10.6092/issn.2785-0943/13883
This paper aims to advance the general understanding of negative concord (as in English We don’t need no education) and connective negation (as in English neither … nor’) through an analysis of Persian. For negative concord with indefinites the analysis highlights differences between human vs. non-human and pronominal vs. nominal negative concord. It also deals with the problem that hič, the word that arguably marks negation in negative indefinites, also has a non-negative emphatic meaning in questions. For the relation between negative concord and connective negation the paper suggests the importance of two new parameters: (i) are the connective negator and the normal clausal negator similar? and (ii) can one of two negatively connected phrases precede the verb and the other follow it?
 
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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads
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Extending the typology: negative concord and connective negation in Persian
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Yousef, Saheed (with the assistance of Hayede Torabi). 2018. <em>Persian. A comprehensive grammar</em>. London: Routledge.
Extending the typology: negative concord and connective negation in Persian
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            Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36   ISSN 2785-0943



 Extending the typology: negative concord and connective
                                 negation in Persian

                  JOHAN VAN DER AUWERA1, SEPIDEH KOOHKAN2
                   1
                       UNIVERSITY OF ANTWERP, 2TARBIAT MODARES UNIVERSITY




                  Submitted: 26/11/2021         Revised version: 9/02/2021
                        Accepted: 14/02/2021 Published: 14/04/2022



                                             Abstract
This paper aims to advance the general understanding of negative concord (as in English We
don’t need no education) and connective negation (as in English neither … nor’) through an
analysis of Persian. For negative concord with indefinites the analysis highlights differences
between human vs. non-human and pronominal vs. nominal negative concord. It also deals
with the problem that hič, the word that arguably marks negation in negative indefinites, also
has a non-negative emphatic meaning in questions. For the relation between negative concord
and connective negation the paper suggests the importance of two new parameters: (i) are
the connective negator and the normal clausal negator similar? and (ii) can one of two
negatively connected phrases precede the verb and the other follow it?


Keywords: negative concord; connective negation; negative indefiniteness; negative
polarity; emphasis




1. Introduction


In this paper we intend to increase our understanding of negative concord and of its
relation to connective negation through the lens of Persian. So we study how Persian
expresses what corresponds to English nobody and the like and we focus on whether
Persian has structures like substandard English we don’t need no education. This clause
contains two negative markers, viz. don’t and no education and one takes them to agree
with each other or ‘to be in concord’. Languages can have obligatory negative
concord, nowadays called ‘strict’, or not obligatory or ‘non-strict’ negative concord.


https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2785-0943/13883                                                1
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                            Extending the typology


Persian is interesting for three reasons: (i) Persian has non-strict negative concord,
but it is of a special kind, (ii) the strategies that Persian uses for nobody, nothing and
no education are not identical, (iii) the marker that turns the indefinite into a negative
indefinite has a non-negative emphatic use in questions. We also investigate how
Persian connective negation, our term for ‘neither … nor’ structures, relates to
negative concord.
     The Persian examples are transliterated with the system described on
http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_fa.htm. We use the same system in the references,
except for the names of authors, where we keep the spelling that the authors
themselves        use.    For    glossing    we     rely    on     the   Leipzig    Glossing      Rules
(https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php). For the sake of
uniformity, we ‘retransliterate’ and ‘regloss’ examples from the literature according
to the said systems. In one example from earlier Persian we use ‘New Persian’ for the
language from 700 onwards, with first ‘Early New Persian’ and then ‘Classical Persian’
(Windfuhr 2009: 9; Windfuhr & Perry 2009: 533). ‘New Persian’ follows ‘Middle
Persian’. By itself, ‘Persian’ stands for the contemporary language, also known as
‘Farsi’, as spoken in Iran. The language has various dialects, e.g. Isfahani, Mashhadi,
Shirazi, Yazdi, Qazvini, Tehrani, etc. The dialect that we discuss is dominant in the
national media, which is very close to the dialect spoken in Tehran and which is the
native variant of one of the authors. All our contemporary examples are in the
informal (spoken) register.


2. Negative indefiniteness


2.1. ‘Nobody’


How does one express negative indefiniteness in Persian? The matter is complex. (1)
sketches at least the four main strategies to express what corresponds to English
nobody.1




1
    In (1) the negative indefinite is subject. The syntactic function is not relevant: when the negative
indefinite is object, for instance, we find the same four strategies.




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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


(1)       a. hič-kas                             zang     na-zad-Ø.
                 NIND-HUM.SG                     ring     NEG-hit.PST-3SG



          b. hič-kas-i
                 NIND- HUM.SG-IND



          c.     hič-ki
                 NIND- INT.HUM.SG



          d. kas-i
                 HUM.SG-IND

                 ‘Nobody called.’


The strategies in (1a) and (1d) are mentioned by Haspelmath (1997: 282-283) and
Rasekh-Mahand (2015: 209). Haspelmath also includes (1b) and he adds that the
pattern in (1d) can be preceded by yek ‘one’. Yek-i may also occur on its own.


(2)      a. ye         kas-i           n-ist-Ø az        in        be-pors-e
               one     HUM.SG-IND      NEG-be-3SG        from PROX SBJV-ask.PRS-3SG
               dār-i             či-kār             mi-kon-i!
               have.PRS-2SG      INT.NHUM-task      IPFV-do.PRS-2SG

               ‘There isn’t anybody to ask him what you are doing.’


         b. yek-i=o              na-did-am          ke        az     in    xoš=eš
               one-IND=ACC       NEG-see.PST-1SG REL          from PROX like=3SG
               bi-yā-d.
               SBJV-come.PRS-3SG

               ‘I didn’t see somebody who likes him.’


The use of yek demands more research: we assume that the above constructions make
the indefinite outscope negation, conveying that ‘somebody to ask him what you are
doing was not there’ in (2a) and ‘somebody who likes him was not seen’ in (2b).
      In the strategies in (1) we see two morphemes that diachronically relate to the
numeral ‘one’. The -i suffix derives from aiva ‘one’ (Briceño Villalobos 2019: 131) and
it now functions as a marker of indefiniteness. Hič derives from aiva ‘one’, too, with


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Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                              Extending the typology


aiva followed by a free choice marker *-cid, which originally was an additive and/or
scalar marker ‘also, even’ (Briceño Villalobos 2019: 133). The current status of hič is
controversial. We consider its appearance in (1) to mark negative indefiniteness,
glossed as ‘NIND’, but the matter is complex and will be dealt in some detail in section
2.4. In (1c) we see -ki. We hypothesize that -ki is the interrogative human pronoun ki
‘who’, pace Mahootian & Gebhardt (1997: 211), who derive it from kas. We posit that
hič-ki, a relatively new and informal construction, is built on the crosslinguistic
frequent pattern of an indefinite formation with an interrogative pronoun
(Haspelmath 1997: 26-27, 170-176; Van Alsenoy 2014: 26-27) with, in this case, the
form hič, which serves negative indefiniteness, as it does with -kas and -kas-i in (1a)
and (1b). The fourth morpheme we see in the indefinites in (1) is kas. This is
historically an indefinite pronoun, ultimately based on an interrogative stem. At least
since Middle Persian (Juan Briceño Villalobos, p.c.) kas is a hybrid form, advancing
towards noun status on a degrammaticalization path (cf. Willis 2007; Norde 2009:
143-145). The progression is rather strong: at least for the contemporary language
Lambton (1957: 33), Lazard (1992: 124), Haspelmath (1997: 283) and Yousef (2018:
71) all simply consider it to be a noun. It is not quite a normal noun yet, though. It
cannot function in a sentence like (3).


(3)   ye     *kas=e        / ādam=e         jālebi=o           did-am.
      one    HUM.SG=EZ        human=EZ interesting=ACC         see.PST-1SG
      ‘I saw an interesting person’.


