LINGUIST List 14.1631

Mon Jun 9 2003

Sum: Scope of Negation in Bengali

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Jonny Butler, Summary: scope of negation in Bengali

A few weeks ago (Linguist 14.1549) I posted a question concerning the
relative scope possibilities of the two negative markers `na' and `ni'
in Bengali/Bangla, which Ramchand (2002) has analysed as negating
events and propositions, respectively. This summarizes the responses:

* Sharbani Banerji is currently revising a PhD dissertation at the
University of Hyderabad entitled Bangla Syntax; there are two chapters
in which negation and scope are dealt with.

* Thomas Chacko (Bangalore) informs me that similar facts obtain in
Malayalam: `illa' is a marker that apparently negates events, `alla'
negates propositions.

* Beste Yolcu-Kamali reports that similar facts also obtainm in
Russian: two negative morphemes are found, one negating events and the
other propositions; this is dealt with in Meltem Kelepir's (2001) MIT
dissertation `Topics in Turkish syntax: clausal structure and scope'.

Jonny Butler
University of York, UK
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~jrcb100/ 

Subject-Language: Bangla; Code: BNG