Negative verb

The term negative verb or negative auxiliary refers to an auxiliary verb whose function is to negate the clause in which it occurs. Negative verbs are similar in function to English not and -n't, but unlike English not (which is not a verb) a negative verb inflects for agreement with the subject. This can be seen in the following two examples from Finnish. In the affirmative sentence (1) agreement appears on the main verb syödä 'eat'. In the negative sentence (2) agreement appears on the negative verb ei and the main verb appears in a non-finite form.

(1)

Affirmative sentence (Finnish):

sö-i-n

eat-PAST-1SG

omena-n

apple-ACC

'I ate an apple'

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assuming ACC means "accusative case"; linking to accusative case;

assuming PAST means "past tense"; linking to past tense;

assuming 1SG means "first person, singular";

(2)

Negative sentence (Finnish):

e-n

NEG-1SG

syö-nyt

eat-PTCP

omena-a

apple-PTV

'I did not eat an apple'

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assuming PTCP means "participle"; linking to participle;

assuming PTV means "partitive case ('some of')"; linking to partitive case;

assuming NEG means "negation/negative"; linking to Negative (linguistics);

assuming 1SG means "first person, singular";

While the discussion of negative verbs is common in the context of Uralic languages like Finnish, they are known to occur in a variety of language families. For example, the Tungusic language Uilta (Orok) displays similar behavior to Finnish, only here the negative verb inflects both for subject agreement and tense:

(3)

Affirmative sentence (Uilta):

tari

that

nari

man

ŋene-xe-ni

go-PAST-3SG

'He went'

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assuming PAST means "past tense"; linking to past tense;

assuming 3SG means "third person, singular";

(4)

Negative sentence (Uilta):

tari

that

nari

man

ec-ci-ni

NEG-PAST-3SG

ŋennee

go.PTCP

'He did not go'

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assuming PTCP means "participle"; linking to participle;

assuming 3SG means "third person, singular";

assuming PAST means "past tense"; linking to past tense;

assuming NEG means "negation/negative"; linking to Negative (linguistics);

While not vanishingly rare, negative verbs are a relatively uncommon form of clausal negation in the world's languages. Most languages use some sort of negation particle (such as English not) or a verbal affix (such as the suffix -me in Turkish); still others use a combination two non-verbal markers (so-called double negation). Each of these three strategies is more common than negative verbs.

The main factor that distinguishes negative verbs from negative particles is that they display the morphological and syntactic properties of verbs. Thus, a negative verb should conjugate like a verb, displaying, for example, agreement and tense morphology in languages that have these features. They will also appear in syntactic positions associated with verbs. However, the morphology and syntax of some languages will not always make it possible to conclusively distinguish between negative verbs and negative particles.