In the next section, I show how an inflected negative auxiliary can indeed lose the inflection.

### **2.2 English and Uralic**

Hindi/Urdu shows a case where auxiliary and copula forms of *hona* 'to be' combine with the negative in a typical NEC. As mentioned, this is often difficult in

### Elly van Gelderen

languages where verbs are inflected because one of the many forms of 'to be' will have to be chosen to fuse with the negative. In this section, I provide two instances where it did.

There are stages in the history of English and present-day varieties where the inflected forms *am not*, *are not*, *is not*, etc. are reduced to *ain't* which is then used as multipurpose negative copula and auxiliary, as in (6), for all persons.

(6) a. copula

I **ain't** afeard o' nyther on you [COHA fiction 1828]

This *ain't* could in principle be reanalyzed as the negative but there is no evidence in British English that *ain't* is spreading as a standard negative, e.g. used with an inflected, finite verb, as in (7). This sentence probably has a meaning of 'I didn't see/haven't seen'.

(7) I **ain't** see any because I were with Jacqueline weren't I? [BNC spoken]

Of the 1270 instances of *ain't* followed by a verb in the British National Corpus, no verbs are finite, but of the 4405 instances in COCA, there are fifty or so where *ain't* could be a negative particle preceding the finite verb, namely those in (8).

	- b. Nah, you **ain't want** trying to hit the coach in the face. [COCA fiction]
	- c. It **ain't have** any beer? [COCA fiction]

So, English copulas and auxiliaries could participate in a NEC when their inflection is neutralized as with *ain't*. For external reasons, *ain't* is stigmatized. The example from Uralic shows another case of an inflected auxiliary losing the markings of tense and agreement.

The origin of the negative auxiliary in Uralic "may well be related to the verb 'is' (*i-*)" (Simoncsics 1998: 594) and more precisely to a negative copula (Honti 1997: 173). That would mean the NEC occurred in earlier Uralic. We cannot be completely sure about this scenario but the present-day languages in the family show how the NEC proceeds: the negative auxiliary gradually loses inflection to end up a uninflected particle.

An example of an inflected negative auxiliary in the Uralic family appears in (9a). Other varieties of Saami have reduced inflection, as in (9b) and (9c), with the main verb picking up the tense.

15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

(9) a. Southern Saami *Idtj-im* neg.pst-1sg (*manne*) (1sg) *daejrie-h* know-conneg 'I didn't know.' (Bergsland 1994: 44) b. Skolt Saami (*mon*) (I) *jiõm* 1sg.neg *poor* eat.prs 'I don't eat.' (Miestamo & Koponen 2015: 355–6) c. Skolt Saami *jiõm* 1sg.neg *poor-râm* eat-pst 'I didn't eat.' (Miestamo & Koponen 2015: 355–6)

In Estonian and non-standard Finnish, the auxiliary has been reduced to a noninflected particle *ei* for all negation, as in (10), and *ei* can be deleted if a negative adverb is present (see Honti 1997: 164).

(10) Estonian *Maia* Maia *ei* neg *laula* sing.conneg 'Maia doesn't sing.' (Veselinova 2016: 151, data from Miina Norvik)

The variety among the languages of the Uralic family shows an auxiliary as source for a negative particle.

This section has shown that inflection on a copula or auxiliary need not hinder reanalysis because it can get lost. I'll now turn to another example of a copula participating in the NEC.

### **2.3 Varieties of Arabic**

So far, we looked at auxiliaries and copulas that are reanalyzed as negatives. Examples of verbs participating in the NEC that are only copulas occur as well. This should be frequent as long as the copula is not (very) inflected and that is true. One well-known example is from Arabic (Eid 1983, Katz 1996, Edwards 2006, Alsaeedi 2015). The sentences in (11) are from Egyptian Arabic but are grammatical in Modern Standard Arabic as well. The new copula agrees in number and gender because it was originally a demonstrative with number and gender features.

Elly van Gelderen

(11) Egyptian Arabic

a. *'ana* I *huwwa* he *l-mas'u:l* the-responsible 'I am the responsible.' (Edwards 2006: 51)

b. *il-mushkila* the-problem.f.sg *hiyya* she *T-Talaba* the-students 'The problem is the students.' (Edwards 2006: 52)

The erstwhile pronoun can be negated in the present tense in the same way as a verb, as in (12). Once the number and gender are lost on the demonstrative, this form can turn into a negative particle.

(12) Egyptian Arabic *faTma* Fatima *ma-hiyya:-sh* neg-be.3sg.f-neg *il-mas'u:la* the-responsible 'Fatima is not the one responsible.' (Edwards 2006: 53)

Sentences such as (12) may therefore participate in a NEC which occurs in a number of varieties of Arabic. In (13), there is a negative copula *miš* that derives from a form like (12), in particular from *ma-hu-šay* [neg-cop-neg], a copula inside a negative brace. The copula itself originates from a (minimally inflected) demonstrative *hu*. This negative copula *miš*, no longer inflected, is now being generalized for emphasis, as in (14).

(13) Cairo Arabic *Mohammed* Mohammed *miš* neg *hina* here 'M. isn't here.' Diem 2014: 2

(14) Cairo Arabic *hiyya* she *miš* neg *iggawwizzit?* married 'Hasn't she married?' (Woidich 2006: 341)

Although existential verbs are the source of many auxiliaries and general copulas, as in Urdu/Hindi, the latter participate in the NEC by themselves. In languages where the copula develops from a demonstrative, as in Arabic, the copula also participates in the NEC. I'll end with an example of a copula/auxiliary participating in the NEC, where the reconstruction is not completely clear.

15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

### **2.4 Athabascan**

Athabascan is a family of 42 languages (according to Ethnologue1 ) that has a negative construction derived from a negative copula/auxiliary. For instance, Kari (1990) suggests that the negative *'ele'* in Ahtna (15) is related to the verb *lae* 'to be', and one could argue that the suffix *–leh* is also related to that verb. Kwadacha (16), Dëne Sųłiné (17), and Tlingit (18) have the same forms but no affix, and in Carrier (19), it is a prefix. It is thus possible that the negative marker arose from a negative existential.

*lh-e'-z-us-'al* neg-om-neg-1sg-eat

'I am not eating (an unspecified object).' (Poser 2009: 26)

Leer reconstructs an alternative scenario with a Proto-Athabascan \*-*he* suffix, which is "originally an enclitic" (2000: 102), and a Proto-Atabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit particle \*(*ʔi*)*łeʔ* 'it is not' (Leer 2000: 123). He writes that it "seems probable that the Tlingit negative particle *ł* is by origin a contraction of the prohibitive interjectional particle (*ʔi*)*łí* 'don't' which is a phonologically perfect cognate with Pre-PA [Pre-Proto Athabascan] \*(ʔi)łeʔ" (Leer 2000: 123–4). Willem de Reuse (p.c.) also

1https://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/eyak-athabaskan.

### Elly van Gelderen

suggests a link of the sentence-final prohibitive particles to this root. In Western Apache, for instance, there is *hela'* and in Navajo *lágo*, both meaning 'don't'.

One question is the following. Is \**(ʔi)łeʔ* originally a third person negative of the verb 'to be' that was reanalyzed as a negative particle during Proto-Athabascan-Eyak-Tlingit or is it still an auxiliary? Rice (1989: 1108, n. 1) suggests that the negative *yíle* in Slave, e.g. in Bearlake (20), "may historically be an auxiliary verb in the perfective aspect".

(20) Bearlake *bebí* baby *nedá* heavy *yíle* neg 'The baby is light.' (Rice 1989: 1101)

The account for the doubling in (15) depends on the analysis of the (*'e*)*le*(*h*): negative existential, auxiliary, or particle. If it is an auxiliary or existential, the final *-leh* would be a renewed existential that became part of the negative; if a particle, doubling is fine. I think the data are not clear enough to decide between a prohibitive or negative copula/auxiliary earlier stage.

§2 has provided examples of auxiliaries and copulas that, like existentials, are sources for negatives.

# **3 Negative verbs and adverbs as source for the NEC?**

Connected to the question about the source of the negative existential is the issue if semantically appropriate lexical items should be seen as part of the NEC. This would include negative verbs, such as *fail*, *lack*, and adjectives, like *empty*, as in the Givon Cycle, and negative adverbs, as in Jespersen's Cycle. Veselinova (2013: 136–7) sees these as part of the NEC. In this section, I first examine negative verbs and then non-verbal sources.

### **3.1 Negative verbs**

Givón (1978: 89) writes "[n]egative markers in language most often arise, diachronically, from erstwhile negative main verbs, most commonly 'refuse', 'deny', 'reject', 'avoid', 'fail', or 'lack'". In earlier work (Givón 1973: 917), he provides example verbs: English *fail*, Kihung'an *–khona* 'refuse', and Bemba –*bula* 'lack, miss', but no actual trajectories. Veselinova (2013) quotes Kannada *illa* as derived from a Dravidian root 'to die'.

