The expression of constituent negation in Udmurt: From scope-ambiguous to scope-transparent constructions

Abstract The study claims that contemporary Udmurt has two main strategies for expressing a ‘constituent negation reading’. Standard makes use of inverse-scope constructions involving sentential negation, i.e. morphosyntactically negated predicate and pragmatic focus in the scope negation. other strategy involves negator ńe borrowed from Russian, which immediately precedes constituent combines with affirmative form. Ńe-constructions are analysed as instances FocP dominated by right-branching NegP. evolution transparent-scope head-initial NegP concomitants SOV-to-SVO change Udmurt.