ISSN: 2158-7051 ==================== INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES ==================== ISSUE NO. 7 ( 2018/1 ) |
THE RUSSIAN GENITIVE OF NEGATION AND ITS JAPANESE COUNTERPART
IVAN G. ILIEV*
Summary
The paper draws a parallel between the usage of the negative genitive in Russian, in which there is an exchange of the accusative form of a noun for a genitive one in negation, and a similar phenomenon in Japanese – the use of the topic marker -wa instead of the original accusative marker -o. Simultaneously, a use of the topic marker -wa is shown, in which case its function resembles that of the genitive marker -no.
Key Words: Russian language, Japanese language, genitive of negation, sentence topic.
The Slavic Genitive of Negation
There is a
phenomenon in Slavic languages called negative
genitive (genitive of negation). It is expressed in exchanging the
accusative form of the direct object after a verb of negation for a genitive
form or in exchanging the subject’s nominative form again for a genitive form. In
Polish, the exchange is mandatory, in Old Bulgarian, as in Russian, it is
frequent, and in Czech and Serbo-Croatian it only exists in literary language,
and in definite conditions at that (Feuillet 2006: 558; Dalewska-Greń 1997: 439). Examples from Polish (Moravcsik 1978: 264; Dalewska-Greń 1997: 436):
Mam czas ‘I have time’ – as against:
have-1sg time-acc
Nie mam czasu ‘I don’t
have time’;
neg have-1sg
time-gen
Widziałeś wczoraj Ewę?
see-2sg-past yesterday Eve-acc
‘Did you see
Eve yesterday?’– as against:
Nie widziałem wczoraj Ewy ‘I didn’t see Eve yesterday’;
neg see-1sg-past yesterday
Eve-gen
Tu są okulary ‘The glasses are here’ – as against:
here are-3pl
glasses-nom
Tu niema okularów ‘The glasses are not here’.
here have-neg-3sg glasses-gen
Of the
subject genitive in Russian, the most general idea is this one – the accusative
marks definiteness, a concrete refrence, and the genitive expresses
non-referentiality, indefiniteness or unknownness. Thus contexts are achieved
in which, with negation, it is one time the genitive is mandatory, and at
another the accusative (Paducheva 2006: 24-28, 41; Dalewska-Greń 1997: 436-437):
Оn ne chitaet gazet
he neg reads newspapers-gen
‘he (on principle) does not read any newspapers’ (here the genitive signifies a class) – but:
Оn ne chitaet gazetu
he neg read-3sg newspaper-acc-def
‘he is not reading the newspaper’ (the genitive here signifies a concrete object).
Or:
Polozhi soli ‘Put a
little salt’ (a certain quantity) – but:
put-imp-2sg salt-gen
Polozhi sol’ ‘Put salt!’ (an undefined quantity);
put-imp-2sg salt-acc
Koshka ne est
vetchiny
cat neg
eats ham-gen
‘The cat does not eat ham’ (never) –
Кoshka ne est vetchinu
cat neg
eats ham-acc
‘The cat is not eating or does not eat ham’ (now or ever);
Ne em vetchiny ‘I do not eat ham’ (at all) – but:
neg
eat-1sg ham-gen
Ne em vetchinu
neg eat-1sg ham-acc
‘Ham I do not eat’ (as
opposed to other kinds of food);
Ne l’ubl’u gromkoy muzyki
neg like-1sg loud-gen music-gen
‘I don’t like loud music’ – but:
Ne l’ubl’u sovremennuyu muzyku
neg like-1sg contemporary-acc music-acc
‘I don’t like contemporary music’ (as opposed to other kinds of music).
Negation in Japanese
Besides
the Slavic languages, other Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages in
Europe comply to the rule of the negative genitive – Lithuanian, Latvian, Gothic,
Estonian, Basque, etc. What is interesting, however, is that in Japanese,
distant from Europe, such a phenomenon can also be observed. According to
Kamiya (Kamiya 1988: 82, 87), in
negative sentences the accusative marker -о can be replaced with -wa, which
marks the topic (the theme or logical subject in asentence):
Hon-o yomimasu ‘I’m reading a book’ – but:
book-acc read-1sg
Zasshi-wa yomimasen
magazine-top
read-1sg-neg
‘I don’t read a magazine/magazines’;
or, again (TL 2002: Japanese):
Eigo-o hanasemasu-ka? ‘Do (you) speak
English?’ – against:
English-acc speak-?