The Chinese negative *mei* is perhaps the most well-known example of a verb meaning 'to sink, die', as in (21), being reanalyzed as negative in (22) with an

### 15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

optional *you* renewal (Croft 1991: 11, Shi & Li 2004, Yang 2012), also Nina Yunsun Lin (p.c.).

(21) Old Chinese *Yao* Yao *Shun* Shun *ji* since *mo* died *…* 'Since Yao and Shun died, …' (Mengzi, Tengwengong B, Nina Yunsun Lin (p.c.))

(22) Modern Chinese *wo* I *mei* not (*you*) ex *shu* book 'I don't have a book.'

Lam Chit Yu (2017) shows that, in Hong Kong Cantonese, the negative *mei* and existential/possessive *you* merge phonetically as *mou*, and a new copula could develop.

The changes in the verb *mei* present a classification challenge in that the verb first reanalyzes as a negative possessive in (23) and aspectual auxiliary in (24) in Early Mandarin (12th to 14th centuries CE) and then as an (aspectually restricted) negative in Modern Chinese.

(23) Early Mandarin

*yu* wish *de* prt *wang* died *ren* person *mei* textscneg.ex *kunan,* suffering *…* 'If you wish that the deceased one has no suffering, …' (*Dunhuang Bianwen*, Nina Yunsun Lin (p.c.)

(24) Early Mandarin

*zheyiri* for.a.while *mei* neg.asp *shang-guo* serve-prt *zhong* cup *jiu* wine 'Wine has not been served for a while.' (*Jin ping mei*, Shi 2002: 200)

With the verb *mei* 'to die', the reanalysis of the negative verb in (21) is to a negative existential in (23) and then to a negative in (22) with the existential being renewed by *you*. The first step is an instance of the Givón Cycle and the second of the NEC.

Clear cases where a negative verb would be reanalyzed as a negative might be the verb *fail* in English, as in (25). Here, 'failed to' can be replaced by 'didn't' without loss of meaning.

### Elly van Gelderen

(25) [we] became so engrossed in our game of tetherball that we **failed to hear** the teacher calling us to return to the classroom. [COCA magazine]

Because the English negative -*n't* is in the final stages of the Jespersen Cycle (i.e. it is often inaudible and speakers have to repeat it), we expect such a renewal because the alternative, renewal of the negative by a negative adverb, as in (26), is objected to so much by prescriptivists.

(26) He **don't** care about **nothing** but his car, rims, money. [COCA spoken]

However, the use of (25) is not frequent and many of the *failed to* instances still have the meaning of 'not be successful'. Table 2 provides some data on *fail* from American English since 1990. This figure shows little change in 25 years and that the spoken register lags behind, a sign that this change is not really in progress.

Table 2: *Failed to* and a verb in COCA.

As several people have mentioned to me, this verb is so negative (in American culture) that it probably won't catch on. Its use in the British National Corpus (e.g. in spoken) is even lower though not in the written registers. Other negative verbs, e.g. *lack*, don't show this either, however.

In this subsection, negative verbs have been shown to be the source for the NEC.

### **3.2 Non-verbal nature**

Some scholars have tried to unify the NEC and the JC, e.g. van der Auwera et al. (2022 [this volume]). In addition, Veselinova's definition of the NEC includes

### 15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

reanalyzing non-verbal material from existential constructions. The relevant example that Veselinova (2013: 136) mentions is from Ket. In this section, I argue against including these into the NEC. I'll first discuss the adverb/noun sources followed by the existential pro-form.

The JC has traditionally been seen as a nominal cycle because its source is a negative noun, such as *nan wuht* 'no thing' in (27), or a minimizer, such as French *pas* 'step'. These nouns can be reanalyzed as adverbs in (28).

(27) Old English

*forþæmþe* because *hie* they *hiora* their *nan wuht* no thing *ongietan* understand *ne* not *meahton* could 'because they couldn't understand anything' (Alfred, *Pastoral Care* 4.12 Cotton, van Gelderen 2004: 81)

(28) Old English

*Næron* not-were *3e* you *noht* not *æmetti3e,* unoccupied *ðeah* though *ge* you *wel* well *ne* not *dyden* did 'You were not unoccupied, though you did not do well.' (OED, Alfred, *Pastoral Care* 207.20 Cotton, van Gelderen 2004: 82)

The JC typically renews the negative element *ne* by a new noun *nawhiht* whereas the NEC replaces the verb that has become part of the negative.

The example that has been used to show that non-verbal material from existential constructions is reanalyzed is a solitary one from Ket. In Ket, *bən's'aŋ* 'there are no' derives from the negative *bənj* and *us'aŋ* 'there', according to Veselinova (2015: 136, but without a reference) and this would use non-verbal parts of the construction. The Ket dictionary (Kotorova & Nefedov 2015) confirms *bən* as negative (2015: 135), *bənsaŋ* 'there are no' (2015: 136), and *usaŋ/usam* as 'there are' (2015: 415). The existential particles *bənsaŋ* and *usaŋ/usam* do not agree with the subject or mark tense and are also used to mark locative or possessives, as shown in (29).

(29) Ket

*ɔ́pdaŋ* father *bɔ́gdɔm* rifle *bʌ́nsaŋ* not.exist

'Father has no rifle.' (Kotorova & Nefedov 2015: 65, but gloss adjusted)

Using the dictionary information, it is possible to regard *usaŋ/usam* 'there are' in Ket as a copula (possibly originating from a demonstrative like Arabic) and then *bənsaŋ* is the combination of a negative and a copula, quite typical for the NEC.

### Elly van Gelderen

Concluding, I have shown an interaction between the Givon Cycle and the NEC in §3.1 and have shown in §3.2 that the instance where a non-verbal part of the existential seems to participate in the NEC is just a negative form of the copula. The use of non-verbal material in the NEC is very rare. For instance, in their compilation of typical grammaticalizations, Heine & Kuteva (2002: 199–206) mention a development where a locative develops into an existential (e.g. Sranan *de* 'to be' from the locative *there*) but this is part of the copula cycle (van Gelderen 2015). This locative, having become a copula, can of course be input to a NEC, just like demonstratives that have been reanalyzed as copulas.

# **4 Doubling**

A last question concerns another difference between the JC and the NEC, namely that doubling is typical for JC but not for the NEC. This follows from the ways the cycles procede: the NEC has a negative with an existential (or copula or auxiliary) serve as a sentential negative and there is therefore no doubling of the negative but rather of the copula. In contrast, the JC is about pragmatic strengthening by a second negative and therefore doubling is typical. In this section, I discuss two possible counterexamples to the claim that doubling the negative is not typical of the NEC.

Croft (1991: 10) mentions the case of Wintu where the negative existential *ˁelew* is reinforcing the regular negative *-mina* in (30).

(30) Wintu

*ˁelew-be:sken* neg.ex-you.ipfv *hara:-wer-mina* go-fut-neg 'You were not supposed to go.' (Pitkin 1984: 198)

The morpheme -*mina* derives most likely from the verb root *min* 'to not exist' (Schlichter 1981: 361, Pitkin 1984: 121) and is also related to *minel* 'be dead; die' (Schlichter 1981: 146). Schlichter (1981: 311) refers to *ˁelew* as a negative auxiliary preverb so this language renews its negative auxiliaries with negative verbs (the Givón Cycle).

It is not clear from Croft, Schlichter, or Pitkin what the process was for adding *ˁelew* in (30). The negative auxiliary *ˁelew* is reconstructed from a demonstrative \*ˁE and stative \*l or future \*le and a suffix \*w (Pitkin 1984: 164). The examples of a solitary *ˁelew* given by Pitkin (1984: 198) are optative or imperative prefixes, as in (31), or on its own, as in (32).

15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

(31) Wintu *ˁelew-war* neg.ex-go 'don't venture' (Pitkin 1984: 198)

(32) *sedet* coyote *ˁelew* not *k̓iyemti·m* old.man.speak 'Coyote never speaks wisely.' (Pitkin 1984: 269)

This means that *ˁelew* can be analyzed in Wintu as a copula in origin that became used with other negatives. There is no evidence that there was ever a stage with two negative existentials in this language but further work is needed.

Butters (2022) mentions some NEC cases from Chadic that suggest doubling of the negative, based in part on Shay (2008) who, in her grammar of South Giziga, mentions an existential consisting of two negatives, namely (33). The verb *(á)n* only occurs in negative clauses and is therefore glossed as 'be.neg'.

(33) South Giziga *kà* 2 *n* be.neg *tá* neg *sà* fut *jí* catch *mèvèl* liver 'You will not be angry.' (Shay 2008, chapter 13)

Shay mentions that a "likely source for the negative existential predicate is a verb *n*V meaning 'be" supported by Lukas' (1970: 151) report of a North Giziga -*naŋ* 'to be'. I therefore think this is not a case of doubling but just of an existential being used with a negative, i.e. stage B.

