THE RUSSIAN GENITIVE OF NEGATION AND ITS JAPANESE COUNTERPART | IVAN G. ILIEV | IJORS International Journal of Russian Studies

THE RUSSIAN GENITIVE OF NEGATION AND ITS JAPANESE COUNTERPART

IVAN G. ILIEV^*

Summary

The paper draws a parallel between the usage of the negative genitive in Russian, in which there is an exchange of the accusative form of a noun for a genitive one in negation, and a similar phenomenon in Japanese – the use of the topic marker -wa instead of the original accusative marker -o. Simultaneously, a use of the topic marker -wa is shown, in which case its function resembles that of the genitive marker -no.

Key Words: Russian language, Japanese language, genitive of negation, sentence topic.

The Slavic Genitive of Negation

There is a phenomenon in Slavic languages called negative genitive (genitive of negation). It is expressed in exchanging the accusative form of the direct object after a verb of negation for a genitive form or in exchanging the subject’s nominative form again for a genitive form. In Polish, the exchange is mandatory, in Old Bulgarian, as in Russian, it is frequent, and in Czech and Serbo-Croatian it only exists in literary language, and in definite conditions at that (Feuillet 2006: 558; Dalewska-Greń 1997: 439). Examples from Polish (Moravcsik 1978: 264; Dalewska-Greń 1997: 436):

Mam czas ‘I have time’ – as against:

have-1sgtime-acc

Nie mam czasu ‘I don’t have time’;

neg have-1sgtime-gen

Widziałeś wczoraj Ewę?

see-2sg-past yesterday Eve-acc

‘Did you see Eve yesterday?’– as against:

Nie widziałem wczoraj Ewy ‘I didn’t see Eve yesterday’;

negsee-1sg-pastyesterdayEve-gen

Tu są okulary ‘The glasses are here’ – as against:

hereare-3plglasses-nom

Tuniemaokularów‘The glasses are not here’.

herehave-neg-3sg glasses-gen

Of the subject genitive in Russian, the most general idea is this one – the accusative marks definiteness, a concrete refrence, and the genitive expresses non-referentiality, indefiniteness or unknownness. Thus contexts are achieved in which, with negation, it is one time the genitive is mandatory, and at another the accusative (Paducheva 2006: 24-28, 41; Dalewska-Greń 1997: 436-437):

Оn ne chitaet gazet

heneg readsnewspapers-gen

‘he (on principle) does not read any newspapers’ (here the genitive signifies a class) – but:

Оn ne chitaet gazetu

henegread-3sg newspaper-acc-def

‘he is not reading the newspaper’ (the genitive here signifies a concrete object).

Or:

Polozhisoli‘Put a little salt’(a certain quantity) – but:

put-imp-2sg salt-gen

Polozhisol’‘Put salt!’ (an undefined quantity);

put-imp-2sg salt-acc

Koshka neest vetchiny

catneg eatsham-gen

‘The cat does not eat ham’ (never) –

Кoshka ne est vetchinu

cat neg eatsham-acc

‘The cat is not eating or does not eat ham’ (now or ever);

Ne em vetchiny ‘I do not eat ham’ (at all) – but:

neg eat-1sg ham-gen

Ne em vetchinu

negeat-1sg ham-acc

‘Ham I do not eat’ (as opposed to other kinds of food);

Ne l’ubl’u gromkoy muzyki

neglike-1sg loud-genmusic-gen

‘I don’t like loud music’ – but:

Ne l’ubl’u sovremennuyumuzyku

neg like-1sg contemporary-acc music-acc

‘I don’t like contemporary music’(as opposed to other kinds of music).

Negation in Japanese

Besides the Slavic languages, other Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages in Europe comply to the rule of the negative genitive – Lithuanian, Latvian, Gothic, Estonian, Basque, etc.What is interesting, however, is that in Japanese, distant from Europe, such a phenomenon can also be observed. According to Kamiya (Kamiya 1988: 82, 87), in negative sentencesthe accusative marker -о can be replaced with -wa, which marks the topic (the theme or logical subject in asentence):

Hon-o yomimasu ‘I’m reading a book’ – but:

book-accread-1sg

Zasshi-wa yomimasen

magazine-topread-1sg-neg

‘I don’t read a magazine/magazines’;

or, again (TL 2002:Japanese):

Eigo-o hanasemasu-ka? ‘Do (you) speak English?’ – against:

English-acc speak-?

