The Preverbal Negation Particle esə in Kalmyk: Historical Development and Typological Context of Negators in Subordinate Clause

Abstract

The goal of this paper is a comprehensive description of the negation particle esǝ, which is the single preverbal indicative negator in Kalmyk, whereas other negation markers are placed after the verb. The particle esǝ is mainly used in subordinate clauses. Judging from corpus data, it also occurs with a small number of finite forms in emphatic contexts such as rhetorical questions. This paper provides an explanation for both of these facts based on historical and typological considerations. More specifically, it will examine the results of the development of the negation system on a synchronic level, focusing on spoken data and corpora. It will also contribute to a broader understanding of negation in subordinate clause. A typological overview of sources for different markers in dependent clause shows that the Kalmyk case is uncommon cross-linguistically. An additional factor that plays a role here is the dichotomy finiteness vs. non-finiteness/nominalization.