Negation in Mu-nya

Abstract

The Mu-nya language belongs to the Qiangic branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family and is spoken by Tibetans living around Mt. Minya Konka in Sichuan, southwest China. The general expression for ‘not be’ by the speaker’s recognition, such as ‘A is not B’, is expressed as A B /ȵɯ³³- ŋɐ⁵⁵(ti³³)/ in Mu-nya. /ŋɐ⁵⁵/ is a declarative, a part of speech, which expresses a statement with certainty, while /ti³³/ is another declarative that conveys a statement with confirmation. These two declaratives are often used in combination, and the negator /ȵɯ³³-/ precedes them. Huang (1991) revealed that Mu-nya has three kinds of negative prefixes: /ȵɯ³³-/ is the general negator and is also used in the verb predicate under the imperfect aspect; /mɐ³³-/ is used under the perfect aspect; and /tɕɯ³³-/ is used for prohibitive statements. Apart from Huang’s simple observation, Mu-nya has complex negative expressions that have not been reported in detail thus far. This study analyzes the basic functions and grammatical behavior of negators in Mu-nya concerning evidentiality, focusing on negating target items such as the verb, the suffix (=aspect), or the declarative (=evidential) in verb predicates. From my perspective, the negator /ȵɯ³³-/ does not negate the verb stem directly (except for stative verbs), and mainly appears preceding the position of declaratives, or often precedes the imperfect verb suffix /-po³³/ to negate it directly. In contrast, the negator /mɐ³³-/ appears at the preceding position of an active verb stem under the perfect aspect, or often negates the perfect verb suffix /-sɯ³³/ directly. In addition, I will introduce some dialectal varieties corresponding to the general negative expression /ȵɯ³³- ŋɐ⁵⁵(ti³³)/ ‘not be’ in Mu-nya.