Eigo-wa hanasemasen ‘(I) don’t speak English’.

English-topspeak-neg

According to Akiyama (Akiyama 2002: 42) the marker -wa in such examples expresses a contrast – as in the Russian examples, mentioned above, with an alternation of genitive and accusative:

Ne em vetchinu

neg eat-1sg ham-acc

‘Ham I do not eat (as opposed to other kinds of food)’ – against:

Ne em vetchiny ‘I do not eat ham at all’ and:

neg eat-1sg ham-gen

Nel’ubl’u sovremennuyu muzyku

neglike-1sg contemporary-acc music-acc

‘I don’t like comntemporary music’ (as opposed to other kinds of music) – against:

Ne l’ubl’u gromkoy muzyki ‘I don’t like loud music’.

neg like-1sg loud-genmusic-gen

Akiyama(Akiyama 2002: 42) thinks that the contrast in Japanese is expressed notwithstanding the presence or absence of negation:

’(I) eat fish but I don’t eat meat’, literally: ’concerning fish, I eat, but concernin meat, I don’t eat’

Sakana-wa tabemasu-ga,niku-wa tabemasen.

fish-topeat-butmeat-topeat-neg

Akiyama adds (ibid.) that theobject in respect of which a contrastismademay not be indicated butstill the contrastisthere (it‘s even more important that the subject marker -ga here plays the role of the conjunction ‘but’ with which a contrast is expressed, too):

Terebi-wa mimasen

TV-topwatch-neg

‘(I) don’t watch TV (although (I) like doing something else)’.

The topic marker -wa (Kamiya 1988: 67) "is often used in negative sentences to oppose positive to negative ideas". The subject is also prone to marking with -wa in negation (Akiyama 2002: 43):

Tegami-ga kimashita ‘The letter has arrived’ – but:

letter-subcome-past

Tegami-wakimasen deshita

letter-topcome-neg past

‘The letter hasn’t arrived’.

That can also happen in constructions similar to the Polish one indicated (Tuniemaokularów‘The glasses are not here’), where-wa replaces the subject marker (Kamiya 1988: 67), similar to the genitive in Polish:

Haizara-ga arimasu ‘There are ashtrays’ – against:

ashtray(s)-subare

Machi-wa arimasen ’Matches (however) there aren’t’.

match(es)-top be-neg

The Japanese -wa and -no

It’s clear that in the Japanese examples the topic marker -waappears as a counterpart to the Slavic genitive endings after a negative verb. The striking similarity between the shown Russian (and Polish) examples on the one hand and the Japanese on the other is supplemented with yet another peculiarity of the Japanese topic marker -wa. In single cases it may resemble, at least apparently and in a definite context, the possessive function of the Japanese genitive. In Japanese, possession is expressed by the genitive marker -no. So, from zō ’elephant’ there will be

zō-no hana ‘elephant’s nose’ or ’the nose of the elephant’.

But in the next sentence (after Schmalstieg 1980: 166-167):

Zō-wa hana-ga nagai,

elephant-topnose-sublong

which translates as ‘the elephant’s nose is long’ or ’the elephant has a long nose’ and actuallyliterallymeans‘concerning the elephant, its nose is long’,as the author also points out, it’s hard to determine which is the subject – zō-wa or hana-ga. Here the topic marker -wa may be perceived as a genitive case marker, too. In any case, however, the sentence cited is semantically the same (at least in some contexts) as a sentence with a genitive marker -no:

Zō-nohana-ganagai.

elephant-gennose-sub long

More such examples (after KEJLPD 1996: 109, 110, 187):

Kare-wa chooshi-ga ii

he-topform-subgood

‘He is in a good form’ = His form is good (my note – I. I.);

Kono tegami-wa hizuke-ga nai

thisletter-topdate-subis-neg

‘This letter has no date’ = ‘This letter’s date is absent’ (my note – I. I.).

