Re: ni, jei, perfectionism

[Robin Turner <robin@BILKENT.EDU.TR>]

John Cowan wrote:
>Indeed.  I did an enquiry on Linguist List once to find out about this,
>specifically with regard to Y/N indirect questions.  IIRC, only
>Turkish was anomalous, using Chinese-style "V-not-V"
>questions in indirect form, but not in direct form.

Interesting. I'd be interested to know if there were any more "anomalous"
languages, though.  Turkish is indeed weird in this respect, using
repetition of the verb with two different participles e.g.

gel - ip   gel- me - diG -  i   -    ni    bil- mi-  yor -  um
come-PART. come-NEG.-PART.-3dP.SING-ACC.   know-NEG.-PROG.- 1stP.SING
"I don't know if he came."

Tourist brochures or teach-yourself books which say Turkish is easy to
learn because it is "so regular" are having you on! Mind you, I sometimes
get that feeling about Lojban, too ;-)


Robin Turner

Bilkent Universitesi,
IDMYO,
Ankara,
Turkey.

<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309>