Logos

CONSTRUCTIONcon.spa.negacion-enfatica-con-ni

negación enfática con ni

A pattern in which a particle marks the negated phrase as the least likely case, so denying it denies everything above it on a scale.

The construction negates by denying the least likely or smallest case and letting a scale carry the rest, so denying that even one thing happened denies that anything did. The particle is the same one that joins two negated phrases in coordination, and the two uses are related, the emphatic one being the coordinating one with the first member left out. When the particle and its phrase stand before the verb the preverbal particle is forbidden exactly as it is with any fronted negative word, and when they follow the verb it is required, so the construction inherits the complementarity of the polarity system rather than stating its own.

statusstatus
documentedasserted, and the sources agree
provenanceprovenance
authoredwritten for Logos, from first principles
derivation statusderivation_status
unstatednobody has said whether it follows from anything
saliencesalience
No salience. Where no frequency source applies the object carries none, rather than a default or a guess (03-schema.md §3.5).
aliasesaliases
  • metalanguageemphatic negation with ni
sourcessources
  • SOURCENueva gramática de la lengua española (2009)src.nueva-gramaticano page in v1
  • SOURCEA New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish (Butt and Benjamin)src.butt-benjaminno page in v1

Why this is a construction at all

construction.admission

Goldberg's admission test: a template earns storage either by being unpredictable or by being frequent.

admissionadmission
unpredictableit is stored because its meaning does not follow from its parts

The slots

construction.slots

At least two, by the schema: fewer is not a multi-element template. Every filler is a link, never a name in prose.

  1. 0la partícula nilexically specified: only the fillers below may occupy it

    fillerslots[].filler
    functionslots[].fn
    No function is assigned to this slot.

  2. 1el sintagma negado, normalmente mínimo en una escalapositional: this slot is a place in the string, not a lexical requirement

    fillerslots[].filler
    No filler is named. For a positional slot that is the correct reading; for a lexical one it is a gap.
    functionslots[].fn
    FUNCTIONcomplemento directofun.spa.complemento-directo

  3. 2el verbo finitolexically specified: only the fillers below may occupy it

    fillerslots[].filler
    functionslots[].fn
    FUNCTIONnúcleofun.spa.nucleo

Slot template

3 slots: 2 constrained, 1 positional, 2 naming a grammatical function.

  1. la partícula ni
    constrained
    • conjunciónclass
  2. el sintagma negado, normalmente mínimo en una escala
    positional

    no lexical filler — this slot marks a position only

    names complemento directo

  3. el verbo finito
    constrained
    • verboclass

    names núcleo

Everything joined to this object

One group per typed edge, in both directions. A1b guarantees no object node is an orphan, so this is the whole navigation: an object with no edges would have failed the build rather than reached this page.

What this object is a kind of

Walking this object's own `is-a` edges: what it is a kind of. Several branches from one object are several classification axes, not competing supertypes.

objects
1
places drawn
1
multi-parent
None in this view. This subgraph happens to be a tree, which the explorer draws as one without assuming it is one.

Siblings are listed by name, then by id to break ties. That is a display choice made here and not an order the graph asserts.

Fan-out per dimension

A4

One row per dimension, largest first. That is a display order, not a verdict: 03-schema.md declares no threshold above which fan-out is too much, so this reports the count and grades nothing.

  • case13 values
  • mood8 values
  • voice8 values
  • aspect7 values
  • aktionsart6 values
  • number6 values
  • person6 values
  • tense6 values
  • comparison4 values
  • evidentiality4 values
  • gender4 values
  • politeness4 values
  • valency4 values
  • animacy3 values
  • definiteness3 values
  • deixis3 values
  • finiteness2 values
  • information structure2 values
  • interrogativity2 values
  • polarity2 values
  • switch-reference2 values

What kinds of this object there are

Walking the `is-a` edges that point at this object: what kinds of it there are. An object reachable two ways is drawn in both places and is still one object.

objects
1
places drawn
1
multi-parent
None in this view. This subgraph happens to be a tree, which the explorer draws as one without assuming it is one.

Siblings are listed by name, then by id to break ties. That is a display choice made here and not an order the graph asserts.

has-a

edges.has-a

the parent carries this

this object carries

selects

edges.selects

the parent requires this elsewhere

this object requires, elsewhere

derives

edges.derives

the why-chain

derived by