Typology of Negation in Ob-Ugric
and Samoyedic Languages (NOS)

Standard Negation

Standard Negation: Standard negation is a construction whose primary function is to express sentental negation (Cf. Miestamo 2000, 2005)

The table below shows the diferent types and subtypes of standard negation. A click on a highlighted term will lead you to its definition below.

Type Subtype Further Subtype Languages
symmetric negation S Hungarian, Kamassian, Khanty, Komi, Mansi, Mordvin, Selkup, Udmurt
asymmetric negation A/Fin A/Fin/Neg-LV
A/Fin/Neg-FE Mari
A/Fin/NegVerb Enets, Estonian, Finnish, Ingrian, Kamassian, Karelian, Khanty, Komi, Livonian, Mansi, Mari, Mordvin, Nenets, Nganasan, Selkup, Saami, Udmurt, Veps, Votic
A/NonReal A/NonReal/Irr
A/NonReal/Inter
A/Emph --
A/CAT A/CAT/TAM Komi, Mari, Udmurt
A/CAT/PNG

 Symmetric Negation: Symmetric negative contructions differ from their corresponding affirmative constructions by the presence of negative markers.

 Asymmetric Negation: In asymmetric negation there are structural differences between affirmatives and negatives in addition to the presence of the negative marker(s). The asymmetric type has different subtypes according to how the asymmetry is manifested in the structure.

 A/Fin: Negatives differ from affirmatives by the lexical verb (LV) losing its finiteness.

 A/Fin/Neg-LV: The lexical verb loses its finiteness and the negative marker attaches to the lexical verb.

 A/Fin/Neg-FE: The lexical verb loses its finiteness and the negative marker attaches to the added finite element.

 A/Fin/NegVerb: The lexical verb loses its finiteness and the negative marker is the finite element of the negative clause.

 A/NonReal: The difference between the negative and its corresponding affirmative is that it is marked for a category that denotes non-realized states of affairs.

 A/Emph: The difference between the negative and its corresponding affirmative is that it is marked for a category that expresses emphasis in non-negatives.

 A/Cat: Negatives differ from affirmatives in how grammatical categories are marked, but no generalizations can be made about how the categories are affected (as is done in the other three subtypes). Grammatical distinctions made in the affirmative are often lost in the negative.

 A/Cat/TAM: A/Cat asymmetry affecting the marking of tense-aspect-mood.

 A/Cat/PNG: A/Cat asymmetry affecting the marking of person-number-gender.

Position of the Negative Marker in Uralic languages

Negative particles tend to be pre-posed (Mansi, Khanty, Hungarian, Selkup, Mordvin)

Word Order Languages
OV & VAux Eastern Mari
OV & AuxV Kamassian, Komi, Enets, Mari, Mordvin, Nenets, Nganasan, Udmurt
VO & VAux --
VO & AuxV Estonian, Finnish, Karelian, Veps, Votic, Ingrian, Saami