Also, when we compare the expression of indefiniteness of kas with that of ‘normal’
nouns (in Table 1 below), we will see that kas does not behave like a normal noun.
The intermediate pronoun – noun status of kas is reflected in the Boyle (1966)
grammar. In the section on indefinite pronouns (Boyle 1966: 25) kas is first glossed
as ‘someone’, but then Boyle goes on to call it a ‘noun’, but one that can ‘serve as a
pronoun’. The treatment in Mace (2003: 74) is similar: kasi is mentioned in the section
of pronouns, but not as a pronoun but as an ‘indefinite noun’. Cross-linguistically, the
distinction between generic nouns and indefinite pronouns meaning ‘somebody’ or
‘something’ is often not a sharp one (see e.g. van der Auwera & Krasnoukhova 2021),
to the extent even that Haspelmath (2005) includes both nominal and pronominal
counterparts to e.g. somebody as ‘indefinite pronouns’. In this paper we steer clear of
this issue and gloss kas as ‘human, singular’ (‘HUM.SG’). It is clear, however, that kas


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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


is not indefinite by itself. In examples (1a), (1b) and (1d) it is made indefinite by
either hič- or -i or by both.


(4)      *kas           zang   na-zad-Ø.
         HUM.SG         ring   NEG-hit.PST-3SG

         ‘Nobody called.’


2.2. ‘Nothing’


In (5) we show how Persian expresses what corresponds to English nothing.


(5)       a.    hič-či                           na-goft-Ø.
                NIND-?                           NEG-say.PST-3SG

          b. hič-čiz-i
                NIND-NHUM.SG-IND

          c.    čiz-i
                NHUM.SG-IND

                ‘He said nothing.’


The strategy in (5c) is listed by both Haspelmath (1997: 282-283) and Rasekh-
Mahand 2015: 209) and the former also lists the one in (5b). Enriching or replacing
the indefinite forms with yek seems possible under the same circumstances as for
‘nobody’ – see (2). Like for humans, we see an old interrogative stem turning into a
noun (Boyle 1966: 25; Lazard 1992: 124). Neither Haspelmath (1997: 282-283) nor
Rasekh-Mahand (2015: 209) list the form hič-či of (5a), but instead mention a hič-čiz
form, which is not used in the variety we deal with. One could propose that hič-či is
a short form of hič-čiz, but hič-či could also be a short form of hič-čiz-i. Hič-či could
furthermore derive from hič-če, in which če is a non-human interrogative, and under
this analysis hič-či is a counterpart of hički shown in (1c).
      Interestingly, Boyle (1966: 25), Lazard (1992: 125) and Yousef (2018: 75) all
mention a bare hič strategy. This is not accepted in the variety that we study, except
in set phrases like be hič ‘for nothing’ or hič šodan ‘be destroyed’ (lit. ‘nothing
become’).




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Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                   Extending the typology


(6)    a. ham=ro     be hič                  foruxt-Ø.
          all=ACC    to NIND.NHUM.SG         sell.PST-3SG
          ‘(S)he sold everything for nothing.’


       b. hame zahmat-ā=m                   hič             šod-Ø.
          all     effort-PL=1SG.POSS        NIND.NHUM.SG    become.PST-3SG
          ‘All my efforts are destroyed.’


Earlier, bare hič did have the ‘nothing’ use.


(7)    10th century (Afshar & Afshari eds. 2006: 135)
       tork=e       bičāre   hič                  ne-mi-dānest-Ø.
       Turk=EZ      poor     NIND.NHUM.SG         NEG-IPFV-know.PST-3SG

       ‘Poor Turk knows nothing.’


For both human and non-human indefiniteness we see that negation can be expressed
solely on the verb – (1d) and (5c). The negative verb then combines with the form
that is also used for positive indefiniteness. The latter use is illustrated in (8).


(8)    a. kas-i            zang    zad-Ø.
           HUM.SG-IND      ring    call.PST-3SG
           ‘Somebody rang the bell.’


       b. čiz-i              goft-Ø.
           NHUM.SG-IND       say.PST-3SG
           ‘He/she said something.’


This means that kas-i and čiz-i are polarity-neutral. That specific and negative
indefiniteness can use the same, polarity-neutral marking is cross-linguistically well-
attested: it is arguably even the most frequent strategy world-wide (van der Auwera
& Van Alsenoy 2016, 2018).




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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


2.3. Negative noun phrases


Neither Haspelmath (1997) nor Rasekh-Mahand (2015) pay attention to nominal
negative indefiniteness. As (9) shows, nominal negative indefiniteness differs from
the pronominal one.


(9)        a.   *hič    dānešāmuz                 emtehān=o qabul na-šod-Ø.
                NIND    student                   exam=ACC        pass    NEG-become.PST-3SG


           b. hič       dānešāmuz-i
                NIND    student-IND

           c.   *dānešāmuz-i
                student-IND

           d. *dānešāmuz
                student
                ‘No student passed the exam.’


The nominal pattern with hič but without -i in (9a) corresponds to pronominal (1a)
and, possibly, (5a), but whereas the pronominal strategies are grammatical, nominal
(9a) is ungrammatical.2 The two pronominal and the nominal b examples, with hič
and -i, are all grammatical. The strategy with -i but without hič, i.e., (1d) and (5c) for
the pronouns, are grammatical, but the nominal one, i.e., (9c), is not, at least in the
intended ‘no student’ sense – it is grammatical when it means that a student didn’t
pass the exam. Then there is the bare nominal use in (9d). Bare pronoun uses with
kas or čiz are ungrammatical – see (1d) and the discussion around (6) and (7). The
bare nominal use is ungrammatical too, i.e., in the intended sense, for we get a
definite sense – ‘The student didn’t pass the exam’. In the plural, however, an
indefinite generic sense is possible.


(10)      dānešāmuz-ā      emtehān=o qabul          na-šod-an.
          student-PL       exam=ACC        pass     NEG-become.PST-3PL

          ‘Students didn’t pass the exam.’


2
    Mahootian & Gebhardt (1997: 89, 160, 211) list three examples of hič in front of a bare noun. This
divergence could be due to dialect or register differences.


                                                                                                    7
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                Extending the typology


This sentence needs a special context, for it is or was not a generic property of students
to fail exams. A clearer use of the generic sense is illustrated in (11) and (12a), and
in (12b) the generic sense does not require a plural.


(11)   ali ketāb     ne-mi-xun-e.
       Ali book      NEG-IPFV-read.PRS-3S

       ‘Ali doesn’t read books.’


(12)   a. gorbe      nun     ne-mi-xor-e.
            cat      bread   NEG-IPFV-eat.PRS-3SG

            ‘A cat doesn’t eat bread.’


       b. gorbe-hā     nun     ne-mi-xor-an(d).
            cat-PL     bread   NEG-IPFV-eat.PRS-3PL

            ‘Cats don’t eat bread.’


(11) is an example of Kwak’s (2010: 62). Her translation is ‘Ali doesn’t read a book’,
which fails to bring out the generic sense. A study of the interaction of negation and
generic readings goes beyond this study. Suffice it for us to note that a generic reading
lifts the need for negative concord, though the negative concord version allows a
generic reading too.


(12)   c.   hič      gorbe-i nun      ne-mi-xor-e.
            NIND     cat-IND bread    NEG-IPFV-eat.PRS-3SG

            ‘No cat eats bread.’


The expression of nominal negative indefiniteness thus contrasts with the expression
of pronominal negative indefiniteness. We have already noted that the expression of
negative indefiniteness is sensitive to the human - non-human parameter and we now
see that the pronoun – noun parameter is even more important. We summarize the
patterns in Table 1. In all cases the verbs are negative.