# **5 Structural characteristics of the NEC, JC, and the Givón Cycle**

In this paper, I have argued that there are three negative cycles, NEC, JC, and the Givón Cycle, with the NEC interacting with Givón's and the Copula Cycles (which renew the existential lost in the NEC). In this section, I will provide formal descriptions of each of these cycles showing that they differ.

For ease of exposition, I provide English morphemes for the NEC. A possible NEC may go from having the same negative with a full verb and an existential in (34a) to (34b) where the negative and existential are fused because the existential moves to the Neg head on its way to T. Finally, in (34c), the reanalyzed negative serves both existential and standard negatives and an optional new copula may appear.

Elly van Gelderen

Because the NEC can have a copula as its source, the Pred(icate) P(hrase) is used in (34); the ASP(ect) P(hrase) is needed for stages of the NEC that are aspectually restricted, as in Chinese.

The trigger for this cycle is that copula verbs can be zero and the child reanalyzes the copula as part of the negative. For instance, Becker (2000) shows that young children omit the copula especially when the predicate expresses a temporary property (with an aspectual representation).

Turning to the JC, these changes don't single out a special kind of verb; this cycle typically takes a negative or indefinite noun to renew a negative head. Meillet (1912: 139) writes that what provokes the start of the (negative) cycle is the need to speak forcefully ("le besoin de parler avec force"). Kiparsky & Condoravdi (2006), in examining Jespersen's Cycle in Greek, find no evidence for phonetic weakening and similarly suggest pragmatic and semantic reasons. A simple negative cannot be emphatic; in order for a negative to be emphatic, it needs to be reinforced, e.g. by a minimizer. Adapting ideas from Dahl (2001), they argue that, when emphatic negatives are overused, their semantic impact weakens and they become the regular negative and a new emphatic will appear. I have provided

### 15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

these changes in (35). In (35a), there is one negative, represented by Old English *ne*; in (35b), there is a second negative which, because it is agreeing with the negative features in the NegP, moves to the Spec of NegP and then the original negative is reinterpreted as head.

Finally, the negative features of the DP are reanalyzed as the grammatical negative features and housed in the specifier of the NegP and we are back to (35a).

The Givón Cycle involves the reanalysis of a verb into an aspect marker into a negative. This could be represented as a change from (36a) to (36b), with Chinese as the example language.

### Elly van Gelderen

The reason English *failed to* in (36b) shows no inclination to take over as [ineg] is related to English verbs having other features, e.g. tense and agreement and not being reanalyzable as a simple negative. The same hold for the NEC because a negative and a verb are hard to reanalyze as verb if there are too many agreement and other features involved. The JC doesn't encounter these obstacles.

# **6 Conclusions**

In this paper, I argue in favor of seeing the NEC as a verbal cycle that combines a 'be'-like verb with a negative and then renews the existential/copular verb. The JC is a non-verbal cycle, with renewals originating in nouns and adverbs. Both the NEC and the Givón Cycle rely on verbs for their renewal and work best when these verbs don't have too many other features; JC is not affected by these verbal features.

# **Acknowledgements**

Some ideas in this paper are based on chapters 4 and 8 in van Gelderen (2011). I thank Mekhlid Alsaeedi, Cherry Lam, and Ljuba Veselinova for comments.

# **List of languages**

15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

# **Abbreviations**

# **Sources**

British National Corpus (BNC) Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) Corpus of Historical American English (COHA)

# **References**

Bergsland, Knut. 1994. *Sydsamisk grammatik*. Karasjok: Davvi Girji.

Jespersen, Otto. 1917. *Negation in English and other languages*. København: Hovedkommisionnaer A. F. Høst & Søn Hof-boghandel. Bianco Lunos Bogtrykkeri.

Kari, James. 1990. *Ahtna dictionary*. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center.

### 15 The Negative Existential and other Cycles

# **Chapter 16**

# **Intertwining the negative cycles**

### Johan van der Auweraa , Olga Krasnoukhovaa & Frens Vossena

aUniversity of Antwerp

In the synchronic and diachronic typology of negation three so-called "cycles" have been prominent: the Jespersen Cycle, the Negative Existential Cycle and the Quantifier Cycle. This paper refines these notions, sketches what is cyclical about them and shows how they relate to one another. As the Jespersen Cycle, we argue that it crucially involves a negator that is either contaminated by another item or fuses with it. The Negative Existential Cycles comes in three subtypes, two of which can be fit into a more general Jespersen Cycle frame. As the Quantifier Cycle, we argue that the term should be given a new definition and we then show how it is similar to a Jespersen Cycle and feeds into it.

# **1 A tale of three cycles**

Both the synchronic and the diachronic typology of standard negation, that is, the negation of a main clause affirmative verbal predicate, have been described and explained in terms of at least two "cycles", i.e., hypotheses about the nature and the development of negative markers. The "cycle" hypothesis that has been most prominent is, without doubt, the "Jespersen Cycle". This hypothesis is associated with the Danish Anglicist and general linguist Otto Jespersen, who drew attention to a "curious fluctuation" (Jespersen 1917: 4) in the renewal of negative markers, with one negative marker first weakening, then being strengthened, "generally" by another word, not itself negative, but which in time becomes a negator too and suppresses the original negator. The process is schematized in (1).

Johan van der Auwera, Olga Krasnoukhova & Frens Vossen. 2022. Intertwining the negative cycles. In Ljuba Veselinova & Arja Hamari (eds.), *The Negative Existential Cycle*, 611–650. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10. 5281/zenodo.7353631

(1) The "Jespersen Cycle"

negation is expressed by one negator → this one negator is strengthened by another word → the "other word" is interpreted as part of the now bipartite negator → negation is expressed by one negator again, but it is the word that was previously added to the old negator

This path is indeed a cycle, for the new negator can then also undergo this process. The term "Jespersen Cycle" was introduced by Dahl (1979), in the variant "Jespersen's Cycle", with a possessive *'s*. Other terms are "negation cycle" (e.g. Schwegler 1983) or "negative cycle" (e.g. van Gelderen 2011, Mithun 2016). The phenomenon was extensively studied even before 1917: Meillet (1912) used it to illustrate grammaticalization in the very paper in which he introduced the term "grammaticalization". The textbook illustration features French. Specifically, earlier French negated a finite verb with a preverbal *ne*, whereas modern French has this *ne* in the company of a postverbal *pas*, the original and still surviving lexical meaning of which is 'step'. With this original meaning the reference was to something small, which lent itself into an emphatic negative polarity use. In the context of negation *pas* turned negative polarity into a negation force and lost the emphatic sense. Now colloquial French may negate with only *pas*. (2) is a four stage representation of what happened in French.

(2) The "Jespersen Cycle" in French

```
ne 'not'
→
ne … pas 'not even a step'
→
ne … pas 'not'
→
pas 'not'
```
The scheme in (2) is, of course, a language-specific illustration. In French, both negators are syntactic elements; the first one is preverbal, and the second one is postverbal (relative to the finite verb) and it results from an emphatic minimizing use of the word *pas*. These properties are not essential, i.e., the negators may be affixes, the order with respect to the verb may be different and the origin

16 Intertwining the negative cycles

of the new negator need not be a word that means 'step' or even a minimizer (the English ancestor to 'not' and counterpart to *pas* was a pronoun meaning 'nothing'). Furthermore, the representations in (1) and (2) are too simple, even for French. Thus (1) and (2) sketch the process in terms of four stages. However, the 'not at all' stage could be made explicit and one can add two intermediate stages: a stage in which *pas* is not obligatory yet and another stage in which *ne* is no longer necessary.

The second cycle is the "Negative Existential Cycle", so named by the first linguist to focus on it, viz. Croft (1991: 6), and later also called "Croft's Cycle" (e.g. Kahrel 1996: 73). The idea is that a language may develop a special negator for existential clauses like (3).

(3) *There are black swans.*

The special existential negator may extend its use to standard negation and ultimately replace the original standard negator. The cycle is summarized in (4).

(4) The "Negative Existential Cycle"

one negator is used for both standard and existential negation

→

one negator is used for standard negation and another one for existential negation

→

one negator is used for both standard and existential negation, but it is the one that was previously only used for existential negation and so it is a "new" one

There is no textbook illustration and we are not aware of a language in which the full cycle is attested (see also Veselinova 2014). The scheme in (5) takes us to Tuvaluan (Polynesian), based on Veselinova (2014: 1345–1346); the third stage is hypothetical.

(5) The "Negative Existential Cycle" in Tuvaluan [tvl]

*see* is used both for standard and existential negation

→

*see* is used for standard negation and *seeai* (a fusion of *see* and an existence marker) for existential negation

→

*seeai* is also used for standard negation

Similar to (1), the representation in (4) is a simplification, not least because one can add intermediate stages. The stage between the first and second stage, for example, is the constellation in which existential negation is not the exclusive terrain of the special negative existential negator, because it allows constructions with the standard negator too.

