In English:
English uses auxiliaries do and does to form negations, something uncommon in other languages. He works becomes he doesn't work.
English also uses some in affirmative sentences and any in negative sentences.
In French:
French makes extensive use of partitive articles. A sentence like J'ai bu du lait (I drank some milk) becomes Je n'ai pas bu de lait (I didn't drink any milk), where you can see that the masculine partitive article du becomes de when the sentence is negated.
In Polish:
Most Polish verbs require the accusative, as in Czytam książkę (I am reading a book). In the negative, however, the genitive replaces the accusative: Nie czytam książki.
A similar situation can be found in Czech with expressions like není divu (no wonder), není dne, aby (no day goes by without), etc.
In Hungarian:
Hungarian uses coverbs, particles with a meaning placed before verbs. A sentence like A lány bemegy (be is the coverb) a szobába (The girl goes into the room) becomes A lány nem megy be a szobába.
In German:
German uses so-called negative articles in sentences with a direct object. Ich habe einen Bruder (I have a brother) becomes Ich habe keinen Bruder (I have no brother, I don't have a/any brother).
In Dutch:
Same thing as in German: Ik heb een broer (I have a brother) - Ik heb geen broer.
In Swedish:
Swedish subordinate clauses have the same word order as English, except when you have a negation (among other things): Mannen talar inte svenka. (The man doesn't speak Swedish), where inte (not) is placed after the verb, and Han vet att mannen inte talar svenska. (He knows that the man doesn't speak Swedish).
In Basque:
Gazta erosi dut (I have bought some cheese) and Ez dut gaztari erosi (I haven't bought any cheese). Also note the word order. In the affirmative sentence the verb is placed at the end of the sentence; in the negative sentence, the verb is placed right after the negation (ez), which is fronted.
2 comments:
Prefiro português =)
thanks, it's really a great resource for making conlangs
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