On One Type of Negative Sentence in the Original Text of “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” and its English Translation

Abstract

The paper analyzes occasional words with negative meaning, formed by means of particle-morphemoid არ ar “not”. These words are analyzed based on the examples from “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”, an epic poem written by the famous 12th century Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli. As a result of the analysis, two groups have been distinguished: a. The words in question are used separately, without connection to the verb, negation is expressed lexically, absence is logically expressed positively, and, according to the proposition, the sentence is affirmative. b. The words under analysis are used as parts of the compound nominal predicate, the particle არ ar “not” is connected to the predicate centre of the sentence, and, according to the proposition, the sentence is negative. The above-mentioned distinction between the groups is also proved on the basis of the literal English translation of Rustaveli’s poem.