In both cycles the last stage takes us back to the beginning.1 We are dealing here with one notion of cyclicity. There is a second notion, a wider one, in which it is sufficient that when the language has reached a final stage, it can start a new cycle, but not necessarily with the negator of the last cycle. This is the perspective taken by van Gelderen (2011). It is also the perspective under which yet a third cycle comes up. This is the "Quantifier Cycle" (e.g. Willis et al. 2013: 36), first described as the "Jespersen argument Cycle" by Ladusaw (1993: 438) and subsumed under the Jespersen Cycle by Larrivée (2011). The phenomenon concerns the development of negative indefinites out of constructions with a negator and a non-negative word, via stages in which the latter becomes negatively polar and then negative.

(6) The "Quantifier Cycle"

a clausal negator combines with a non-negative word

→

the non-negative word which the clausal negator combines with becomes a negatively polar indefinite

→

the negatively polar indefinite that the clausal negator combines with becomes a negative indefinite

→

the negative indefinite occurs without the clausal negator

A textbook illustration takes us to French again. French *personne* 'nobody' ultimately derives from a word meaning 'person', which got restricted to negatively polar contexts. In negative contexts it first needs the support of the clausal negator and may change into a true negative indefinite – a pattern that has come to be known as "negative concord".2 In colloquial French, *personne* is negative and can occur without *ne*. A four stage representation is given in (7).

1The new first stage is not exactly the same as the old one, though. For French the first single negator stage has *ne* but the next single negator stage starts with *pas*. From this point of view, the Gabelentz term "spiral" (1891: 251), used by Meillet (1912: 394), is a better term.

2The term became standard since Giannakidou (1998), although we have to go back to Jespersen once more for an *avant la lettre* occurrence, not this time to Jespersen (1917), but to Jespersen (1922: 352).

16 Intertwining the negative cycles

(7) The "Quantifier Cycle" in French

Like the earlier sketches of cycles, the sketch in (7) is language-specific and too simple. As to the language-specificness, note that the end stage has a pronoun that is semantically, but not morphologically, negative. This is not necessary. The English word *nobody* underwent a variant of the "Quantifier Cycle" too but *nobody* is morphologically negative.3 Like the Jespersen Cycle, the "Quantifier Cycle" has led to an abundance of research. Since the "Quantifier Cycle" does not itself create standard negators, we will not focus on it. Importantly, the process shown in (7) is not a cycle in the sense that the fourth stage takes us back to beginning. But negative indefinites do show a real cycle, although in the case of *personne*, we have to look at a wider trajectory, starting from Latin *nemo* 'nobody' (cp. Gianollo 2018a: 208).

(8) A "Quantifier Cycle" in Latin and French

Here the first and the third stages have a negative pronoun. Curiously, the term "Quantifier Cycle" is not, as far as we know, used for this wider trajectory. Yet something like (8), we propose, shows a better use of this term.

In this paper we aim to improve our understanding of the three cycles insofar as they tell us something about the development of standard negation. In §2 we focus on the Jespersen Cycle, and in §3 on the Negative Existential Cycle. In §4

3The notion of morphological negativity is tricky, cp. Haspelmath (1997: 130–133) on "dunno" indefinites, i.e., indefinites that have a negative component but are not semantically negative in the way *nobody* is.

we aim to come to a generalized model of a Jespersen Cycle. Subsections §4.1 and §4.2 discuss a few cases which illustrate the interaction between the two cycles. §4.3 presents a Positive Existential Cycle, which is another illustration of the interaction of the cycles, and §4.4 brings all arguments together in a model of a generalized Jespersen Cycle. Section §5 treats the relation between this cycle and the "Quantifier Cycle", both the classical version in (6) and (7) and its alternative shown in (8). Our conclusions are presented in §6.

# **2 Refining the notion of the Jespersen Cycle**

In this section we show that analyses of the Jespersen Cycle encounter a terminological dilemma due to two definitions, and we suggest a solution. For most linguists, including ourselves, the most crucial stage in the simplified model of the Jespersen Cycle has been the third one. In other words, it is the switch from single to double negation that is crucial. There are two important implications.

First, a final stage with a return to a single negator is not crucial. Instead of this return to a single negator the language may get "stuck" in the doubling phase and never realize the potential of further development. It may also enter a fourth stage with three negators. This is illustrated in (9).

(9) Mid 20th c. Brabantic Belgian Dutch [no ISO code] (Indo-European; Pauwels 1958: 454) *Pas* fit *op* on *da* that *ge* you *nie* neg *en* neg *valt* fall *nie!* neg 'Take care that you don't fall!'

Cross-linguistically the tripling of negation is rare. In Vossen (2016: 344) tripling only shows up in 19 out of 1715 languages investigated, as against 383 languages with doubling and 418 languages with a postverbal negator that could be the result of a classic left to right Jespersen Cycle. However, we don't know how many of these postverbal negator languages really went through a Jespersen Cycle, nor do we know that these cycles took the classical left to right direction. In any case, in this paper we do not pursue tripling (see Devos & van der Auwera 2013) nor the even rarer quadrupling (only 3 languages in Vossen 2016: 343) or the very special quintupling (no languages in Vossen 2016, and only one in van der Auwera & Vossen 2017: 42).

Second, it is not sufficient for an element to join the first negator to fit into the second stage. This second element has to become a negator too. In Latin the negator *non* is a fusion of the negator *ne* with *oenum* 'one' and the latter

### 16 Intertwining the negative cycles

does not itself become a negator – this only happens to the univerbation. Thus Jespersen (1917: 14–15) assumes that *ne* was replaced by *non* without a doubling stage. Obviously, there was an intermediate stage with two elements but the second one does not itself become negative (10).

(10) A cycle in Latin [lat]

*ne* → *ne oenum* → *non*

Jespersen (1917) sets this trajectory apart from the "curious fluctuation" named after him later.

Sometimes it seems as if the essential thing were only to increase the phonetic bulk of the adverb by the addition of no particular meaning, as when in Latin *non* was preferred to *ne*, *non* being according to the explanation generally accepted compounded of *ne* and *oenum* (= *unum*) 'one' (neutr.) (Jespersen 1917: 14–15).

Of course, it is not because Jespersen (1917) didn't see (10) as a manifestation of a Jespersen Cycle, that we, a century later, are forced to do this too. There are many other things that Jespersen didn't see and that we now recognize as a type of Jespersen Cycle. Unknown to Jespersen (1917) is doubling with a second element originating from a focus particle 'also, even', as with Amharic –*mm*; it is now given a Jespersen Cycle treatment by Sjörs (2015: 305–306, 349–350); Sjörs (2018: 341–343, 388–389) (cp. also Moyse-Faurie & Ozanne-Rivierre 1999: 69 on the Loyalty Islands languages Drehu and Nengone).

(11) Amharic [amh] (Afro-Asiatic; Fridman, p.c.) *zare* today *ḳurs* breakfast *al-bälla-mm* neg-eat.pst.3m.sg-neg 'He didn't eat breakfast today.'

Jespersen was also not aware of the fact that negator status could accrue to a subordinator – as argued for the Arizona Tewa former subordinator *dí* by Kroskrity (1984) and explicitly integrated into the Jespersen Cycle by van der Auwera (2010: 83).

	- a. *he'i* that *sen* man *na-mεn-dí* 3.stat-go-sub *'o-yohk'ó* 1.stat-be.asleep 'When that man went, I was asleep.'

> b. *sen* man *kʷiyó* woman *we-mán-mun-dí* neg-3>3.act-see-neg 'The man did not see the woman.'

Negator status can also befall on the bareness of the lexical verb that goes with a Finnish negative, the so-called "connegative" form, which in dialectal Finnish (Miestamo 2005: 238) – and dialectal Estonian (Tamm 2015: 425–426) – can carry negation all by itself (the fourth stage of a Jespersen Cycle).4 This is obviously quite different from the classical French type.5

Jespersen did not include in his fluctuation hypothesis the repetition of a clausal negator either, though he was aware of it (Jespersen 1917: 72–73). One of his examples is Swedish (13), where the doubling is emphatic.

(13) Swedish [swe] (Indo-European; Jespersen 1917: 72) *Inte* neg *märkte* noticed *han* he *mig* me *inte.* neg 'He didn't notice me.'

Jespersen (1917: 72) called this "resumptive negation". However, in the 35 years since Dahl (1979) it has become accepted practice to consider the copying of an identical negator to be a part of a Jespersen Cycle too – and we follow that practice. Somewhat related to this resumptive use – and even called that by Sjörs (2015: 359, 2018: 399) for South Arabian languages – is the integration of a "prosentence", i.e., a construction that corresponds to *No!*. 6 This type was not included in Jespersen's own account either, but it is now. Example (14) from the

4The Uralicist's term "connegative" may be taken to say that this form of the verb is "not negative in itself" (Miestamo 2005: 82, Wagner-Nagy 2011: 56). It is indeed not morphologically negative, but neither is the French word *pas*, but like French *pas* it has become strongly associated with negation. The association is not complete though, neither in French nor in Finnish: there is still a French word *pas* meaning 'step' and the connegative form is often the same as the second singular imperative. Uralicists have not, to our knowledge, considered a connegative construction to illustrate Jespersenian doubling. The fact that in Finnish and Estonian dialects the connegative can mark negation by itself makes clear that a description in terms of a Jespersen Cycle is appropriate.

