Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/58322

In Sakha, negation is denoted by the presence of the negative suffix, which appears nearest to the stem among inflectional suffixes. Almost all verbal forms (including finite forms, verbal nouns, and converbs) can take the negative suffix. That is, Sakha is highly symmetric in terms of the polarity. This paper first shows that Sakha allows productive derivation from negative verbs, i.e., derivation including the negative suffix. There are three dervational suffixes that can follow the negaive suffix: adverbializing, proprietive, and similative suffixes. In derivation from negative verbs, the negative suffix not only conveys a negative meaning, but also functions as complete nagation along with a negative pronoun. In other words, though the negative suffix is morphologically a part of the derivational base, it still has a syntactic power to form complete negation. This morpho-syntactic mismatch is idiosyncratic to Sakha, considering that such type of derivation is impossible in Tyvan, another Turkic language spoken in Siberia.