Chapter 100TAM, Evidentiality, and Negation on Nonverbal Predicates

100.1 Overview

All three non-dynamic predicate types that occupy the predicate slot in a Hokkaido Ainu simple clause — the copula ne, the existential an (sg) / oka(y) (pl), and property-concept verbs — are verbs, and TAM and negation attach to them through the same clausal mechanisms that operate on action verbs Nakagawa (2024: 132, 359–361); Satō (2008: 20–22). The full TAM and aspect system is described in Chapter 108 (Tense, Aspect, Mood, and Modality: Overview); the evidential formal-noun frame in Chapter 120 (The Nominalization-plus-Copula Evidential Schema); the person-marking that each predicate type takes in Chapter 62 (Architecture of the Personal-Affix System: The Four Persons and the S/A/O Paradigms). This chapter maps the interface: where each predicate type departs from the verbal default in its negation strategy, how the perfect auxiliary a attaches, how the inchoative reading arises without any dedicated morphology, and how the ne / an alternation at the clause edge encodes illocutionary force on non-dynamic predicates.

The three predicate types diverge most sharply in their negation strategies. The copula ne has a dedicated frame, X ka somo ne, that inserts the focus particle ka and the negator somo between the predicate complement and the copula. The existential draws on the suppletive lexical negative isam. Property-concept verbs, being ordinary intransitive stative verbs, take the standard clausal negation described in Chapter 126 (Standard Clausal Negation with somo). Possessive kor ‘have’ similarly has the suppletive negative sak ‘lack’; that construction is treated in Chapter 98 (Predicative Possession: kor, Existential Possession, and isam).

Typologically, the distribution maps onto the hierarchy of non-dynamic predication that (Stassen 1997) identifies: equative/classificatory (copula ne), locational/existential (an/oka(y)), and attributive (property verbs) each carry a distinct negation exponent. The recourse to dedicated negative lexemes for the existential and possessive types, alongside a frame strategy for the copula, is consistent with the cross-linguistic pattern whereby existential and possessive predicates frequently recruit non-standard negation (Miestamo 2005) ‹consensus›.

100.2 Negation of copular predicates: the ka somo ne frame

The standard negation of a predicate-nominal clause is X ka somo ne, where the focus particle ka 'even/also' and the negator somo insert between the complement nominal and the copula Satō (2008: 22); Nakagawa (2024: 407):

The alternative frame *ne ka somo ki — negating ne via the standard verbal pattern V ka somo ki — is ungrammatical Satō (2008: 22); Nakagawa (2024: 407). Both Satō and Nakagawa treat this as the defining idiosyncrasy that sets the copula apart from ordinary verbs: its negation is expressed by modifying the complement position, not by post-verbal negation of the verb itself. In the affirmative, the copula takes the transitive-subject person set — okkayo ku=ne 'I am a man' — because it is analysed as a 2-place verb with a nominal complement Nakagawa (2024: 132); Refsing (1986: 145). In the ka somo ne frame, the copula frequently carries no overt subject affix; this person-marking loss in the negated copular frame is noted but not explained by any read primary source ‹speculative› (nukopoli, aynu-corpora Discord 2023; aynu-corpora Discord (2023–2026)). The observation is consistent with the third-person zero realisation that ne shows in affirmative clauses with 3rd-person subjects, but its extension to other persons in the negative frame is a genuine micro-gap. Person marking on the copula is set out in Chapter 62 (Architecture of the Personal-Affix System: The Four Persons and the S/A/O Paradigms) and Chapter 96 (The Copula ne and Predicate-Nominal Clauses).

Separate from inner-scope ka somo ne, the construction ruwe somo ne is an outer rhetorical frame in which somo ne scopes over the evidential formal noun ruwe rather than over the complement of the copula; it is treated in Chapter 121 (ruwe ne — the Inferential / Visual-Trace Evidential).

100.3 TAM on copular predicates: the perfect and the ne/an clause-edge alternation

The perfect/perfective auxiliary a attaches to the copula in the same position as to any verb — after the finite verb and before any following formal-noun evidential tail — and yields a completed or previously-true copular state:

All three non-dynamic predicate types share a static ⇄ inchoative duality that is read off context without dedicated morphology: ne covers both 'be X' and 'become X', an/oka(y) both 'exist' and 'appear/come into being', and property verbs both 'be big' and 'grow big' Nakagawa (2024: 118–119); Shibatani (1990: 19); Nakagawa (2022: 477). The sequence [complement] ne + existential an /oka=an makes the inchoative reading salient — a community member notes that ~ne an corresponds to Japanese 〜になる 'become', while ~ne kor is not idiomatic ‹contested› (thegodofneet, aynu-corpora Discord 2024; aynu-corpora Discord (2023–2026)). This is consistent with the general dynamic reading that an lends to a preceding predicate in the aspect periphrasis (cf. V wa an resultative); the aspect-auxiliary use of the existential is treated in Chapter 110 (The Existential-Aspect System: kor an Progressive and wa an Resultative-Perfect).