5Note that "the French type" is not only found in French. We find it in Italian dialects and a special case – with a so-called "partitive" element or an element meaning 'first' – is found in Vanuatu (Vossen & van der Auwera 2014: 72–74).

6Pro-sentences do not only serve as holistic denials. As Veselinova (2013: 111) shows, *not* in *Are you coming or not* is also a pro-sentence, i.e., a "sentence[s] with the same propositional content as the utterance of the preceding context" (Bernini & Ramat 1996: 89). However, for our purposes – and for those of Veselinova, as well as the authors in Hovdhaugen & Mosel (eds.) (1999), for who pro-sentences are important (see §4.2), only the denial uses matter. Schwegler (1988: 30) calls the pro-sentence use an "absolute negator" use.

16 Intertwining the negative cycles

Bantu language Lifunga shows both a sentence-external pro-sentential and a clause-internal use of a negator.

(14) Lifunga [bmg] (Atlantic-Congo; Djamba 1996: 143, Devos & van der Auwera 2013: 233) *tɛ* no *na-í-mo-wɛn-ɛ* 1sg-neg-1-see-prs *tɛ* neg 'No, I will not see him.'

Given that the term "Jespersen Cycle" now covers quite a few phenomena that Jespersen (1917) did not associate with a French type cycle that would later carry his name, we should return to Latin. Should one take the non-doubling *ne oenum* trajectory to be part of a Jespersen Cycle too? Schwegler (1983, 1988) would, even though his term was not "Jespersen Cycle" but "negation cycle" (cp. also Gianollo 2018a: 180). It is interesting to bring in Greek. The fate of Classical Greek is similar to that of Latin. The modern Greek standard negator is *den* and it derives from *ouden*, composed of the Classical Greek standard negator *ou* followed by a particle *de* 'even' and the numeral *hen* 'one'. The change from *ouden* to *den* is apparently a phonetic one (Willmott 2013: 303) – just like the development of Latin *non* to French *ne*. It is the change from *ou* to *ouden* that is relevant, for it is taken to have happened without doubling.

(15) A cycle in Classical Greek [grc]

Just like for Latin, the question is whether one should call this a Jespersen Cycle. Willmott (2013) stresses the differences between the Greek and French scenarios and decides against a Jespersen Cycle analysis, though she is aware of the similarities. More or less simultaneously, Chatzopoulou (2012), later also Chatzopoulou (2015, 2019), discusses the same data: her analysis is similar, but she prefers to redefine the concept of the Jespersen Cycle, and she explicitly does this so as to include both the Greek and the French scenario.

Since doubling is not the defining characteristic for a Jespersen Cycle for Chatzopoulou (2012), Chatzopoulou (2015, 2019) nor, *mutatis mutandis*, for Schwegler

(1983, 1988), it is important to see what they do consider to be crucial. For them, the defining features are emphasis, whether through doubling or fusion, and the later bleaching. This is a perfectly good definition,7 but then they don't include scenarios such as the doubling that appears through the reinterpretation of subordination, as in Arizona Tewa, or non-finiteness (the connegative of dialectal Finnish and Estonian). So we are left with a terminological dilemma. A formbased definition of a Jespersen Cycle requires there to be doubling, whether it goes with emphasis or not. A meaning-based account requires emphasis, whether it goes with doubling or not. The embryo of the dilemma is the fact that Jespersen's textbook example of French fits both definitions. Arizona Tewa and Finnish as well as Latin and Greek only fit one definition. The dilemma can be solved in more than one way. One solution is simply to stick to one of two definitions. A second one is to drop the term "Jespersen Cycle" altogether. After all, we now know more about the "curious fluctuation" than in 1917 and Jespersen delivered neither the first nor the best early description. Meillet (1912), for one, beat him, and he was not the first either. In a somewhat obscure paper on Coptic, Gardiner (1904) makes a parallel between *pas* and Coptic *ı͗wn'* 'certainly'. Earlier still, in the book that launches the term "sémantique", Bréal (1897: 22) assures us that "everybody knows what happened to the words *pas*, and *point*"' [our translation]. But then, the term "Jespersen Cycle" has been around for close to 40 years, everyone more or less knows what it is all about. However, there is an easy way to embrace both the meaning- and the form-based account: a more general definition that allows both accounts. What we then require of a Jespersen Cycle is that it deals with the genesis of a standard negator from a constellation that involves a standard negator and another element 'α', where α is either another negator (e.g. in Swedish) or a non-negative element (e.g. a minimizer like in French or a

7We gloss over the problem of describing the nature of emphasis. In the last decade it has been proposed that emphasis has to be replaced or explained by notions of discourse presupposition or activation. Such accounts have been particularly prominent for resumptive negation, as in Brazilian Portuguese (Schwenter 2006) or Palenquero (Schwegler 1991), but they have also been offered for the textbook case of French (Mosegaard Hansen 2009, Larrivée 2010). We offer three considerations. First, in case notions of discourse presupposition or activation are to replace emphasis, this is fully compatible with our insistence that the term "Jespersen Cycle" covers a variety of phenomena, a variety more compatible with a plural "Jespersen Cycles" than with a singular (van der Auwera 2009). Second, it is no less possible that in some cases presupposition and activation will not so much replace emphasis but, to borrow Schwenter's term, "fine-tune" it. Third, accounts downplaying emphasis are found more with resumptive negation, and this fact is interesting. Resumptive negation is a matter of repeating a marker and this could simply serve to make the meaning clearer, which is not the same as making a negation emphatic. This analysis was offered for resumptive negation in Brabantic Belgian Dutch by van der Auwera (2009: 52), with reference to Pauwels (1974: 76).

16 Intertwining the negative cycles

subordinator like in Arizona Tewa). This constellation can further develop in two directions: (i) the negator and α fuse, the new element becomes a negator and it may replace the original negator, or (ii) if there is no fusion, then α, which is either negative from the start or has become negative by contamination8 from the original negator, could replace this original negator. These developments may be prompted by emphasis or not. This is what we propose – and we will come back to it in §4, after we have discussed the Negative Existential Cycle and we have seen whether the new definition could encompass this too.

# **3 Refining the notion of the Negative Existential Cycle**

After its introduction in Croft (1991) and a period where not much happened to it, the Negative Existential Cycle came within the purview of Veselinova (2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). Veselinova made at least three very important contributions. The first one is an endeavor to check the hypothesis on a wide range of language families. The second one is her finding that the Negative Existential Cycle is rarely completed. The third contribution is her claim that the mere fact that a language uses an existential strategy for both existential and standard negation does not itself constitute evidence for the Negative Existential Cycle yet. Thus in Bulgarian an invariable *njama* 'not.have' is used for both existential negation and future tense standard negation.

(16) Bulgarian [bul] (Indo-European; Veselinova 2014: 1333, 2010: 204)

But the use of *njama* in standard negation is not due to an extension of the use of the existential negator. In Old Church Slavonic the positive future also availed itself of 'have' (as one option, https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/ocsol/50#grammar\_- 1014). What we see therefore is a decrease in the use of 'have' for the future and

8The "contamination" metaphor goes back to at least Bréal (1897: 221–226). It is better than the more sober "reinterpretation" because reinterpretation can happen through a range of language external or internal factors, while "contamination" nicely captures that the original meaning disappears under the influence of another element in the clause, viz. the negator.

a domain expansion of 'have' in the realm of expressions of existence (Veselinova 2010: 203–204, but compare Veselinova 2014: 1336–1337, 2016: 157). So on top of the observation that a strategy is used for both existential and standard negation, we ideally have diachronic information on whether the construction originated in existential or in standard negation. This information can be direct (language-internal) or indirect (from comparing related languages) or even just etymological: a negative existential that is a fusion of standard negator and an existential marker and that is used for both existential and standard negation is bound to have started in the existential domain.

In what follows, we focus on a problem with the third stage of the Negative Existential Cycle. This is the stage in which the existential negator, originally restricted to existential negation, has come to be used for standard negation. Let us illustrate it with Tongan (cp. Croft 1991: 12, Veselinova 2014: 1342).

	- a. *'oku* prs *'ikai* ??? *ha* nsp *me'a* thing 'There is not anything.'
	- b. *na'e* pst *'ikai* ??? *ke* sub *kata* laugh *'a* abs *Pita* Pita 'Pita didn't laugh.' ('[It] was not that Pita laugh[ed].')

