Analysis of negative and non-negative uses of nā, particle of negation in Bengali.

ABSTRACT

The present paper consists of a linguistic analysis of different uses of the particle nā in Bengali. For any native speaker of the language, it is the particle of negation denoting absence or non-existence. Equivalent of no and not in English, nā however has a much wider use. We find many instances where nā, unlike its counterparts in English fulfils, at least apparently no negative function. Nā in such cases is redundant ; its omission does not render the sentence incorrect at the syntactic level , nor does it lead to any change in the semantic content of the proposition.This nā is termed in traditional Bengali grammar as bakyalankarbachak abyay i.e. expletive indeclinable. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the apparently non-negative nā performs actually a negative role, though in a different sense. The secondary non-negative uses of nā are in absolute conformity with the fundamental characteristic of nā, the particle of negation. Through an in depth study of examples of negative and non-negative uses of nā we have attempted to bring out the unifying factor.