The ne / an alternation at the right clause edge is grammaticalized into an illocutionary distinction. With the formal-noun evidential frame, the copula ne closes the declarative and the existential an closes the content question, while the bare formal noun marks polar questions and exclamations Nakagawa (2024: 392–396, §11.2.1–11.2.4). The pattern holds identically for non-dynamic predicates and verbal predicates:

The ordering constraint confirms the clause's layered structure: the formal noun and its predicate sit outside inner-clause TAM material. The form kusu ne ruwe ne 'because (it is a fact that)' is well-formed, but *ruwe ne kusu ne is not, because a further ne-predication cannot embed over an already-closed evidential Nakagawa (2024: 393) — confirmed against the primary source by a community member (nukopoli, aynu-corpora Discord 2024; aynu-corpora Discord (2023–2026)). The possessed form morphology of the formal nouns (ru-we, haw-e, sir-i, hum-i) and the full evidential paradigm are treated in Chapter 120 (The Nominalization-plus-Copula Evidential Schema) and Chapter 121 (ruwe ne — the Inferential / Visual-Trace Evidential); the interrogative system is treated in Chapter 144 (Interrogative Strategies, Question Particles, and Evidential Questions).

100.4 The existential an/oka(y) and its suppletive negative isam

The existential an (sg) and oka(y) (pl) do not take the somo frame as their primary negation. The lexical verb isam ‘not exist, be absent’ is the suppletive negative partner of the existential pair Nakagawa (2024: 450); Bugaeva (2012: 496). The three-way suppletion:

isam is an intransitive verb that takes person affixes normally: e=isam 'you are gone/absent'. Historical depth confirms its stability: the form isam 'ない' is attested in the 1630 Matsumae no koto wordlist, making the negative existential one of the oldest recorded Ainu predicate forms. The etymological decomposition of isam as i- (antipassive) + root *sam is ‹speculative› and is proposed independently by (Dal Corso 2025: 41–42) and by Ijäs (2023) (lesson 9); see Chapter 127 (Negative Existential and Possessive: isam) for fuller discussion. The somo an construction is available as an alternative where a denial reading is required rather than the lexical 'absence' meaning:

The existential negative also feeds the aspect system. V wa isam expresses that a state of affairs has become absent as the result of the preceding event — roughly equivalent to Japanese 〜てしまう 'V and it's gone' Nakagawa (2024: 452, §15.2.1). This mirrors the resultative V wa an (〜ている), in which the existential carries the positive persistent state. Both the aspect periphrasis and the number suppletion of an/oka(y) are treated in Chapter 110 (The Existential-Aspect System: kor an Progressive and wa an Resultative-Perfect); the full locational and existential semantics in Chapter 97 (Existential and Locational Clauses (an / oka)).

100.5 Property-concept predicates: standard clausal negation

Property-concept verbs (pirka ‘be good’, poro ‘be big’, wen ‘be bad’, pon ‘be small’, hure ‘be red’ and their class) are intransitive stative verbs and take the standard negation that any intransitive verb takes: pre-verbal somo V, or the post-verbal frame V ka somo ki Nakagawa (2024: 127):

The divergence between property-verb negation (somo V / V ka somo ki) and copula negation (X ka somo ne) is the direct morphosyntactic reflex of the difference in predicate class: the copula is a special 2-place verb with an idiosyncratic negation frame, while property verbs are ordinary intransitives Nakagawa (2024: 118, 407); Nakagawa (2022: 474–475). The error of inserting the copula after a property word — *pirka ne 'be-good COP' — is flagged by Nakagawa as the characteristic learner mistake, and its ungrammaticality confirms that the ka somo ne frame is copula-specific and does not extend to the property-verb predicate type Nakagawa (2024: 119). The word-class argument for property verbs as intransitive verbs is made in Chapter 37 (The 'No Adjective Class' Thesis: Property Concepts as Stative Verbs).

100.6 Scope of negation within the evidential frame

When a non-dynamic predicate is closed by the formal-noun evidential frame, negation sits inside the evidential: the predicate is negated before the formal noun, and the ruwe ne (or other formal-noun + copula) remains outside the scope of negation, predicating the negated content as recognised fact.

For copular predicates under ruwe ne, the expected sequence is [complement] ka somo ne ruwe ne: the ka somo ne frame negates the copular predication, and the evidential closes over it. The layering is confirmed by the same ordering constraint noted above: kusu ne ruwe ne is licit because kusu ne is inner-clause intentional material, but *ruwe ne kusu ne is not, because the evidential cannot be embedded under a further copular predication Nakagawa (2024: 393). The interaction of negation and polarity items within the evidential scope is treated in Chapter 129 (Negative-Polarity Indefinites and the Scope of Negation); the structure of the evidential frame in Chapter 121 (ruwe ne — the Inferential / Visual-Trace Evidential).