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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


                               Pronominal                                     Nominal
               human                              non-human
                                                                                 N

             hič-HUM.SG-i                         hič-NHUM.SG-i                hič-N-i
             hič-HUM.SG                            hič-NHUM.SG
            hič-INT.HUM.SG
              HUM.SG-i                              NHUM.SG-i



                              Table 1: Negative indefiniteness in Persian


That Persian allows a nominal strategy without hič for a generic reading is interesting.
That nominal and pronominal strategies can be different is not new. ‘We the linguists’
have been aware of this since the seminal work of Bernini & Ramat (1992: 201-226;
1996: 181-199). Without using the term ‘negative concord’, they discuss negative
concord in European languages with pronouns and nouns in the same chapter. They
analyse seventeen European languages as exhibiting obligatory or, in the current
jargon, ‘strict’ negative concord for pronouns, but there is not a single one that they
analyse as having strict negative concord for nouns. Bernini & Ramat (1992; 1996)
also discuss the non-strict pronominal negative concord that depends on word order,
as illustrated with Italian (13), which has negative concord when the negative
indefinite follows the verb, but not when it precedes.


(13) Italian (Indo-European)


a.    *(Non) ho                     visto                 nessuno.
      NEG       have.PRS.1SG        see.PTCP.PST.MSG      NIND.HUM

      ‘I have not seen anybody.’
b.    Nessuno          mi           (*non) ha                   visto.
      NIND.HUM         1SG.ACC      NEG       have.PRS.3SG see.PTCP.PST.MSG
      ‘Nobody has seen me.’


They do not discuss this parameter for nouns, for lack of space, but it is clear from
their example, shown in (14), that negative concord works in a different way.




                                                                                         9
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                     Extending the typology


(14)     Italian (Indo-European; Bernini & Ramat 1992: 227; 1996: 199).


a.      Giovanni       *(non)     mangia         nessun pesce.
        Giovanni       NEG        eat.PRS.3SG    no       fish
        ‘Giovanni doesn’t eat any fish.’
b.      Giovanni       non      mangia         pesce.
        Giovanni       NEG      eat.PRS.3SG    fish
        ‘Giovanni doesn’t eat fish.’


In (14) the indefinite nominal is postverbal, so if nominal negative concord functioned
like the pronominal one, negative concord should be obligatory. But it is not, as is
shown in (14b), and the versions with and without negative concord have a different
meaning. What is more, Bernini & Ramat (1992: 227; 1996: 199) give (14b) a generic
paraphrase, viz. ‘not eating fish is a characteristic of John’. So in this respect the non-
concordial nominal patterns of Farsi and Italian might be identical or, at least, similar.
However, this needs more research. Schwarze (1995: 768), for example, describes the
difference between (14a) and (14b) differently. He does not appeal to a +/- generic
parameter but to +/- partitive and +/- emphatic parameters. In particular: the
concordial pattern in (14a) goes with a partitive or an emphatic sense, absent in the
non-concordial pattern in (14b). Is ‘non-partitive non-emphatic’ the same as ‘generic’?
If (14a) can be partitive, how is its partitivity different from the construction with the
partitive di determiner, illustrated in (14c)?3


(14)     Italian (Indo-European)


c.      Giovanni non mangia              del              pesce    dal               1997
        Giovanni NEG eat.PRS.3SG         PART.DEF.M.SG    fish     from.DEF.M.SG     1997
        ‘Giovanni hasn’t been eating fish since 1997.’


It is clear that 30 years after Bernini & Ramat (1992) the presence or absence of
nominal negative concord is still on the agenda (see also van der Auwera & De Lisser
2010; van der Auwera, to appear).



3
    On Italian partitives see Garzonio & Poletto (2020) and Cardinaletti & Giusti (2020) and the
references therein.


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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


2.4. The status of hič


Whether the indefinite is a noun or a pronoun, it can be preceded by hič. Judging by
the current literature this constellation allows three analyses: either hič is negative
and then the collocation with a negative verb is a matter of negative concord, as in
substandard English (15a), or hič is a negative polarity item (‘NPI’), as in standard
English (15b), or it is an in-between item, which sometimes shows negative behavior
and sometimes negatively polar behavior.


(15)       a. You ain’t seen nobody yet.
           b. You haven’t seen anybody yet.


Each of the three views is represented in the literature. Mansouri (2004) and Kwak
(2010) advocate the first analysis, Taleghani (2008: 89) and, probably but implicitly,
Erschler & Volk (2011: 135), are in line with the second one. Kahnemuyipour (2017:
7) as well as, implicitly, Haspelmath (1997: 282-284) adopt the third one.
Interestingly, Turkish borrowed Persian hič, it functions in a similar (though not quite
identical) way and we may find the same three approaches: a negative analysis in
Jeretič (2018; Görgülü 2020), a negative polarity one in Kelepir (2001: 155-167;
Görgülü 2017), and an (implicit) in-between view in Haspelmath (1997: 196, 286-
287) (cf. also Suleymanova & Hoeksema 2018: 193, adopting this analysis for
Azerbaijani heç/hiç).
     The NPI analysis is prima facie supported by the fact that a form such as hič-kas can
also occur in polar questions, as in (16).4 We gloss this use of hič as ‘NPIND’ (‘negatively
polar indefinite’).


(16)       hič-kas               zang          zad-Ø?
           NPIND-HUM.SG          ring          hit.PST-3SG
           ‘Did anybody call?’


Interrogatives are NPI contexts. If the interrogative use shows that hič-kas is an NPI,
it supports the view that it is an NPI in negative sentences too. We do, after all, see
English anybody in questions too:

4
    What is to be discussed in this section is also valid for the other constructions with hič. For simplicity’s
sake the examples all use the hič-kas form.


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Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                               Extending the typology


(17)      Did anybody call?


The parallel with anybody is limited, however. There is only one non-negative NPI
context that hič-kas appears in and in this respect it differs from English anybody. The
latter is allowed in the NPI contexts of conditionals and comparatives, as in (18a-b).


(18)      a. If anybody calls, let me know.
          b. He can sing better than anybody I know.


Perhaps hič-kas had a wider use earlier. Thus (19) shows a conditional use, no longer
possible in present-day Persian (20).5


(19)      Early New Persian (11th c.) (Ahmadi Givi 2001: 1586)
          rasul      goft-Ø:           agar hič-kas                az        išān tamiz
          prophet say.PST-3SG if             NPIND.HUM.SG          from      3PL discernment
          dārad-Ø           ān       xodāvad=e šotor          ast-Ø.
          have.PRS-3SG that God=EZ                 camel be.PRS-3SG
          ‘The prophet said: “If any of them has the sense of discernment, that is the God
          of the camel”.’


(20)      payāmbar        goft-Ø          age qarār                bāš-e           kas-i
          prophet         say.PST-3SG if        arrangement be.SBJV-3SG HUM.SG-IND
          *hič-kas          tašxis           be-d-e,               un      xodāy=e         šotor=e.
          NPIND-HUM.SG      discriminate SBJV-give-3SG             DIST    God=EZ          camel=3SG
          ‘The prophet said: “If anyone is going to judge, that is the God of the camel”.’


But, independently of whether there was this wider use or independently of the extent
of the wider use, for both the interrogative and the negative use one could adopt an
NPI analysis.
      This cannot be the whole story though. Kwak (2010) convincingly argues that


5
    It is noteworthy that the contemporary language has a special negative use of age ‘if’, as in (a) – a
variation on an example in Anvari (2003: 520).
(a)       be   xodā age     hič-kas       hazer bāš-e         in        kar=o      bo-kon-e.
          to   God   if     NIND-HUM.SG   ready be.SBJV-3SG   PROX      task=ACC   SBJV-do.PRS-3SG

          ‘I swear to God that nobody is ready to do that task.’


