saan + Focused Noun / Predicate

What the Negative Statement Denies

Level 5

Compare saan + linker + predicate + participant with saan + linker + participant + ti + predicate.

How It Works

For predicate negation, put saan and a linker before the property or action; its marked participant follows. For negative identification, put the identified participant after the negative and linker, retaining ti before the identifying predicate.

Compare Saan a naimas ti innapoy. “The cooked rice is not delicious” with Saan a ti innapoy ti naimas. “It is not the cooked rice that is delicious.” The second rejects an identification without naming an alternative. This rearrangement does not itself change verbal voice: a verb still selects the participant appropriate to its voice.

A short pronoun belonging to a negated predicate follows the negative: saanka a napintas, “you are not beautiful.” Linkers have no person or gender agreement. KWF’s modern convention chooses a before a consonant-initial following form and nga before a vowel-initial one. The older grammars also attest broader linker usage; those forms are not automatically grammatical errors.

Examples (3)

  1. Saan a naimas ti innapoy.

    The cooked rice is not delicious.

    Negation denies the property naimas of the rice.

  2. Saan a ti innapoy ti naimas.

    It is not the cooked rice that is delicious.

    The rice is the rejected identification; ti naimas supplies the identifying predicate.

  3. Saan a ni Rosa ti nagluto.

    It was not Rosa who cooked.

    Negation rejects Rosa as the cook. Nagluto selects an actor.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

saan + Focused Noun / PredicateLevel 5What the Negative Statement Denies

Learn This First

Place the predicate or identified participant after saan and its linker to show what you deny.

Words in This Pattern

saan