Veel läänemeresoome ja eesti eituspartiklite ei, ep, es päritolust
More on the Origin of the Negative Particles ei, ep and es in Estonian and Other Finnic Languages

Summary/Abstract: As a rule, negative simple tenses of the Finnic verb consist of two components – a negation word and verb. Inform other than the imperative form the negation word is usually an e-stemmed negative auxiliary verb that agrees with the subject only in person and number, while the main verb mostly lacks such an agreement. According to common understanding the forms ei, ep and es are "particlized" forms of the negative verb in 3PSg, originally having a temporal marker. The most extensively spread particle of the three Finnic particle-type forms of the negative auxiliary verbs – the particle ei – occurs in the whole Finnic area except the Votic language. The particle ep is used in all Southern Finnic languages (Votic, Estonian and Livonian). The particle es occurs only in Estonian languages (North and South Estonian) and Livonian. In Finnic negation the agreement of the main verb is rather an extensive phenomenon, which often is, however, based on a development of recent local origin. The use of the negation particles ei, ep and es shows that originally they have not necessarily been 3PSg forms of the negative verb. If, however, they were not finite forms, it is pointless to search them for temporal markers in them. It is interesting to mention a conclusion by Trond Trosterud: in Uralic languages there is a definite relationship between the occurrence of the copula of 3PSg predicate constructions and the preterite form of the negative auxiliary verb – they exclude each other. Consequently, it can be supposed that in Finnic languages as languages with copulas the negative auxiliary has no preterite.

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