We have purposely not yet glossed the occurrence of *'ikai* in both examples. Croft's gloss for the (17a) type of example is 'NEG.EX', which makes sense, for the sentence could not be more negative existential. Broschart (1999: 101), Veselinova's source linguist, provides 'It is not that there is anything' as the literal translation. For the example of the (17b) type Croft's gloss for the negator is 'NEG(EX)'. 'NEG(EX)' is to indicate that we are dealing with a "polysemy between negative existential meaning and verbal negation" (Croft 1991: 12). Since (17b) illustrates verbal negation, one might argue that *'ikai* permits the 'NEG' gloss, i.e., the gloss for the standard negator, and 'NEG' is in fact the gloss that Veselinova (2014: 1342), following Broschart (1999: 104), offers for (17b). But her literal translation of this sentence '[It] was not that Pita laugh[ed]' (in line again with Broschart 1999: 104) is a little confusing then, for it rather asks for a 'NEG.EX' gloss. To solve this problem we suggest that the third stage of the cycle should be conceived of as the "existentialization" of standard negation. Table 1 represents the three analyses, in a three stage format. We use underlining to show that the

### 16 Intertwining the negative cycles

Table 1: Comparison of three analyses (Croft 1991, Veselinova 2014, this paper). "std.": standard; "exist.": existential.

negators of the third stage have the same form as the NEG.EX of the second stage.

In our view, the third stage has standard negation using an existential negator. What has to happen now – for the cycle to continue – is that the existentialized standard negation gets "de-existentialized". This is what we arguably see in Spoken Kannada. In this language both types of negation use *illa,* but while this is a free form for existential negation, it is a suffix for standard negation.

	- a. *khaja:neyalli* treasury.loc *haNa* money *illa* neg.ex 'There is no money in the treasury.'
	- b. *anil* Anil *ka:le:jige* college.dat *ho:gu-vud-illa* go-npst.ger-neg 'Anil doesn't/won't go to college.'

Note that we have glossed the free form with 'NEG.EX' and the suffix with 'NEG', in agreement with Veselinova and Sridhar and they do not provide (18b) with a literal gloss of the type 'it is not that Anil goes / will go to college'. At the risk of overinterpretation of the glosses, we assume that there is nothing existential about (18b) and that it really just means 'Anil doesn't/won't go to college'. Suffixal *-illa* has thus been de-existentialized. The free form, however, is still existential. This de-existentialization in the domain of standard negation is worthy of a stage of its own. Thus, with application to Kannada, a fourth stage of (19) has suffixal *-illa* as a standard negator and the free form *illa* as an existential negator. In a

hypothetical fifth stage, existential negation could avail itself of *-illa*, the standard negator, together with some marker of existence.

The claim that there are additional stages is a little tricky. Both Croft and Veselinova have in fact included transitional stages in their stage model. These are stages which have both NEG and NEG.EX for either standard or existential negation, but they may not be equivalent: the choice could depend on tense or one option could carry emphasis. These kinds of intermediate stages have to be accepted in the basically five-stage model of (19) as well. Also, it does not follow that every standard negation structure with a lexical verb and something like an auxiliary is a negative existential structure. Finnish is a good example. Example (20) has a negative auxiliary and the so-called "connegative", but this structure illustrates standard negation. So the negative auxiliary is not a negative existential, though it might originate in one (see Veselinova 2015: 577 for references), and though it is also used for existential negation, it then combines with a 'be' verb in the connegative form.

(20) Finnish [fin] (Uralic; Vilkuna 2015: 476) *Täällä* here *ei* neg.3sg *ole* ex.cng *yhtään* at.all *kahvi-a.* coffee-part 'There is no coffee here.'

# **4 Towards a generalized Jespersen Cycle**

In this section we look at the interaction between the Negative Existential and Jespersen Cycles. First, we discuss to what extent a Negative Existential Cycle can involve Jespersenian doubling and resumption (§4.1). Then we look at a specific claim about East Futuna (§4.2) and we pair the Negative Existential Cycle with 16 Intertwining the negative cycles

a Positive Existential Cycle (§4.3). In §4.4 we offer a generalized Jespersen Cycle, even more general than what we ended up with at the end of §2.

### **4.1 Negative Existential Cycles with doubling**

The proposal for a Negative Existential Cycle came much later than that for a Jespersen Cycle. It is therefore appropriate to check whether any manifestation of the former is in fact a manifestation of the latter, under either the form-based, the meaning-based or the general definition. We will first discuss the original proposal by Croft (1991) and then the detailed studies by Veselinova (2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).

In Croft (1991) there is no explicit mentioning of the Jespersen Cycle, but the implicit one is very strong and it concerns the French type. A Negative Existential Cycle, so Croft claims, is that a special existential negator may be used in combination with a standard negator. According to him this is one of the two ways in which an existential negator can enter the domain of standard negation. The other way is replacing the standard negator partially or completely (Croft 1991: 9–11).9 Judging from later work by Veselinova, who only discusses the replacement strategy, the latter would seem to be the more important type of Negative Existential Cycle, but the focus here is on the doubling type.

The reason why, according to Croft (1991: 13–14), an existential negator may combine with a standard negator, is that this combination makes the utterance emphatic. He illustrates this with two examples. One is from the Australian language Mara (Heath 1981: 289).

(21) Mara [mec] (Mangarrayi-Maran; Croft 1991: 14, Heath 1981: 289)

a. *ganugu* neg *wunayi* see.him 'He did not see him.' b. *ganugu wunayi mal'uy*

neg see.him neg.ex/emph

'He did not see him at all.'

Croft then goes on to say that the emphasis may bleach and that this process "is the same […] that has occurred in the evolution of the French negative *pas*" (Croft 1991: 14), with reference to the pre-Jespersen account of Meillet (1912) as well to

9Partial and complete replacements are counted separately by Croft (1991), so in that way he does not have two but three pathways of intrusion.

Schwegler (1983, 1988). This counts as an acknowledgment that this kind of Negative Existential Cycle is a subtype of a Jespersen Cycle. More specifically, with (21b) we are in the doubling stage of a Jespersen Cycle. Interestingly, the Mara form for the Negative Existential also serves as a negative pro-sentence, a usage which, as Veselinova (2013: 127) has shown, is cross-linguistically rather frequent. So it is not clear whether the form that doubles is indeed the existential negator as such or the negative pro-sentence. In the latter case Mara joins languages like Lifunga, illustrated in (14), and it is again an illustration of a Jespersen Cycle.

The second example of Jespersenian doubling comes from the Wintuan language Wintu.

(22) Wintu [wit] (Wintuan; Croft 1991: 10, Pitkin 1984: 197) *Ɂelew-be:sken* neg.ex-you.ipfv *hara:-wer-mina* go-fut-neg 'You were not supposed to go.'

For our purposes, there are two interesting things about the Wintu case.10 First, the presence of the preverbal negator is said to "reinforce" (Croft 1991: 10) the original negator, but "reinforce" probably doesn't mean "make emphatic". The translation in Croft and in the source figures non-emphatic negation. This makes sense in a form-based Jespersen scenario, but no less in a meaning-based one, for Wintu may illustrate what Mara does not show: the bleaching of the emphasis. Second, the source grammarian Pitkin (1984: 197) makes clear that the negative existential also serves as a negative pro-sentence. So, once more, there is a suspicion that it is latter use that is crucial in this process of Jespersenian doubling.

As mentioned already, Veselinova (2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016) does not discuss the Mara–Wintu scenario, and this strongly suggests that it is relatively rare. Croft does not give any other languages either. We do, however, find other candidates for a Jespersenian doubling analysis with a negative existential in the Munda languages Juang (Anderson 2007: 150–151) and Korku (Nagaraja 1999: 64–67, Zide 2008: 279–281), the isolate Urarina and also in the Takanan language Tacana. For example, in Tacana standard negation with a finite lexical verb almost always uses two negators.11

10Croft (1991: 10) points out that Pitkin (1984) has no example of a negative existential use, which is a bit problematic. Also, the second negator is itself also a negative existential in origin. Croft (1991: 10) argues that it is older than the first one: *Ɂelew* is a separate word, one that is a finite verb furthermore, and the second is morphological. This makes sense.

11Guillaume (2022 [this volume]) signals only one case in his corpus with the postverbal negator omitted.

16 Intertwining the negative cycles

	- a. *Aimue* neg *e-juseute-ta=mawe/mue* fut-fell-a3=neg *beni=ja* wind=erg 'The wind will not fell (the trees).'
	- b. *Kwati=mu* firewood=cntr *aimue* neg.ex *tsu'u.* still 'There is no firewood yet.'

The postverbal negator (*mawe/mue*) is the oldest one: it is shorter, bound and phonologically dependent, it has variant forms and occupies a rigid position in the construction (Guillaume 2016, Guillaume 2022 [this volume]). And it is also formally similar to negators in the other Takanan languages. The preverbal negator is an innovation in Tacana only (i.e., it is not found in the other Takanan languages). It is identical to the existential negator and, in our view (van der Auwera & Krasnoukhova 2018) the etymology gives us 'be.without', which suggests that the negative existential use predates the standard negator use. Its presence in standard negation, Guillaume (2016) suggests, was due to emphasis. Interestingly, this form, like in Mara and Wintu, also serves as a pro-sentence (Guillaume 2016, 2017). And even more interesting is the fact that the lexical verb may be nonfinite, in which case there is an optional finite auxiliary, and in this construction the newer negator is the sole exponent of negation.