Eigo-wa hanasemasen
‘(I) don’t speak English’.
English-top speak-neg
According
to Akiyama (Akiyama 2002: 42) the
marker -wa in such examples expresses a contrast – as in the Russian examples, mentioned above, with an alternation of
genitive and accusative:
Ne em vetchinu
neg eat-1sg ham-acc
‘Ham I do not eat (as opposed to other kinds of food)’ – against:
Ne em vetchiny ‘I do not eat ham at all’ and:
neg
eat-1sg ham-gen
Ne l’ubl’u sovremennuyu muzyku
neg like-1sg
contemporary-acc music-acc
‘I don’t like comntemporary music’ (as opposed to other kinds of music) – against:
Ne l’ubl’u gromkoy muzyki ‘I don’t like loud music’.
neg
like-1sg loud-gen music-gen
Akiyama (Akiyama 2002: 42) thinks that the contrast in Japanese is expressed
notwithstanding the presence or absence of negation:
’(I) eat
fish but I don’t eat meat’, literally: ’concerning
fish, I eat, but concernin meat, I don’t eat’
Sakana-wa tabemasu-ga, niku-wa tabemasen.
fish-top eat-but meat-top eat-neg
Akiyama
adds (ibid.) that the object
in respect of which a contrast is made may not be indicated but still the contrast is there (it‘s even
more important that the subject marker -ga here plays the role of the conjunction ‘but’ with
which a contrast is expressed, too):
Terebi-wa mimasen
TV-top watch-neg
‘(I) don’t watch TV (although (I) like doing something
else)’.
The topic
marker -wa (Kamiya 1988: 67) “is often used in negative sentences to oppose
positive to negative ideas”. The subject is
also prone to marking with -wa in
negation (Akiyama 2002: 43):
Tegami-ga kimashita ‘The letter has arrived’ – but:
letter-sub come-past
Tegami-wa kimasen deshita
letter-top
come-neg past
‘The letter hasn’t arrived’.
That can
also happen in constructions similar to the Polish one indicated (Tu nie ma okularów ‘The glasses
are not here’), where -wa replaces
the subject marker (Kamiya 1988: 67), similar to the genitive in Polish:
Haizara-ga arimasu ‘There are ashtrays’ – against:
ashtray(s)-sub are
Machi-wa arimasen
’Matches (however) there aren’t’.
match(es)-top be-neg
The Japanese -wa and -no
It’s clear
that in the Japanese examples the topic marker -wa appears as a counterpart to the Slavic genitive endings after a
negative verb. The striking similarity between the shown Russian (and Polish) examples on the one hand and the Japanese on
the other is supplemented with yet another peculiarity of the Japanese topic
marker -wa.
In single cases it may resemble, at least
apparently and in a definite context, the possessive function of the Japanese genitive. In Japanese, possession is
expressed by the genitive marker -no. So, from zō ’elephant’ there will be
zō-no hana ‘elephant’s
nose’ or ’the nose of the
elephant’.
But in the
next sentence (after Schmalstieg 1980: 166-167):
Zō-wa hana-ga nagai,
elephant-top nose-sub
long
which translates as ‘the elephant’s nose is long’ or ’the elephant has a long nose’ and actually literally means ‘concerning
the elephant, its nose is long’, as the author also points out, it’s hard to determine which is the
subject – zō-wa or hana-ga. Here the topic
marker -wa may be
perceived as a genitive case marker, too. In any
case, however, the sentence cited is semantically the same (at least in some
contexts) as a sentence with a genitive marker -no:
Zō-no hana-ga nagai.
elephant-gen
nose-sub long
More such examples (after KEJLPD 1996: 109, 110, 187):
Kare-wa
chooshi-ga ii
he-top
form-sub good
‘He is in a good form’ = His form is good (my note – I. I.);
Kono tegami-wa
hizuke-ga nai
this letter-top date-sub
is-neg
‘This
letter has no date’ = ‘This letter’s date is absent’ (my note – I. I.).
