A Reader in Sociophonetics

The Sociophonetics of Prosodic Contours on NEG 151

“Not-negation.” Because it is (by far) the most common form, only full or
contracted Not- negation in full declarative sentences are analyzed here. (The
reasons for limiting the analysis in this way are discussed in greater detail in
Ya e g e r- D r o r et al. 2002.) It is also true that the full form of not-negation and
af¿ xal negative forms are more frequent in writing and in informative inter-
actions, so by only considering the most reducible form of negation, we are
actually minimizing the degree to which situation inÀ uences the likelihood
of NEG prominence. In the present study, then, the only morphological coding
included is the distinction between contracted and full NEG, while the rarer
negation types will not be analyzed.

Table 5.4e Morphology

CODE TOTTIE’S TERMINOLOGY EXAMPLES SAMPLE SENTENCES

F*not-negation [NEG] is not, It is not really possible.

C*not-negation [NEG] isn’t, ‘s not It isn’t really possible.

— No-negation nowhere, never, nothing, I never did that!

—Af¿ xal negation imperfect, irrespective,

nonstop

I am incapable...

— Conjunctive negationbut, however, in contrast, But I talk a good game.

To t t ie (19 91) fo u n d not-negation to be the dominant form of negation in Eng-
lish. In this study, only Full and Contracted not-negatives in declarative sen-
tences are coded for English; the other forms of negation are not.
Japanese: The morphology of Japanese NEG is more complicated than that
for English or Spanish: The present study focuses only on the most common
type, nai negation, with all the four subtypes of conjugations (following verbals,
nominals, adjectives, and adjectival nouns) included, as found in Table 5.4j.
Negation involving nai is realized in two morphological structures: nai is
cliticized to the verb as an auxiliary verb (e.g., hanasu “speak” /hanasa-nai
“do not speak”; iku “go” /ika-nai “do not go”), or it is realized as an indepen-
dent adjective preceded by nominals (e.g., suru koto ga nai “(I) do not have
anything to do.”), adjectives (e.g., oishiku wa nai “(It) is not delicious.”) or
adjectival nouns (e.g., kirei de wa nai “(It) is not pretty.”) It can be assumed
that the morphologically independent use of nai should be perceptually more
salient than when it is cliticized. As in English, the clitic-NEG is much more
common: 74% of the tokens are “auxiliary-nai” in conversation. Moreover,
just as in English, the other forms of negation become more common in pre-
planned-broadcast statements, the percentage rising from 26% in conversa-
tion to 37% in newscasts.