Publication ｜Sophia Linguistica
Tatsushi Motohashi
The imperfective form is required by the negative marker zu/nu because the functional node Neg is specified [-realis] and the imperfective form is also specified [-realis]. The three functional nodes, Neg, Mod, and C that require the imperfective form are also specified [-realis]. The difference between the negative markers zu and nu is that zu is [-tense] and nu is [+tense]. Furthermore, the negative marker zu must be licensed by T. The prohibitive na-…-so-ne was an optative expression signaled by the desiderative sentence-final particle ne and the pre-verbal na negated the clause. This was possible because the imperfective verbal form required by the optative mood can be negated as a suppletive imperative. There were two Neg’s in Early Classical Japanese: Neg-1, which is licensed by T and Neg-2, which is licensed by Mod. Neg-1 is checked by zu/nu while Neg-2 is checked by na. Generalizing the sentence-final particles na/ne/ namu, kakari particles ka/ya, and other clause-final expressions, I propose the Early Classical Japanese mood system.