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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


when hič-kas appears in a negative context, it is truly negative, and not just negatively
polar. She appeals to tests that distinguish between the two types of elements. We
illustrate these with English, and then come to Persian. First, English nobody is
negative and anybody is negatively polar, and in a negative context, only the former
can be modified by almost.


(21)     a. I called almost nobody.
         b. *I didn’t call almost anybody.


This test shows that hič-kas is negative.


(22)     man     taqriban    be     hič-kas           zang    na-zad-am.
         1SG     almost      to     NIND-HUM.SG       ring    NEG-hit.PST-1SG

         ‘I called almost nobody.’


Second, in elliptic answers, the ‘nobody’ sense is conveyed with a bare nobody, but
not with a bare anybody. The same holds for hič-kas.


(23)     A: Who came?                            B:      Nobody / *Anybody.


(24)     A: ki               umad-Ø?             B:      hič-kas.
               INT.HUM.SG    come.PST-3SG                NIND-HUM.SG

               ‘Who came?’                               ‘Nobody.’


Of course, Persian hič-kas and English nobody are still different, for in (1) hič-kas shows
negative concord and nobody does not.
     If hič-kas is negative and if the non-elliptic clause requires a negative on the verb,
then this pattern is a negative concord pattern. There are different types of negative
concord. It is clear that the negative concord is ‘non-strict’ – (1d), (5c), (11) and (12a-
b) are examples without hič – yet not in the ‘classical’ sense, illustrated with Italian
(13). Classical non-strict NC depends on the position of the indefinite relative to the
verb. This does not seem to be relevant, since in Persian the verb comes late.6 There
are many other types of non-strict negative concord, but what we find in Persian is

6
    The basic word order in Persian is now arguably moving towards SOV (Dabir Moghaddam 2013:
129), but this does not affect the negative marking on the indefinite.


                                                                                          13
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                     Extending the typology


not included in the typology of van der Auwera & Van Alsenoy (2018) nor in the
extensions discussed in van der Auwera (2017). In Haspelmath’s (1997) 40-language
sample, there are parallels in Hindi (1997: 180-181) and Turkish (1997: 286-297).
Hindi, like Persian, allows a polarity neutral pronoun (like kas), viz. koi, with a
negative verb, but the pattern it alternates with, viz. koi followed by an originally
additive-scalar particle bhii, has many more uses than the interrogative one found in
Persian (Bhatia 1978: 60; Lahiri 1998; Kumar 2006). So Hindi is similar but not
identical – and the same goes for Oriya, discussed by Van Alsenoy (2014: 493-496),
and probably other Indo-Aryan languages (Bhatia 1978: 68). Turkish hič is also similar
but different. Whereas there is alternation for bir şey ‘something’ (lit. ‘one thing’) in
the example from Haspelmath (1997: 287), represented as in (25), for ‘nobody’, as in
(26), hič cannot be dropped.7


(25) Turkish (Turkic; Şahin Beygu, Nisan Ece Gümüş p.c.)


a.       Hiç bir şey                     gör-me-di-m.
         NIND one    thing               see-NEG-PST-SG
b.       Bir şey
         one thing
         ‘I didn’t see anything.’


(26) Turkish (Turkic; Şahin Beygu, Nisan Ece Gümüş, p.c.)


a.       Hiç bir-i                    gel-me-di.
         NIND   one.3SG.POSS          come-NEG-PST
b.       *Bir-i
           one-3SG.POSS
         ‘Nobody came.’


So much for the use of negative hič-kas in negative contexts and the alternation with
polarity neutral kas-i. We still have to account for the interrogative use, illustrated in
(16). Kwak, the linguist that argues for negative concord, does not discuss the
interrogative use. If we now consider both the interrogative and the negative use, we
propose that hič-kas has a double status. In the negative context it is negative and in

7
    Just like in Persian there are other alternatives, and they have hiç.


                                                                                               14
Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


the interrogative context it is not. And, given the prominence in the literature of the
diachronic scenario from NPIs to negative elements, already sketched in the above, a
good bet would be that in interrogative contexts hič-kas is an NPI element. Just like
for the analysis that takes both the interrogative and the negative uses to involve an
NPI, the fact that the only non-negative use is an interrogative one is not a problem.
     This is still not the full story. Though both interrogative anybody and interrogative
hič-kas are negative polarity items, they are different, and not only because anybody
has a wider use. Interrogative hič-kas also differs from interrogative anybody in that
the former has an emphatic meaning, characterized by Lazard (1992: 125) and Yousef
(2018: 75) by ‘at all’ and by Lambton (1957: 33) by ‘whatsoever’. (27) is Lambton’s
example.


(27)      hič      nān8      dār-id?
          NPIND    bread     have.PRS-2PL
          ‘Do you have any bread whatsoever / at all?’ / ‘Do you have ANY bread?’


Thus the emphasis can be said to bring in an element of ‘free choice’ or, a better term,
‘widening’ (Kadmon & Landman 1993).9 The hič question is furthermore – this is our
observation – a biased one: it comes with the expectation of a negative answer and
we hypothesize that this follows from the widening: by stressing that the hearer
should do his/her best to consider every possible breadlike object, the speaker is
preparing for a negative answer.
     Interestingly, hič is also claimed to allow an adverbial widening sense – Lambton
(1957: 34), Lazard (1992: 125) and Yousef (2018: 75). We think that this sense is
associated with the positive use of a small number of verbs referring to cognitive
processes, including ‘know’, ‘think’, ‘understand’, ‘doubt’ and ‘see’, and that it is




8
    In Lambton’s example the noun does not carry the indefiniteness marker -i. In our variety of Persian
the indefiniteness marker is necessary. A bare noun would be appropriate for a habitual or a generic
reading.
9
    ‘Widening’ is a better term because ‘free choice’ is strongly associated with a use of any as in Anybody
can do this and hič does not allow this use.


                                                                                                         15
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                              Extending the typology


dialectal, 10 possibly influenced by Turkish or Kurdish.11


(28)      a. hič         mi-dun-i                  age be-fahm-e                           či
               at.all    IPFV-know.PRS-2SG         if     SBJV-understand.PRS-3SG          INT.NHUM

               mi-š-e?
               IPFV-become.PRS-3SG

               ‘Do you know at all what will happen if (s)he understands (the truth)?’


          b. hič         mi-fahm-i                        dār-i           či           mi-g-i?
               at.all    IPFV-understand.PRS-2SG          have.PRS-2SG INT.NHUM IPFV-say.PRS-2SG
               ‘Do you at all understand what you are saying?’


Negative (pro)nominal hič does not have the widening sense. Assuming that negative
hič developed from negative polarity hič, the widening sense has bleached. Bleaching
is frequently found in diachronies of negation. Thus in a classical Jespersen Cycle
involving a minimal unit expression like French pas (originally) ‘step’, point
(originally) ‘point’ or mie (originally) ‘crumb’, we see a ‘not at all’ sense, which comes
from a ‘not even a minimal thing’ like a step, point or crumb. The ‘not at all’ sense
then bleaches into the non-emphatic, i.e., non-widened ‘not’ (van der Auwera 2009).
Something like this is a possible scenario for hič. The interrogative use is not merely
a negative polarity sense, it is a negative polarity sense with widening. When this
sense turned into a purely negative sense, it underwent two changes: it didn’t only
lose the negative polarity sense, but the widening as well. That emphasis or widening


10
     This needs more work. But at least we checked (28a) and b with 31 informants from different parts
of Iran: four speakers from the North (Gilan province), 11 speakers from the West, (Kurdistan, Shahri-
e Kord, Malayer, Tabriz), two speakers from the South (Jahrom and Sistan; two speakers), and 14
speakers from the center (Tehran, Irak, Qazvin, Yazd, and Isfahan). Except for the Kurdish informant
and a Qazvini informant, whose native language is Turkish, they are all monolingual. Only three
speakers accepted (28a), all from Shahri-e Kord in the West. (28b) fares better, with six speakers
accepting it (four from Shahri-e Kord in the West, one from Jahrom in the South, and the bilingual
Turkish Persian speaker from Qazvin in the center) and two speakers that are uncertain.
11
     For Turkish it is clear that the adverbial widening use is not restricted to verbs of cognition nor to
an interrogative context (Kelepir 2001: 122; Görgülü 2017: 54). So adverbial hič has a wider use in
Turkish than in Persian. Pronominal and nominal hič, however, seem more restricted in Turkish than
in Persian. At least, native speakers disagree about the acceptability of the Turkish counterparts to (16)
and (27) (Kelepir 2001: 164; Görgülü 2017: 54).