Replacing -wa with -ga changes the meaning of the sentence(Shibatani 2002:274, 293, 297):

Zoo-wa hana-ga nagai ’an/the elephant is such that its trunk is long’ – but:

Zoo-ga hana-ga nagai ’it is the elephant whose trunk is long’;

Kakehi sensei-wa hige-ga rippa da ’Prof. Kakehi is such that his beard is impressive’ – but:

Kakehi sensei-ga hige-ga rippa da ’it is prof. Kakehi whose beard is impressive’.

The Japanese subject marker -ga is sometimes used to indicate the direct object after passive verbs (Akiyama 2002: 44-45) – probably a remainder from an old passive construction of the sentence which can also be interpreted as a possessive construction in which possession is again expressed with -wa, as in the cited example ‘the elephant’s nose is long’:

Marī-san-wa, tenisu-gajōzu desu

Mary-ms-toptennis-sub good is

‘Mary is good at tennis’ =‘Mary’s tennis is good’ (my note – I. I.).

In addition, in some cases the possessive meaning of -wa is doubled by the possessive marker -no (Akiyama 2002: 42):

Asagohan-o tabeta-no-wa haji ji deshita

breakfast-acc eating-gen-top8o’clockis-past

’the time (I) ate breakfast was 8 o’clock’/’breakfast-eating (time) was at eight o’clock’.

Conclusion

I may say, in conclusion, that the striking typlogical resemblance between Slavic and Japanese, concerning negation, is hardly haphazard. It is probably a reflection of ancient syntactical processes that have already faded off in contemporary languages. That allows for the possibility for the initial semantics of the negative Indo-European genitive to have been linked to the topic (regarding Indo-European as a topic oriented language see Lehman 1976: 450; Schmalstieg 1980: 166-188), and later additional semantic variations arose, as in any grammatical phenomenon. The same holds true for the Japanese morpheme -wa.

The present paper aims at stating a supposition and not making categorical inferences. Still, the material shown reasonably gives us food for thought and the reason for further researching the matter.

Abbreviations

acc – accusative;

def – definite;

gen – genitive;

imp – imperative;

KEJLPD – The Kenkyusha English-Japanese Learner’s Pocket Dictionary;

neg – negative;

nom – nominative;

past – past tense;

pl – plural;

sg – singular;

sub – subject;

TL – TransparentLanguage;

top – topic;

top – topicmarker;

1 – first person

2 – second person;

3 – third person;

4 – interrogative.

Bibliography

Akiyama 2002: N. Akiyama, C. Akiyama. JapaneseGrammar. Barron’s. China.

Dalewska-Greń 1997: H. Dalewska-Greń. Językisłowiańskie. WydawnictwoNaukowePWN. Warszawa Feuillet2006: J. Feuillet. Introduction à la typologie linguistique. Honoré Champion. Paris.

Kamiya 1988: T. Kamiya. Speak Japanese Today. Tuttle Publishing. Tokyo, Rutland, Singapore.

Lehman 1976: W. Lehman. From Topic to Subject in Indo-European. In: Subject and Topic (Editor: Charles Li). Academic Press. New York, San Francisco, London, p. 447-456.

Moravcsik 1978: E. Moravcsik. On the Case Marking of Objects. In: Universals of Human Language. 4. Syntax. Stanford, p. 249-285.

Paducheva 2006: Paducheva, E. Genitiv dopolneniya v otricatelnom predlozhenii. In: Voprosy yazykoznaniya. 6, p. 21-43.

Schmalstieg 1980: W. Schmalstieg. Indo-European as a Topic-prominent Language. In: W. Schmalstieg. Indo-European Linguistics. A New Synthesis. Pennsylvania State University Press. Pennsylvania.

Shibatani 2002: M. Shibatani. The Languages of Japan: The Ainu Language. The Japanese Language. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

KEJLPD 1996 : The Kenkyusha English-Japanese Learner’s Pocket Dictionary (Editor: Sh. Takebayashi). Oxford University Press. Tokyo.

TL 2002 : Transparent Language 2002: 101 Languages of the World. Transparent Language, Inc.