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Conlang Year, Day 108 prompt

Goal: Write a section describing verb negation

Note: If you have more than one strategy, be sure to provide examples.

Tip: Present examples in positive/negative pairs.

Work focus: Solidify/Write/Share


Today’s focus is on documenting the choices you made about verb negation. You may have decided to incorporate more than one strategy (e.g. some verbs use this negator while others use a different one, or perhaps you chose a noun-incorporation strategy that shifts depending on the verb). If so, make sure you remember to include examples of them all so you have them documented in a single place. When providing examples, it’s nice to have write up positive/negative pairs so you can more immediately see the negation strategy at work, such as presenting “He danced with the chickens ~ He didn’t dance with the chickens.”

Remember, too, that if your negator can occur with other inflections, you should show where the inflections occur relative to each other and the verb. For instance, in writing about English negation, I might want to include examples like “He didn’t dance with the chickens ~ He hadn’t been dancing with the chickens ~ He wasn’t gonna dance with the chickens.” That way, I can discuss ordering of auxiliaries and the negator when they occur in strings.