                                                                                                        16
Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


play a role in the development of negative indefinites is well-known (see e.g. Gianollo
2018:137-288; 2020: 554-55). It seems to us that the constellation in Persian, with an
emphatic interrogative pronoun and a non-emphatic negative one, has not been
documented yet.12
      It is interesting to compare Persian with Dutch. In Dutch the negative ‘nobody’
pronoun is niemand. Its main use is negative, its morphology transparently says
‘NEG.iemand’, i.e., ‘not somebody’.


(29)      Dutch (Indo-European)
          Ik heb               niemand      gezien.
          1SG have.PRS.1SG NIND.HUM see.PTCP.PST
          ‘I have seen nobody.’


But it also occurs in a question and it give the question a bias. This makes it similar
to Persian hič-kas. The bias, however, when niemand is not stressed, is positive.13 In
that respect it is just like the Dutch clausal negator (Geerts et al. 1984: 1063).


(30) Dutch (Indo-European)


a.       Is              dat      niet de         broer             van Maria?
         be.PRS.3SG      DIST.SG NEG DET.DEF      brother.SG        of   Maria
         ‘Isn’t that Maria’s brother?
b.       Heb             je    daar      niemand          gezien?
         have.PRS.SG 2SG there           NIND.HUM.SG      see.PTCP.PST
         ‘Haven’t you seen somebody there?’


The positive bias can be visualized if we rephrase the questions in (30) with English




12
     A much discussed pattern, prominent in the work of Giannakidou (e.g. 1998), of a link between
emphasis and negative indefiniteness is what we find in Modern Greek. Modern Greek negative
indefinite pronouns can be emphasized prosodically. The emphatic version is strongly associated with
the negative use, the non-emphatic version much less so, for it is allowed in a wide variety of NPI
contexts. In Persian it is the non-emphatic use that is associated with negation.
13
     When niemand is stressed, (30b) becomes a neutral question asking whether it is true or not that the
hearer saw nobody.


                                                                                                      17
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                             Extending the typology


tag questions that have a falling tone.14 The tag question separates the assumption,
expressed in the declarative part, from the question, expressed in the tag, and the
assumption is each time positive.


(31)       a. That is the brother of Mary’s, isn’t it?
           b. You have seen somebody there, haven’t you?


So in Dutch it is the negative meaning of niemand and niet that gives the question the
positive bias. We see the same thing with the Persian clausal negator.


(32)       in      barādar=e          maryam       n-ist-Ø?
           PROX    brother=EZ         Maryam       NEG.be.PRS-3SG

           ‘Isn't this Maryam's brother?’/ ‘That is Maryam’s brother, isn’t it?’


In questions hič-kas is different from the Persian and Dutch clausal negators and from
Dutch interrogative niemand: the latter three markers are negative in questions but
the former, i.e., interrogative hič-kas, is not. Just why the presence of negation proper
in a question can yield a positive bias is an issue that is beyond this paper – see
Romero (2020) for a description of the state of the art. Beyond this paper is also the
question how one should integrate the dimension of speaker bias on a semantic map
or that of widening/emphasis, for that matter. These two issues were explicitly
mentioned as tasks for later research in Haspelmath (1997: 82-86, 128) and they
retain this status now – but see Van Alsenoy (2014: 321-346) for an attempt (cf. also
Fălăuş 2013).
      It is important to point out that our analysis of interrogative niemand does not
imply that when an otherwise negative pronoun occurs in questions, it has to remain
negative and bring along a bias. Negative pronouns can turn into NPIs. This kind of
scenario can be the result of analogical pressure, with the negative pronoun adapting
to the negative polarity pronouns in whose paradigm it entered. The change from
negation to negative polarity can also be due to negative concord progressively
locating the negative meaning solely on the clausal negator, thus allowing the
negative pronoun to be reinterpreted as a negative polarity pronoun. The former

14
     With a rising tone, we get a neutral question. The difference between the rising tone and the falling
tone in English is thus parallel to the difference between stressing and not stressing the negative
pronoun in Dutch. We are grateful to a reviewer for this observation.


                                                                                                       18
Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


scenario has been argued by Haspelmath (1997: 213-233) for Romance pronouns like
Spanish ningun (see also Breitbarth et al. 2020: 161-164), the second one for Jamaican
Creole nobadi (van der Auwera & De Lisser 2019; van der Auwera, to appear).


2.5. Conclusion


We have argued that Persian negative pronominal and nominal indefinites do not
pattern the same way and that there is a difference even in the two pronominal
constellations, i.e., the one for ‘nobody’ and the one for ‘nothing’. Each of them shows
non-classical non-strict negative concord. For nominals, we have argued that negative
concord is sensitive to genericity: a generic reading allows a non-concordial pattern.
We have also suggested that hič, the morpheme that makes the pronoun or noun
negative, is originally a negative polarity element with a widening component, which
survives in questions. The hič that serves negative indefiniteness has narrowed the
negative polarity to negation and it has lost the widening. These language-specific
properties need to be accommodated in the general theory of negative concord and,
more generally, negative indefiniteness.
   Of course, many other things need to be investigated. Thus, we would want to find
out whether the hypotheses can be extended to other negative indefinite words and
phrases, like the counterparts to never or nowhere. One also needs a thorough study of
‘negative spread’, i.e., the co-occurrence of more than one negative indefinite. On this
subject Haspelmath (1997: 221) claims that when a form with hič combines with a
form without hič, the one with hič has to come first. Example (33) is Haspelmath’s.


 (33) a.      kas-I            čiz-i                     na-šnid-Ø.
              HUM.SG-IND       NHUM.SG-IND               NEG-hear.PST-3SG


         b.   hič-kas          hič-či
              NIND-HUM.SG NIND-NHUM.SG


         c.   hič-kas          čiz-i
               NIND-HUM        NHUM.SG-IND


         d.   * kas-I          hič-či
              HUM.SG-IND       NIND-NHUM.SG

              ‘Nobody heard anything.’



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Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                 Extending the typology


We found no support for this observation. In other words, the variant in (33d) is fine.
Of course, there could be speaker variation and perhaps the variant in d is (for some
speakers) less preferred.
  We also need to study Haspelmath’s ‘indirect negation’, i.e., the contexts in which
the counterpart to a simple clausemate clausal negator is a superordinate negator, a
negative verb like lack or a privative marker corresponding to English without. In the
next section, we turn to another issue which has received little or no attention, viz.,
the expression of connective negation and its relation to negative concord. Last but
not least, for the diachrony our cursory remarks invite serious corpus work on the
older stages of the language.


3. Negative concord and connective negation


3.1. Cross-linguistic variation


Connective negation, also known as ‘emphatic negative coordination’ (Haspelmath
2007, Salaberri 2022) and ‘correlative negation’ (Briceño Villalobos 2019), is
illustrated in (34) with neither … nor.


(34)   The man neither went nor came. He stayed right there.