Replacing -wa with -ga
changes the meaning of the sentence
(Shibatani 2002:274, 293, 297):
Zoo-wa hana-ga nagai ’an/the elephant is such that its trunk is long’ – but:
Zoo-ga hana-ga nagai ’it is the elephant whose trunk is long’;
Kakehi sensei-wa hige-ga rippa da ’Prof. Kakehi is such that his beard is impressive’ –
but:
Kakehi sensei-ga hige-ga rippa da ’it is prof. Kakehi whose beard is impressive’.
The
Japanese subject marker -ga is sometimes used to indicate the direct
object after passive verbs (Akiyama 2002: 44-45) – probably a remainder from an old passive construction
of the sentence which can also be interpreted as a possessive construction in
which possession is again expressed with -wa, as in the cited
example ‘the elephant’s nose is long’:
Marī-san-wa, tenisu-ga jōzu desu
Mary-ms-top
tennis-sub good is
‘Mary is good at tennis’ = ‘Mary’s tennis is good’ (my note – I. I.).
In addition, in some cases the possessive meaning of -wa
is doubled by the possessive marker -no (Akiyama 2002: 42):
Asagohan-o tabeta-no-wa haji ji
deshita
breakfast-acc eating-gen-top
8 o’clock is-past
’the time (I) ate breakfast was 8 o’clock’/’breakfast-eating
(time) was at eight o’clock’.
Conclusion
I may say,
in conclusion, that the striking typlogical resemblance between Slavic and
Japanese, concerning negation, is hardly haphazard. It is probably a reflection
of ancient syntactical processes that have already faded off in contemporary
languages. That allows for the possibility for the initial semantics of the
negative Indo-European genitive to have been linked to the topic (regarding
Indo-European as a topic oriented language see Lehman 1976: 450; Schmalstieg
1980: 166-188), and later additional semantic variations arose, as in any
grammatical phenomenon. The same holds true for the Japanese morpheme -wa.
The
present paper aims at stating a supposition and not making categorical
inferences. Still, the material shown reasonably gives us food for thought and
the reason for further researching the matter.
Abbreviations
acc –
accusative;
def –
definite;
gen –
genitive;
imp –
imperative;
KEJLPD – The Kenkyusha English-Japanese Learner’s Pocket Dictionary;
neg –
negative;
nom –
nominative;
past –
past tense;
pl –
plural;
sg –
singular;
sub –
subject;
TL – Transparent Language;
top –
topic;
top – topic marker;
1 – first
person
2 – second
person;
3 – third
person;
4 –
interrogative.
Bibliography
Akiyama 2002: N. Akiyama, C. Akiyama. Japanese Grammar. Barron’s. China.
Dalewska-Greń 1997: H. Dalewska-Greń. Języki słowiańskie. Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Warszawa Feuillet2006: J. Feuillet. Introduction à la typologie linguistique. Honoré
Champion. Paris.
Kamiya
1988: T. Kamiya. Speak Japanese
Today. Tuttle Publishing. Tokyo, Rutland, Singapore.
Lehman
1976: W. Lehman. From Topic to Subject in Indo-European. In: Subject
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Moravcsik
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249-285.
Paducheva 2006: Paducheva, E. Genitiv dopolneniya v otricatelnom predlozhenii.
In: Voprosy yazykoznaniya. 6, p. 21-43.
Schmalstieg
1980: W.
Schmalstieg. Indo-European as a
Topic-prominent Language. In: W. Schmalstieg. Indo-European Linguistics. A New
Synthesis. Pennsylvania State University Press. Pennsylvania.
Shibatani
2002: M. Shibatani. The Languages of Japan: The
Ainu Language. The Japanese Language. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
KEJLPD
1996 : The Kenkyusha English-Japanese
Learner’s Pocket Dictionary (Editor: Sh. Takebayashi). Oxford University Press.
Tokyo.
TL 2002 : Transparent Language 2002: 101 Languages of the
World. Transparent Language, Inc.
*Ivan G. Iliev - PhD., Associate Professor, Plovdiv
University, Bulgaria e mail: ivan_iliev20002000@yahoo.com
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