(24) Tacana [tna] (Takanan; Guillaume 2017) *Biame* but *aimue=da* neg=top *dia* eat (*a-ta-ina*)*.* aux.tr-a3-pst.hab 'But (the jaguar) would not eat it.'

We thus have a reasonably standard Jespersen Cycle with arguably emphasisdriven doubling and even with the new negator forbidding the company of the old negator, in one type of construction. And, importantly, the new negator has the form of the existential negator, which is also the negative pro-sentence.

In the isolate Urarina, standard (non-emphatic) negation is encoded by a single postverbal negator, which has different allomorphs depending on person, conjugation class and other factors (Olawsky 2006: 484). However, Urarina has two constructions which are regarded as "emphatic" standard negation. One of these constructions involves the negative existential *nijej* (*ni-ji* 'be-neg') before the lexical verb that is already marked by a negator (25a). And thus we have doubling.

The negative existential use is shown in (25b).12 A negative reply in Urarina has a different form: *aji*, composed of an auxiliary *aja* and a negative suffix *–i* (Olawsky 2006: 400).

	- a. *nii* that *hãu̶* because *nijej* neg.ex *beraj-ɲaa* care.for-inf *najɲ-ene* be.able-neg.3e *rai* poss *komasaj* wife 'Therefore, his wife could not look after him at all.'
	- b. *nukue* creek *seti-aka=ne* fish-1du=cond *nijei* neg.ex *ate* fish *taba-j* be.big- nmlz 'When we fished in the creek, there were no big fish.'

Veselinova, following leads by Croft (1991: 21) and Schwegler (1988: 38–39), also discusses the role of the negative pro-sentence, yet not in a scenario of first doubling up a standard negator and later potentially being the sole exponent of negation, but in a scenario of more directly replacing the standard negator. One of the languages brought in to support this is Sino-Russian Pidgin (Veselinova 2014: 1337, 2016: 155–156).13 In this language the standard negator is *netu*, which is related to Russian *net*. Russian *net* is used both as negative existential and as negative pro-sentence, with the latter use being more prominent than the negative existential use, according to Veselinova (2014: 1337). The idea is that the greater prominence of the pro-sentential use of *net* could explain why it is the related form *netu*, rather than *ne*, that functions as the standard negator in Sino-Russian.

(26) Sino-Russian Pidgin [no ISO; glottolog code: kjac1234] (Pidgin; Veselinova 2014: 1337, Stern 2002: 19)

*naša* 1pl *ego* 3sg *ponimaj* understand *netu* neg 'We don't understand him.'

There are two problems with this hypothesis. First, Russian has *netu* too, in stylistically lower speech, but it is only used as an existential one, not as a prosentential one. It is easier to assume that Sino-Russian Pidgin borrowed *netu*.

12Olawsky (2006) uses two different transcriptions of the negative existential in order to distinguish the meanings; specifically, he notes that the distinction between *nijej* encoding emphasis 'not at all' and the negated copula *ni-ji* encoding negative existence in the transcriptions is "not based on phonological differences, but in order to distinguish the two meanings" (Olawsky 2006: 555, footnote 65). Since there is no difference in phonology, we reproduce the examples using one form *nijej*.

13The other one is the Austronesian language Kapingamarangi, but we only know its synchrony. For Sino-Russian Pidgin we do have some relevant diachrony, viz. that of Russian.

16 Intertwining the negative cycles

Second, even if we grant that the Russian input for the Sino-Russian Pidgin standard negator *netu* is indeed the pro-sentential *net*, it is not clear that it entered Sino-Russian Pidgin standard negation in its pro-sentential role instead of just being a prominent exponent of negation in general. It is interesting to compare Sino-Russian Pidgin with English Creoles. In the overwhelming majority of the English Creoles the typical and sometimes the only standard negator is *no* rather than a form related to *do* combined with *not* (van der Auwera 2017: 140–141). (27) is an example from Ghanaian Pidgin English, nicely contrasting with Ghanaian English in (28).

The Ghanaian Pidgin English speakers use *no*, which has the same form as prosentential *No!* But what is so attractive about pro-sentential *no* to have it as a standard negator? Is it its pro-sentential semantics or is it just its saliency and – no doubt – frequency as an exponent of negation? We propose the second answer.

### **4.2 Interaction of the two cycles in East Futuna?**

The negation in Polynesian East Futuna has given rise to a claim on the interaction of the Negative Existential and Jespersen Cycles. The original claim is explicit in Mosel (1999: 18), it is implicit in Moyse-Faurie (1999: 122), and the basic idea is endorsed by Veselinova (2014: 1359–1364). In what follows we start from Veselinova (2014).

In East Futuna an existential negator *le'ai* is made up of a standard negator *le* and an existential element (*i*)*ai.* There is also a reduced form *le'e*. *Le'ai* and another reduced form, *e'ai*, function as pro-sentences and *le'e* has intruded the domain of standard negation,14 which qualifies the trajectory as an instance of the Negative Existential Cycle.

14Veselinova (2014: 1364) describes the intrusion only for forms with -*se*, but the analysis also contains example (29b), which is a standard negation use without -*se.*

	- a. *e'a* no *e* tam *le'e* neg.ex *se* indf *lāisi* rice 'No, there is no rice.'
	- b. *e* tam *le'e* neg.ex *'au* come *a* abs *Setefano* Stefano *ki* obl *le* det *fai* make *o* poss *le* det *ga'oi* work 'Stefano is still not coming to do the work.'

What is special about East Futuna is that there are also the more complex forms *le'aise* and *le'ese,* which function in the existential domain and also intrude into the verbal domain.

	- a. *ko* pr *le* def *mako* dance *ko* pr *le* def *tapaki* tapaki *e* nsp *le'aise* neg.ex *ko* pr *se* ind *mako* dance *tefua* alone *ma* for *Futuna* Futuna 'The tapaki dance is not a special dance for Futuna.'
	- b. *na* pst *le'aise* neg.ex *kau* 1sg *ano* go *o* comp *mako* dance *i* obl *nānafi* yesterday 'No, I didn't go dancing yesterday.'15

The element *se*, which is added to the simple negators, is an indefinite singular article (Moyse-Faurie 1999: 122).16 But then there is also reduction, for standard and existential negation allow the complex forms *le'aise* and *le'ese* to reduce to *se.*

	- a. *… e* genr *se* neg.ex *na'a* be.there *ai* anaph *se* indf *tosi* book *…* '… there are no books …'

15The English translation has a pro-sentential *No*, but the East Futuna original does not. The *No* must be meant to show that a negation with *le'aise* is stronger (Moyse-Faurie 1999: 122) than one with *le'ese.*

16It is not clear whether the article is indefinite or non-specific. Mosel (1999: 18) and Veselinova (2014: 1363) call it "non-specific". Moyse-Faurie (1997: 45) calls it "non-specific" too, but later in the grammar it is called "indefinite" (Moyse-Faurie 1997: 88).

16 Intertwining the negative cycles

b. *e* genr *se* neg.ex *tio* see *a* abs *tātou* 1pl.incl *ki* obl *ke* def *fatu* stone 'We do not see the stone.'

For Moyse-Faurie and Mosel, the fact that an erstwhile indefinite article now functions as a negator shows that we are dealing with a Jespersen Cycle. For Veselinova (p.c.) there is a Jespersen cycle because the *le'aise* and *le'ese* are taken to carry emphasis, which then got lost together with phonetic substance. But these claims are not obvious. Much depends on what is meant with the notion of Jespersen Cycle and this has to be made explicit. As argued in §2, most linguists take a form-based approach of the Jespersen Cycle and require doubling but in East Futuna there is no doubling. The East Futuna facts are thus similar to the Greek ones. In Greek a complex form *ouden* lost the negative morpheme and the emphasis, and it is the remains of a focus particle and a numeral that now function as a negator. In East Futuna the complex forms *le'aise* and *lé'ese* lost the negative morpheme and the emphasis, and it is the remains of an indefinite article that now function as a negator. As for East Futuna *se* to count as the result of a Jespersen Cycle, one can thus use the semantics-based account, the one that allows both doubling and fusion but requires an emphatic stage, or the more general account, one that requires neither doubling nor emphasis.