A working definition has connective negators as elements that both connect and
negate structurally identical elements and contain no additional semantics. Thus,
neither is different from and and not in (35) – and only connects and not only negates.
Similarly, in (36) only neither is a connective negator, different from either in (37) and
independently of the fact that the first part of (36) does not contain a connective
negator and the connection is expressed twice (i.e., with and and with neither).


(35)   The man did not come and he did not go. He stayed right there.
(36)   The man did not come and neither did he go. He stayed right there.
(37)   The man did not come and he did not go either. He stayed right there.


Lest is not a connective negator either, even though it connects and negates, but the
connected elements are structurally different and the structure has, in this case,




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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


additional apprehensional semantics.15


(38)      The man showed me the map, lest I get lost.


How this pattern interacts with negative concord has not been the subject of much
work. What we know is based on languages in which the connective negator is clearly
different from the clausal negator, viz. the Balto-Slavic ones, Spanish and French (see
van der Auwera 2021, van der Auwera et al. 2021, and the references therein) as well
as Turkish (Şener & İșsever 2003; Jeretič, 2018). Thus Spanish, for instance, has a
clausal negator no, but the main connective negator is ni.16


(39) Spanish (Indo-European)

a.       No    he           visto                a     nadie.
         NEG have.PRS.1SG see.PTCP.PST.M.SG      to NIND.HUM
         ‘I have seen nobody.’
b.       No somos        (ni)     de izquierda-s ni         de derecha-s.
         NEG be.PRS.1PL CONEG of       left-PL      CONEG of   right-PL
         ‘We are neither from the left nor from the right.’


What we also know is that one must make a distinction between at least three
connective negator uses, which may or may not have dedicated markers. In (40) the
connective negators scope over a finite verb. Van der Auwera et al. (2021) call it the
‘finite’ type, different from the ‘phrasal’ and ‘clausal’ types.


(40)      Spanish (Indo-European)
          Ni          puedo            ni      debo            exponer-la                a
          CONEG       can.PRS.1SG CONEG must.PRS.1SG espose.INF-3SG.ACC.F to
          ciertos           riesgos.
          certain.M.PL      risk.M.PL
          ‘I neither can nor should expose her to certain risks.’


15
     This definition is similar to the one in Salaberri (2022), the main difference being that he follows
Haspelmath (2007: 17-19) and requires the construction to encode emphasis. While we don’t deny that
connective negation may be emphatic, we remain to be convinced that emphasis should be part of the
definition.
16
     All the examples in this section come from van der Auwera (2021) and van der Auwera et al. (2021).


                                                                                                      21
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                  Extending the typology


(39b) illustrates the ‘phrasal’ type, the scoped phrases are de izquierda-s and de
derecha-s. The third type is the ‘clausal’ type, and here the connective negators
connect clauses. This is illustrated in Slovenian (41).


(41)   Slovenian (Indo-European)
       Niti    programa            ne    zna              napisati       niti
       CONEG   program.GEN.SG.M NEG know.PRS.3SG          write.INF.PFV CONEG
       kongresa              ne    zna                    narediti.
       congress.GEN.SG.M NEG know.IPFV.PRS.3SG            make.INF.PFV
       ‘Neither does he know how to write the program nor does he know how to
       organize a congress.’


For each type there is variation as to how connective negation combines with negative
concord. Thus, for the phrasal type, one would expect that when the language has
negative concord with negative indefinites, it would exhibit the same type of negative
concord with negatively connected phrases. This holds true for Latvian, for instance.
It has strict negative concord for negative indefinites, and we see the same for
negatively connected phrases: the connected phrases are, of course, negative, and so
is the verb, independently of the order of the negative phrases and the verb.

(42)   Latvian (Indo-European)
       Nedz Telma,           nedz     Jozefs              nespēja       pakustēties.
       CONEG Telma.NOM.SG CONEG Jozefs.NOM.SG             NEG.can.PST.3 PVB.move.INF.RFL
       ‘Neither Telma nor Jozefs could move.’


In Spanish, just like in Italian, illustrated in (13), negative concord is ‘classically’ non-
strict with the position of the indefinite relative to the verb determining whether or
not there is negative concord. This holds true for connective negative phrases too, but
there is nevertheless something special, something ‘quirky’ (van der Auwera 2021),
also related to word order. When the connective negative phrases follow the verb, the
first connective negator may remain absent. This is illustrated in (39b) with the
bracketed ‘(ni)’.
  Another quirky feature is that when the first connective negator is absent, French
and Spanish allow the construction to scope over negative indefinites. This is
illustrated with French (43).



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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


(43)    French (Indo-European)
        Rien            ni      personne          changera               ça.
        NIND.NHUM CONEG NIND.HUM                  change.FUT.3SG         DIST.SG

        ‘Nothing or nobody will change that.’


For the clausal type, one might expect there to be no need for a clausal negator. In
Lithuanian, for instance, connective clausal negators and ordinary ones are
incompatible, as illustrated in (44) (cf. Jeretič 2018 for Turkish), but in Slovenian
they are compatible – see (41).


(44)    Lithuanian (Indo-European)
        Nei      aš           jam            (*ne-)patinku              nei         jis
        CONEG    1.SG.NOM 3SG.DAT            NEG-like.PRS.IPFV.1.SG     CONEG       3SG.NOM
        man           (*ne-)patinka.
        1SG.DAT NEG-like.PRS.IPFV.3SG
        ‘He does not like me and neither do I like him.’


In virtue of its clausal scope, one would furthermore expect a clausal connective
negator to control negative concord inside the clause in the way an ordinary clausal
negator does. But this is never the case – at least in the languages studied so far.
Croatian, for instance, has strict negative concord with an ordinary negator, but not
with the connective negator niti. In (45) niti goes with the Croatian ‘anybody’ and
‘somebody’ pronouns, but not with ‘nobody’.


(45)    Croatian (Indo-European)
        Niti     je                *nikoga               / ikoga                /
        CONEG    be.PRS.3.SG       NIND.HUM.ACC.SG       / NPIND.HUM.ACC.SG /
        nekoga                vidio,                 niti          ga
        IND.HUM.ACC.SG        see.PTCP.PST.SG.M CONEG              3.SG.ACC.M
        je              djevojka        upozorila.
        be.PRS.3.SG girl.NOM.SG         warn.PTCP.PST.SG.F
        ‘He neither saw anybody/somebody nor did the girl warn him.’


The finite type behaves in a similar way. But there is one extra feature. If the clausal
negator is expressed in a prefinite slot and the connective negator is of the finite type,


                                                                                              23
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                            Extending the typology


we have two contenders for the prefinite slot. The presence of the connective negator
may make the presence of the ordinary superfluous (and even impossible), as in
Spanish (40). But it may allow both, as with ni ne in French.


(46)      French (Indo-European)
          Je      ne     veux,              ni        ne    peux            répondre.
          1SG     NEG    want.PRS.1SG       CONEG     NEG   can.PRS.1SG answer.INF
          ‘I don’t want to answer and I can’t either.’


From the earlier work we can formulate the generalizations in (47).


(47)      a. A clausal connective negator may make the ordinary negator superfluous,
                and it cannot control negative concord.
          b. A finite connective negator may make the ordinary negator superfluous, it
                may control negative concord in the same way as for negative indefinites,
                and a first connective negator may be absent.
          c.    A phrasal connective negator must be controlled by negative concord in
                the same way as negative indefinites, but a first connective negator may
                be absent, and in that case it may scope over negative indefinites.


