12.5. ‘None,’ ‘nothing,’ and ‘not exist’
Models
| 1) | EWENE. | ‘There’s none/there’s nothing/it doesn’t exist.’ |
| 2) | EWENE SE¸. | ‘There won’t be any/there will be nothing’ |
| 3) | EWENE ¸Á. | ‘Is there nothing? / Isn’t there anything?’ |
| 4) | EWENE YÁ¸. | ‘Nothing went.’ |
| 5) | EWENE TÁLE. | ‘There’s no money.’ |
| 6) | EWENE NE TÁLE. | ‘I have no money.’ |
| 7) | EWENE LE¸ NE TÁLE. | ‘I had no money.’ |
| 8) | EWENE NE SXĆIT. | ‘I don’t know it.’ |
| 9) | EWENE SÁN. | ‘There’s nobody.’ |
| 10) | EWENE STÁṈ. | ‘There’s nothing.’ |
| 11) | W̱U¸ÁNE STÁṈ. | ‘There’s nothing yet.’ |
‣ 1 The word NI¸ in SENĆOŦEN means ‘exist, come into existence, be born, be some.’ When this combines with EWE, it forms a special compound: EWENE, which means ‘nothing’ or ‘none’ or ‘not exist.’ When it combines with W̱U¸Á ‘not yet’ (§12.4) it forms W̱U¸ÁNE ‘nothing yet’ or ‘none yet’ or ‘not exist yet.’
‣ 2 As you can see from the first three models, the word EWENE is a verb meaning ‘to be nothing’ or ‘to not exist.’ Note that it is stressed on the first vowel, as shown in red in model 1.
‣ 3 The next major word following EWENE in a sentence can be a verb, as in the fourth model or a noun, as in the fifth model. When followed by a verb the best translation is usually ‘nothing’ or ‘there’s nothing that.’ When followed by a noun, the best translation is usually ‘there is no.’
‣ 4 The model translated ‘I had no money’ (model 7) shows that the speech act particles like past tense follow the first word, as usual.
‣ 5 When the word following EWENE has a possessive pronoun on it, the translation often includes ‘have no,’ as in EWENE NE SḴAXE¸ ‘I have no dog.’ This could be translated literally as ‘There is no “my dog”.’
‣ 6 Models 8, 9, and 10 are very common sentences. You know the sentence XĆIT SEN ‘I know it’ (if not, reread §1.2). Now you know how to say ‘I don’t know it.’ This is a very useful sentence in the classroom. Even if you don’t know what the teacher is asking, you can say EWENE NE SXĆIT and at least still be speaking SENĆOŦEN.
‣ 7 XĆIT is certainly a verb. It is, in fact, a transitive verb. But when it follows EWENE, it must take the S- prefix that turns it into a noun just as IȽEN ‘eat’ becomes S¸IȽEN ‘food’ when the S- noun prefix is added to it. We can translate it literally then as ‘There is no “my knowing it”.’
‣ 8 Models 9 and 10 and variations of them are very common in SENĆOŦEN. They show up frequently in stories in contexts like QENNES I¸ EWENE STÁṈ ‘He looked and there was nothing.’
‣ 9 In models 9 and 10, two new important words are introduced—SÁN and STÁṈ. SÁN can often be translated as ‘someone,’ and STÁṈ can be translated as ‘something.’ They are most commonly translated as question words ‘who’ and ‘what.’ These are covered in detail in §15.
‣ 10 Model 11 shows that W̱U¸ÁNE ‘not exist yet’ has the same grammatical pattern as EWENE.
 | EWENE ¸Á TÁLES TŦE EN¸ SĆÁ¸ĆE¸? | ‘Doesn’t your friend have money?’ |
 | EWENE NE SXĆIT. | ‘I don’t know.’ |
| ĆȺ E LE¸ TŦE EN¸ SĆÁ¸ĆE¸? | ‘Did your friend work?’ |
| EWENE NE ŚW̱HÁ¸EQ. | ‘I don’t remember.’ |
12.5A. Which of these sentences is ungrammatical? If it is ungrammatical, explain why it is. If it is grammatical, translate the sentence. If you see a word you do not know, look it up in the SENĆOŦEN dictionary.
1. EWENE NE SĆÁ¸ĆE¸.
2. EWENE SEN TÁLE.
3. EWENE SE¸ IȽEN.
4. EWENE SE¸ S¸IȽEN.
5. EWENE NE S¸IȽEN.
6. EWENE SQENNEW̱S.
7. EWENE ¸Á SW̱ EN¸ TÁLE.
8. EWENE LE¸ NE Á¸LEṈ.
9. EWENE NE SĆȺ.
10. EWENE LE¸ SXĆIT ȽTE.
12.5B. Make up four more sentences using EWENE.