{"title":"The complementary distribution between nē and nōn revisited: a semantic approach to wish and result clauses","authors":"Anne-Li Demonie","doi":"10.1515/joll-2021-2006","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper revisits the well-established complementary distribution between the sentential negators in Classical Latin, nē and nōn. It will be shown that in wish and result clauses these negators alternate in a seemingly free manner, which would violate the complementary distribution in its strictest sense. However, this paper argues that the negators can be clearly differentiated semantically, and that there is as such no overlap between their functions. Building on Mellet (1992. L’alternance ne/non en latin Classique. L’Information Grammaticale 55. 28–32), the alternation in wish and result clauses is discussed, and it is demonstrated that the choice of negator depends on the presence of the subjunctive mood and the presence or absence of epistemic certainty: nē is the negator which is incompatible with epistemic certainty, whereas nōn is the negator which is compatible with it.","PeriodicalId":29862,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Latin Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/joll-2021-2006","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"CLASSICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract This paper revisits the well-established complementary distribution between the sentential negators in Classical Latin, nē and nōn. It will be shown that in wish and result clauses these negators alternate in a seemingly free manner, which would violate the complementary distribution in its strictest sense. However, this paper argues that the negators can be clearly differentiated semantically, and that there is as such no overlap between their functions. Building on Mellet (1992. L’alternance ne/non en latin Classique. L’Information Grammaticale 55. 28–32), the alternation in wish and result clauses is discussed, and it is demonstrated that the choice of negator depends on the presence of the subjunctive mood and the presence or absence of epistemic certainty: nē is the negator which is incompatible with epistemic certainty, whereas nōn is the negator which is compatible with it.
摘要本文重新审视了古典拉丁语中否定句nı和nōn之间公认的互补分布。结果表明,在愿望和结果条款中,这些否定者以看似自由的方式交替出现,这将违反最严格意义上的互补分配。然而,本文认为否定词可以在语义上得到明确的区分,并且它们的功能之间没有重叠。梅莱特大厦(1992年。L‘alternance ne/non en latin Classique。L’Information Grammacale 55。28–32),讨论了愿望从句和结果从句的交替,并证明否定句的选择取决于虚拟语气的存在和认识确定性的存在或不存在:nı是与认识确定性不相容的否定句,而nōn是与认识确定性兼容的否定句。