Lower Sorbian to Yucatec Maya: what exactly is being denied?
Several negative words can express one denial
A Lower Sorbian reply can deny that anything was said, identify the wrong recipient or report that an item is unavailable. These are different messages. Before comparing negative markers in a Yucatec Maya result, decide which part of the source statement is being rejected.
Stone gives the Lower Sorbian example Njejsy nic gronił, glossed as not having said anything. He explains that negative pronouns and adverbs occur with a negated verb. Their combination does not turn the denial into a positive assertion merely because more than one negative-looking element is present.
For a conversation about whether a message was delivered, preserve that the communication did not occur. Removing one source element because two negatives seem redundant can weaken the meaning or change its scope. The task is to translate the denial, not to balance negative words as if they were arithmetic signs.
A target negative can have material at both ends
Lehmann describes Yucatec general negation with ma’ and a discontinuous alternative ma’ … -i’. He distinguishes constructions using the final element from constructions with ma’ alone. A final negative element is consequently not an extra, independently contradictory denial.
The account also gives mina’n as the negative of existential yaan. If a Lower Sorbian availability message says that something is absent, the target may use a form belonging to that existential pattern. It need not look like a simple affirmative expression with one unchanged negative word inserted before it.
These patterns are construction-sensitive. Do not add the final element to every target sentence or delete it whenever the initial negative is already visible. The grammar being used determines the arrangement; the number of source negative words cannot decide it.
An equipment request makes the practical distinction clear. Reporting that a tool is unavailable is different from saying that the recipient did not use it. The first concerns availability, the second an action. Keep the source claim intact before checking the target negative construction.
Denying the recipient does not deny all communication
Lehmann’s focus example ma’ teech in t’aaniki’ rejects the addressed person as the person being spoken to. It illustrates a narrower denial than simply saying that the speaker is not talking. The remaining activity can stay relevant while one participant is corrected.
Stone also distinguishes constituent negation from sentence negation in his Sorbian account. This provides a useful source-side question: is the writer denying the whole event, or correcting a participant, amount or other component? Do not treat every negative source expression as an instruction to negate the whole target clause.
In a group exchange, someone may clarify that a comment was directed to a colleague rather than the present reader. A translation denying that any comment was made would erase the correction. Conversely, a full denial of speaking should not become a statement that speech occurred but reached someone else.
Read the translated reply against the disagreement it resolves. Identify the disputed event or participant and ask what remains accepted. This keeps a Lower Sorbian denial of any communication distinct from a Yucatec correction of the addressee, while allowing each language to distribute negative marking according to its own construction.
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