Negation in Korlai Indo-Portuguese

Korlai displays patterns in negation largely similar to those found in Marathi, the adstrate language. An example of this is the apparent calque of the Marathi negative construction with ‘want’, where Korlai ni kɛ ‘don’t/doesn’t want’ (negator ni with a reduced form of keré ‘want’) corresponds to Marathi nako, a lexicalized form translated as ‘don’t/doesn’t want’. Based on socio-historical evidence, it is argued that these patterns likely developed early on in the history of Korlai. There are some innovations in Korlai, as well, not found in its adstrate language: it has a future negation marker in pa (eló nu pa andá kadz ‘they won’t go home’), it exhibits an unexpected order of the negative element nu with the deontic particle maʃi ‘must/should’ (eló maʃi nu andá ‘they must/should not go’), and its negative pronouns (nad ‘nothing’, ningɛ̃ ‘nobody’, neú̃ ‘none’) are sensitive to definiteness. These more recent developments suggest that Korlai, while sharing negation patterns with Marathi, has evolved independently of its adstrate language.