Unreal ni- in Colonial Valley Zapotec

Another example of early use of ni-, in a negative context:

Feria f31

The literal sense of the 3rd line is something like 'if he had not wanted, then all the Jews and all the people of the world would not be (strong) enough to touch him.'

Early examples of unreal ni- in Colonial Valley Zapotec

The following passage from Feria (1567) shows several probable instances of early uses of the unreal aspect prefix marker ni- in negative and hypothetical situations.

Feria f22v

More on negative fronting

In a previous post here, I talked about the negative fronting construction.   The following two (sexist!) examples show that in the texts a positive contrast with the particle ro'  often seems to be paired with a corresponding negative contrast:

Another interesting note -- previously, I was aware that negative fronting involved the following pattern:

Nuveé {NP|PP} [S...]   "It is not {NP|PP} that ...."


I can now add CP to the list of fronted elements, due to examples like the following:

1 Cor 4:14

1 Cor 7:35

So the revised constructional template for negative fronting is


Nuveé {NP|PP|CP} [S...]   "It is not {NP|PP|CP} that ...."

Causative constructions in Copala Triqui

The causative construction shows an unusual word order in Copala Triqui.  The normal order for these constructions is

[caused event]  'yaj SUBJ

Although the normal word order for Triqui is VSO, I do not think that causative constructions are ever in VSO order in natural text.  (The caused event clause, however, is in normal VSO order.)

The following passage shows a characteristic example.  (Note also that the aspect of the cause verb 'yaj typically matches the aspect of the verb(s) in the caused event.

Another similar example:

Far less common is the reversed pattern:

SUBJ 'yaj [caused event]

The examples I have seem to involve a causer subject that is fronted for some other reason, such as negation, or missing, due to relativization:

Another open question is the type of constituent the caused event may be.  In the examples above, it seems like a simple VSO clause.   But it is also possible for the caused event to contain some fronted material:

Here the caused event is [there:is:no illness [hit me]], where the noun chi'ii 'illness' has undergone the typical fronting to preverbal positions found with negative constituents.  (Maybe that is some sort of Focus Phrase?)