Chapter 100Copular Negation and Clause Endings

100.1 The copula within the predicate

A nominal predicate ordinarily contains the copula ne. The noun phrase supplies the identity or classification, and ne carries the subject's person form Nakagawa (2024: 132). Time, modality and the speaker's presentation of the statement can be expressed through further material. For example, Satō gives pe ne a p within a recollection of having seen someone only as a small child Satō (2008: 175–176).

Property predicates such as pirka ‘be good’ already behave as verbs; see Chapter 99 (Property Predicates). The constructions below concern nominal predication with a copula and the clause endings that can follow it. The competing analyses of time-marking a apply here too; its occurrence does not establish a separate nominal tense paradigm.

100.2 Negating nominal predication

Satō's Chitose description places ka somo before ne in a negative copular sentence Satō (2008: 22).

Satō says that ne ka somo ki hardly occurs, despite the copula's verbal status. His statement describes a strong distributional difference rather than an absolute impossibility. Nakagawa also gives a Chitose clause with menoko ka somo ne, in which a woman denies being from Chitose Nakagawa (2024: 256, example 323).

The negative meanings of isam ‘not exist’ and sak ‘lack’ belong to those lexical verbs Bugaeva (2012: 496). They concern existence and possession, respectively, and are treated in Chapter 97 (Existential and Locational Predicates) and Chapter 98 (Predicative Possession).

100.3 Evidential endings after ne

A clause with a nominal predicate can be followed by a formal-noun ending. Bugaeva gives the following example from Nakagawa's dictionary, retaining both a reportative and an assumptive interpretation Bugaeva (2016: 102).

Bugaeva reports Tamura's analysis of these endings as a nominalized clause followed by a copula, and proposes increasing grammaticalization toward a single complex predicate Bugaeva (2016: 102). These analyses assign different internal structures to the same sequence.

Question endings have their own distributions. Bugaeva contrasts this polar pattern with content questions ending in a formal noun plus an Bugaeva (2012: 497). Nakagawa documents additional regional forms and expanded endings Nakagawa (2024: 394–396).

100.4 Scope and order

The position of negation affects the interpretation. Nakagawa's ordinary negative statement negates the predicate before ruwe ne. His separate ruwe somo ne example has a rhetorical-confirmation reading, approximately ‘wasn't it the case that…’ Nakagawa (2024: 393, examples 779–780). A negative copula at the end therefore need not express simple denial of the preceding event.

The endings also constrain what can follow. Nakagawa records a and nankor after ruwe ne, while describing other following auxiliaries as rare Nakagawa (2024: 378). He accepts prospective kusu ne ruwe ne but rejects the reverse *ruwe ne kusu ne. He likewise rejects *pirka ruwe ne kewtum as a modifier of ‘heart, disposition’ Nakagawa (2024: 394). The distribution of a complete clause ending differs from that of an ordinary verb phrase.