It must be stressed that these generalizations are only based on the Balto-Slavic
languages, Spanish, French and Turkish. They have to stand up to typological testing
and in future work we should also find out whether a structure that is possible is
either frequent or rare. The generalizations in (47) are thus highly tentative but, at
least, they show some parameters of variation.17 The generalizations are also not too
forbidding – note the frequent use of the modal may. We will now check whether
Persian stays within the bounds of this variation and we will see that it does not, at
least not completely.18




17
     With the grounding of the generalizations in Balto-Slavic, Spanish, French and Turkish there is also
a strong European bias. We thus do not advance much on the state of affairs described by Haspelmath
(2007: 17) for the study of connective negation at that time. At least, we now know, thanks to Salaberri
(2022), that connective negation is not an exclusively European phenomenon.
18
     Stilo (2004:321-322) already makes clear that the relation between connective negation and
negative concord is interesting, but he does not go into detail.


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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


3.2. Observations and hypotheses for Persian


In Persian the connective negator is na. It is a free-standing negator. It is similar to
the ordinary negator na. The latter functions as a prefix when the predicate is verbal
(and it has an allomorph ne-).19 In (48) we illustrate the ordinary clausal negator for
both verbal and adjectival predicates.


(48)      a. (unā)       farār    na-kard-an.
                3PL      escape NEG-do.PST-3PL
                ‘They didn’t run away.’
          b. (unā)       mariz       na-bud-an.
                3PL      sick        NEG-be.PST-3PL

                ‘They were not sick.’


Example (49) illustrates clausal connective negation.


(49)      na      man umad-am               piš=e           to,    na        to     montazer=e
          CONEG   1SG come.PST-1SG          next.to=EZ 2SG CONEG 2SG waiting=EZ
          man     mund-i.
          1SG     stay.PST-2SG
          ‘Neither did I come to you, nor did you wait for me.’


The meaning of (49) can also be expressed with connection marked with =o ‘and’
and negation with the non-connective prefixal na.


(50)      man     na-yumad-am               piš=e           to=o        to        montazer=e
          1SG     NEG-come.PST-1SG          next.to=EZ 2SG=and 2SG wait=EZ
          man     na-mund-i.
          1SG     NEG-stay.PST-2SG

          ‘I didn’t come to you and you didn’t wait for me.’

(49) shows that the clausal connective negator combines with a positive verb. This is
in agreement with the generalization in (47a). We conjecture that the fact that the


19
     In his world-wide sample study Salaberri (2022) remarks that this formal similarity seems prevalent
in the Indo-Iranian languages.


                                                                                                     25
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                                 Extending the typology


connective negator and the ordinary negator are formally close militates against
having na twice.20
      With clausal connective negation we get negative concord in the same way as with
non-connective clausal negation. The example below is based on Mahootian &
Gebhardt (1997: 76).


(51)      na       man čiz-i            āvord-am,             na        to   čiz-i        dār-i.
          CONEG    1SG NHUM.IND bring.PST-1SG CONEG 2SG NHUM.IND have.PRS-2SG
          ‘Neither did I bring anything nor do you have anything.’


In (51) čiz-i can be replaced by hič-čiz-i and hič-či as one would expect from Table 1.
Negative concord with nominal indefinites and with human pronominal ones
similarly shows the options of Table 1. This way Persian does not obey the
generalization formulated in (47a), which states that clausal connective negation does
not control negative concord. We suspect that the fact that Persian clausal connective
negation does control negative concord is again due to the fact that ordinary and
connective clausal negators are formally similar.
      Example (52) illustrates the finite use of the connective negator.


(52)      mard-e     na        raft-Ø         na         umad-Ø.             hamunǰā      vāysād-Ø.
          man-DEF CONEG go.PST-3SG CONEG come.PST-3SG                        there        stay.PST-3SG
          ‘The man neither went nor came. He stayed right there.’


Again, we see that the verb is positive. (53) shows what we find with indefinites.


(53)      na       āvāz-i      mi-xund-Ø,                na          čiz-i           mi-goft-Ø.
          CONEG    song-IND IPFV-sing.PST-3SG, CONEG NHUM.SG-IND IPFV-say.PST-3SG
          ‘(S)he was neither singing nor saying anything.’


The rules for negative concord with finite connective negation are thus the same as
with clausal connective negation. Persian conforms to the generalization in (47b).


20
     This does not rule out semantically double negation as in
(a) na man=o         did-Ø,       na na-did-Ø.
      CONEG    1SG=ACC see.PST-3SG,   CONEG        NEG-see.PST-3SG

      ‘He neither saw me nor didn’t see me.’


                                                                                                           26
Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


Note also that the generalization in (47b) allows a language not to express a first finite
connective negator, but does not require it. In Persian a first finite connective negator
must be expressed. So in this respect too, Persian conforms to the generalization in
(47b).
     We now turn to the phrasal use.


(54)      na      dānešāmuz-ā=ye bāhuš,                  na      dānešāmuz-ā=ye             tanbal
          CONEG   student-PL=EZ           intelligent    CONEG   student-PL=EZ              lazy
          dars=o             (na-)fahmid-an.
          lesson=ACC         (NEG-) understand.PST-3PL
          ‘Neither the intelligent students nor the lazy students understood the lesson.’


Example (54) has to contain both phrasal connective negators. In this respect, phrasal
connective negators are like the finite and clausal ones and they conform to the
generalization in (47c). But in two other respects they do not conform: we do not get
the negative concord found with an ordinary clausal negator.                          21
                                                                                           First, with
(pro)nominal indefinites the indefinite need not be negative – see examples (1d), (5c),
(11), (12a) and (12b). Negatively connected phrases, however, have to be negative.
Second, with ordinary clausal negation the verb has to be negative. In (54), however,
we see that the clausal negator may be absent, even preferably so. This way Persian
resembles the non-strict negative concord of the Catalan type. In this language
negative concord is obligatory for a postverbal negative indefinite, and optional for a
preverbal one.


(55)      Catalan (Indo-European)


a.        Ningú         (no) ha                vist              Joan.
          NIND.HUM      NEG    have.PRS.3SG see.PTCP.PST.SG Joan
          ‘Nobody has seen Joan.’
b.        Joan no       ha          ist     ningú.
          Joan NEG have.PRS.3SG see.PTCP.SG              NIND.HUM

          ‘Joan has seen nobody.

21
     What is also special and needs more work is the intonational pattern. The negative verb seems to
require a break after the first connective phrase, whereas the positive verb allows but does not require
this break.


                                                                                                     27
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                            Extending the typology


In Persian the negative concord with phrasal connective negation is similarly optional
when the phrasal connective negators precede the verb. But there are differences, too.
First, it is impossible for the phrasal connective negators to both follow the finite verb
(be ‘right-dislocated’). So there is no constellation resembling the obligatory negative
concord that we see in Catalan (55b). Second, it is, however, possible for one of the
two connective negators to follow the verb and then the verb has to be positive (Najafi
2013: 400-401).


(56)      na      dānešāmuz-ā-ye          bāhuš         tu emtehān       qabul
          CONEG   student-PL=EZ           intelligent   in exam          accept
          (*na-)šod-an,              na        dānešāmuz-ā=ye            tanbal.
          (NEG-)become.PST-3PL CONEG student-PL=EZ                       lazy
          ‘Neither the intelligent students passed in the exam nor the lazy students.’


This constellation is difficult to explain. What we see in (54) invites an explanation
in terms of a version of ‘Neg Early’ principle.22 With respect to both Catalan (55a) and
Persian (54) the Neg Early principle could be interpreted to imply that when the
clause has special negative marking early in the sentence, the negation is sufficiently
clear and it can dispense with a later general negative marker. In Persian (54) there
are even two special negators and both come early, i.e., before the slot where the
clausal negator could have come. In Persian (56) only one of the special negators
precedes the slot for the clausal negator, so there should not be more tolerance for
leaving the clausal negator unexpressed. But this is not the case. In fact, we see an
obligation for leaving the clausal negator unexpressed. Perhaps a ‘Neg Late’ principle
helps out. It could go as follows. In Persian a clausal negator needs an overt expression
towards the end of the clause. In (54) the late exponent is the na on the verb, and the
verb comes late. The Neg Late principle is relaxed by the Neg Early principle: prefinite
but late na- is optional. In (56) the clausal negator is absent because of the early first
connective negator. Neg Late does not come to ‘rescue’ to at least allow the clausal
negator, for Neg Late is satisfied by the second connective negator. This has to be
overt – Persian connective negators always are – and it comes later still than the


22
     This principle goes back to at least Jespersen (1917: 5), when he argued that ‘[T]here is a natural
tendency, also for the sake of clearness, to place the negative first, or at any rate as soon as possible,
very often immediately before the particular word to be negatived [sic] (generally the verb).’ It was
called ‘Neg First’ by Horn (1989).