Of these two accounts, the general one seems better. The argument for the extended notion has so far been, for both Schwegler and Chatzopoulou, that the second part of the fusion had an emphatic use. This is very clear in Greek as well as in Latin. It is less clear in East Futuna. The *-se* part is an indefinite or nonspecific article. The latter is obligatory for noun phrases in the scope of negation and it is therefore "a frequent collocate of the existential negator" (Veselinova 2014: 1348). In the fusion, *se* then "reinforced" the original negator – "reinforce" is the term in Moyse-Faurie (1999: 122) – but it is not clear that it is meant in a semantic sense. According to Mosel (1999: 18), followed by Veselinova (2014: 1363), the reinforcement would indeed be semantic: the reinforcement is to yield emphasis. But note that it is an indefinite article that fuses, and not, for example, the numeral and pronoun *tasi* 'one' (Moyse-Faurie 1997: 27, 35, 1999: 121). A similar fusion is reported for Cèmuhî and Paicî (Moyse-Faurie & Ozanne-Rivierre 1999: 63) as well as for Hawaiian (Veselinova 2014: 1348), each time with an indefinite article. For Hawaiian the fusion does not appeal to emphasis: "consequently, *a'ole* [the standard negator] must have become fused with *he* [the indefinite article] as a result of frequent collocation" (Veselinova 2014: 1348). In short, for the East Futuna development of the *se* negator to count as a Jespersen Cycle it cannot be the one embraced by Schwegler and Chatzopoulou. The story of the *se* negator

does, however, fit the general definition argued for in §2: the development of a negator is a Jespersen Cycle, if it results from the interaction of two elements, at least one of which is a negator.

### **4.3 A Positive Existential Cycle?**

Before we clarify the general concept of a Jespersen Cycle more, it is useful to point out that there is more to the interaction of existence and negation than what has been sketched in the above. First of all, in the Negative Existential Cycle proper, the one without doubling, we have so far seen a negator fusing with something else, typically a positive existential. A fusion of a negator and a positive existential is not, however, the only strategy to make negative existentials, and it does not seem to be the most frequent one. In a worldwide overview Veselinova (2013: 137) points out that languages may recruit negative existentials directly from the lexicon, more particularly from words with a negative content, such as 'absent' or 'lack'.17 For the 42 languages for which she reports the origin, 25 have this origin vs. 17 that involve fusion. We come back to direct recruitment in §4.4.

Second, we have seen fusion in Latin and Greek Jespersen Cycles. These Cycles are a little different from the French one, in that the element that combines with negation does not itself turn into a standard negator. It is the fusion that turns into a standard negator. This begs the question of whether there could be a cycle in which the positive existential and the negator do not fuse, but in which the latter changes the meaning of the former. What we are after is a constellation in which a negator turns an existential marker into a negator, a new one, with the possibility of ousting the old one. This is precisely what van der Auwera & Vossen (2017) have argued for in their study of negative doubling in the Kiranti languages.

In most of the Kiranti languages there is a preverbal negator with a solid Tibeto-Burman ancestry, viz. *ma*. In the eastern Kiranti languages there is often a postverbal negator with the form *ni* or a similar form. It usually co-occurs with the preverbal *ma* and it has no clear negative etymology.

17The development of standard negator out of a privative construction ('without'), argued for Arawak by Michael (2014: 285–288), could be seen as a subtype. There could furthermore be a third origin, no doubt rare, viz. a word of which the meaning was originally positive but which got contaminated by a negator that later disappeared – the typical Jespersen scenario. At least in Kulina (Arawan; [cul]) the negative pro-sentence, which derives from a negative existential, only utilizes a word that originally meant 'show' (Dienst 2014: 236; p.c.) and which turned negative under the influence of a negator (Krasnoukhova & van der Auwera 2019).

16 Intertwining the negative cycles

(32) Dumi [dus] (Tibeto-Burman; van Driem 1993: 288) *i̶-mu-ʔa* their-mother-erg *tida:m-tida:m-mil* child-child-pl *ryekbo* three *mə-ti̶l-ni-nə* neg.pst-raise-3pl-neg 'Their mother did not raise the three little ones.'

Forms like *ni*, however, do show up in Tibeto-Burman outside of Eastern Kiranti as various sorts of 'be' verbs (Lowes 2006), as in Meithei (Chelliah 1997: 249–250, 297), with an ascriptive use in (33a) and an existential one in (33b).

	- a. *phurit-tu* shirt-dist *ə-ŋəw-pə-ni* att-white-nmlz-cop 'That shirt is the white one.'
	- b. *əy-nə* I-cntr *phi* cloth *ə-du* att-dist *ləŋ-thok-ləbə-ni* throw-out-having-cop '(It is that) I have thrown out that cloth.'

In van der Auwera & Vossen (2017) it is argued that the *ni* was gradually reinterpreted as a negator. The semantics motivating the reinterpretation is that the negative proposition was followed by an emphatic *so it is* phrase. This lost the emphasis and got contaminated with negative meaning, first doubling the earlier negator with a potential of doing the negative work on its own. Given that it is a positive 'be' verb that will become a negator, one could call it as "Positive Existential Cycle".18 And given that it involves a progression from single to double and back to single negation, it is no less of a Jespersen Cycle.

The case for a Positive Existential Jespersen Cycle does not only rest on the analysis of Kiranti *ni*. Within Kiranti itself there is more evidence, the clearest case being a negative past verbal suffix *yuk/yukt* (Doornenbal 2009: 163), which co-occurs with a negative prefix and which derives from a copula (Doornenbal 2009: 276) and still is one (Doornenbal 2009: 119). Outside of Kiranti, candidates for a Positive Existential Jespersen Cycle are the Oceanic language Lewo spoken in Vanuatu (Early 1994a: 425–426, 1994b: 79–80) and the languages of the Awju group (Wester 2014: 127–140) as well as Kaugel (Head 1976: 152–153), spoken in New Guinea.

18The term is a bit misleading. The Positive Existential Cycle is still negative in the sense that it produces a new negator. The term identifies the source as a positive existential, just like the term "Negative Existential Cycle" identifies the source as a negative existential.

### **4.4 A generalized Jespersen Cycle**

We are now ready to return to the most general conception of the Jespersen Cycle. The idea is that a standard negator may find itself co-occurring with something 'α' and then either fuse with it or contaminate it with negativeness. If α is itself a negator, the same or another one, we get doubling. In case α is not a negator, there are two alternatives with respect to trajectories leading to a standard negator. Either the standard negator turns α into another negator (i.e., the standard negator contaminates α with negativeness) and we get doubling, or there is fusion. The first trajectory, the doubling-after-reinterpretation, is the more restricted form-based Jespersen Cycle. There may be emphasis and bleaching (as in French) or not (Arizona Tewa). In principle, there is nothing preventing the new standard negators to fuse and the result may then be a third negator. We do not know, however, of any such cases and we use dotted lines in the representation in (34).19 The second trajectory, the one involving fusion of the negator and α, has two outcomes, depending on the nature of α. If α is an existential verb, we get a (subtype of the) Negative Existential Cycle. If α is a minimizer – the Latin and Greek case – we get the more restricted meaning-based Jespersen Cycle. The scenarios are represented in (34).

Note that the figure in (34) includes the end stages with one new negator, but we do not require a language to have reached it for us to claim that the language is involved in a Jespersen Cycle: the language may get stuck in an intermediate stage or the end stage may show tripling. In that sense (34) does not say

(34)

19Fusion of standard negators is attested (Vossen 2016: 18 on the Austronesian languages Lewo and Nese; Devos et al. 2010 on the Bantu language Kanincin), but only in cases of tripling and quadrupling.

### 16 Intertwining the negative cycles

enough. In another sense, it may say too much, for not every type of α has been attested with both a reinterpretation and a fusion scenario. When α is an existential marker, we do have both scenarios, i.e., a Positive Existential Cycle for reinterpretation and a Negative Existential Cycle for fusion. The two scenarios are schematized in (35).

For most α's, however, only the reinterpretation scenario has been attested. Thus, in Arizona Tewa the subordinator *dí* turned into a negator through the influence of the negator *we*, but we haven't seen a language in which an original negator like *we* is adjacent to a subordinator like *dí* and delivers a new negator *wedí*. So in this sense (34) says too much. But in another sense, (34) – or (35) for that matter – does not say enough. For one thing, neither (34) nor (35) show that a language may have negator doubling followed by tripling (and even quadrupling and quintupling); these complications were already excluded from the paper in §1. For another thing, we do not expand the simple 3 stage model of a classic French style Jespersen Cycle into a model with more stages, nor do we include the five stages of the Negative Existential Cycle, represented in (19) in the above. However, we need to come back to the Mara, Wintu, Tacana and East Futuna cases. They are also not provided for in (34) or (35) yet. Like in these simpler scenarios, Mara, Wintu, Urarina, Tacana and East Futuna show doubling and fusion. In Mara, Wintu, Urarina and Tacana the negative existential combines with a standard negator, it may become a standard negator too with a further potential to oust the old standard negator. For East Futuna, the negative existential combines with something else, viz. an indefinite article. They fuse and combine to form a new negative existential and later a new standard negator. In (36) the

middle lines show the simple Negative Existential Cycle; the ones on the top represent Mara, Wintu, Urarina and Tacana and the ones below represent East Futuna.