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Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


clausal negator. Whether this explanatory attempt is successful, it appears that the
‘split connective negation’ pattern shown by Persian (56) has not attracted any
attention in the literature. What has also gone unstudied is the pattern shown in (57).
Here the connective negators are resumed by a ‘neither of them’ element. The latter
contains a hič element and we see the normal negative concord.


(57)    na      dānešāmuz-ā=ye bāhuš                       na       dānešāmuz-ā=ye      tanbal,
        CONEG   student-PL=EZ            intelligent       CONEG    student-PL=EZ       lazy
        hič-yek/hič-kodum           tu        emtehān      qabul      na-šod-an.
        neither.of.them             in        exam         accept     NEG-become.PST-3PL

        ‘Not the intelligent students and not the lazy students, none of them passed in
        the exam.’


Finally, it will be remembered that at least in French and Spanish connective negators
can scope over negative indefinites and that the first connective negator has to be
absent. In Persian, connective negators can scope over negative indefinites too, but,
different from French and Spanish, the first connective negator has to be present. We
again see that, like in (54), the verb may be negative or positive. (58) illustrates this
point with one choice for both ‘nothing’ and ‘nobody’. It seems that all choices are
possible. The variants without hič seem most frequent, perhaps because they avoid
the collocation of two negatives, viz. na and hič.


(58)    na      hič-čiz-i                na          hič-kas-i           harf-i     beh=eš
        CONEG NIND-NHUM.SG-IND CONEG                 NIND-NHUM.SG-IND    talk-IND   to=3SG
        (na-)zad-e.
        (NEG-)hit.PST-3SG
        ‘Nothing or nobody had told him/her anything’.


The meaning in (58) can also be expressed with non-connective negators. It is also
possible to split the connective negators.


(59)    a. hič-čiz-i=o                         hič-kas-i              na-yumad-e-Ø
             NIND-NHUM.SG-IND=and              NIND-HUM.SG-IND        NEG-come.PST-PTCP-3SG

        b. na          hič-čiz-i                     umad-e-Ø,              na
             CONEG     NIND-NHUM.SG-IND              come.PST-PTCP-3SG      CONEG



                                                                                                  29
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                               Extending the typology


           hič-kas-i.
           NIND-HUM.SG-IND

           ‘Nothing or nobody has come.’


Again, the other alternatives for ‘nothing’ and ‘nobody’ are possible, and the ‘best’
ones seem to be the ones without hič. Still, double negative na hič structures are
possible, and they are ‘more possible’ than their counterparts in French or Spanish,
for in the latter the first connective negator has to be absent.
  Like in the conclusion of section 2, we have by no means exhausted the topic. Like
with negative indefinites, for instance, the issue of negative spread shows up. And it
remains to be seen how connective negators interact with the various types of
indefinite phrases discussed in section 2.


3.3. Conclusion


With respect to the existing generalizations on the relation between negative concord
and connective negation, Persian is special for both the clausal and the phrasal use of
connective negation. The clausal connective negator is interesting because it controls
negative concord in the same way as the ordinary clausal negator. The phrasal
connective negator is more interesting still, for it shows the relevance of a new
parameter. Thus far the literature has shown the relevance of word order in terms of
both of the negatively connected phrases either preceding or following the finite verb.
Persian makes us aware of a third pattern: one of the two negatively connected
phrases precedes the finite verb and the other one follows. Up to now the literature
has appealed to a Neg Early principle. We tried to account for the resulting negative
concord patterns in terms of a competition between a Neg Early and Neg Late
principle. We have also shown that phrasal connective negator can connect negative
indefinites, like in French and Spanish.


4. General conclusion


This paper offered an account of Persian negative indefiniteness and, more
particularly, negative concord. The kind of negative concord shown in Persian is non-
strict, but it is a subtype that has not been documented well, viz. a pattern that allows
the negative verb to combine with either a negative or polarity neutral pronoun. We


                                                                                         30
Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2-1 (2022): 1-36


have also seen that the negative concord for ‘nobody’ may be different from the one
with ‘nothing’. We have documented how both types of pronominal negative concord
differ from the one with noun phrases. That this may be the case is well-known but
there is not much research. A thorny point is the analysis of the marker that makes
the indefinites negative, viz. the hič marker. It is intriguing because hič has an
emphatic non-negative use in questions. We described this use of hič as a widening
negative polarity element and we hypothesize that the negative use derives from this,
with a loss of widening and a narrowing from negative polarity into negation. The
general typology should provide for this and show how the Persian constellation is
different from superficially similar constellations in languages like Dutch, Spanish or
Jamaican Creole.
   We have also offered a first account of the relation between Persian negative
concord and connective negation. We see that Persian does not fall within the bounds
of variation sketched in earlier work. The Persian observations and hypotheses
suggest that at least two new parameters should be attended to in future work: (i) the
question whether or not the ordinary and the connective negators are formally
similar, and (ii) the question whether one of two connectively negated phrases can be
put before the finite verb and the other behind it. A Neg Early principle is commonly
appealed in the study of negative concord; we have argued that Persian could be seen
as motivating the effect of a Neg Late principle.
   Though we think that this study is the most comprehensive one on Persian negative
concord and connective negation so far, there are many tasks undone. In the
synchrony we abstained from the study of yek ‘one’, the interaction between negation
and genericity, and negative spread, to recall just three examples. We have seen that
that there is a lot of variation in the data. Crucially, negative concord is often non-
strict, which invites a quantitative analysis of what steers the variation. It is also clear
that even though we interpreted the synchronic data from a diachronic perspective
and thus used some examples from the earlier stages of the language, a thorough
diachronic study remains to be done.



Acknowledgments


Thanks are due to two reviewers and to Juan Briceño Villalobos (Santiago de Chile),
Egbert Fortuin (Leiden), Chiara Gianollo (Bologna), Rajesh Kumar (Chennai),


                                                                                         31
Van der Auwera, Koohkan                                                     Extending the typology


Roohollah Mofidi (Qazvin), Masoud Mohammadirad (Cambridge) and Iker Salaberri
(Bilbao).


Abbreviations


 1 =first person                 IND    = indefinite              PART   = partitive
 2 = second person               INF   = infinitive               PFV   =perfective
 3 =third person                 INT   = interrogative            PL   = plural
 ACC    = accusative             IPFV   = imperfective            POSS   = possessive
 CONEG    =connective negation   M   = masculine                  PROX= proximal

 DAT    = dative                 N   = noun                       PRS   =present
 DEF    = definite               NEG    = negation                PST   = past
 DET    = determiner             NHUM     = non-human             PTCP   = participle
 DIST   = distal                 NIND    = negative indefinite    PVB   = preverbal
 EZ   = ezafe                    NOM     = nominative             REL   =relative
 F=     feminine                 NPI   = negative polarity item   RFL   = reflexive
 FUT    = future                 NPIND    = negatively polar      SBJV   = subjunctive
 GEN    = genitive               indefinite                       SG   = singular
 HUM    = human                  NEG    = negative




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CONTACT

johan.vanderauwera@uantwerpen.be
sepideh.koohkan@gmail.com




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