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Is there any natural language out there that has "natural" negative verbs and that needs a positive particle (like the contrary of "not") in order to make a positive statement with those particular verbs.

Ex: to seenot (naturally to not see)

I do (<- positive particle) seenot. (I see. / I don't don't see.)

I've heard of more than one. IIRC one of the "Eskimo" languages is like that; e.g. there is a simple verb for "to not know" that must be inflected to get to mean "to know". (That's if I remember correctly; I'm not sure I do.)

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Basically any words with antonyms?

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Up in blue sky silly blimp goes by
Where it come from where it go
Ziggy-Zaggy it fly high

Nah. Then find an antonym to "not" in English.

Indeed.

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♀♥♀
Dotjen
Kotanese

Doesn't it emphasize it?

It can. But it can be used as an antonym.

"She's not a teacher?"
"She is indeed a teacher."

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Dotjen
Kotanese

I'm guessing that this is a question for Teal'c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtPgr94VYA4

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Sadanjatås = I wished we had survived, too bad we didn't


Talar svenska flytande (eller ja, typ skånska)
Speaking english, but dammit it's hard to spell!
Mi komencas paroli esperanton
Wo bu xihuan shou hanyu
Deutsche? Danke, aber nein

Also, could you not use a prefix like, un- to make a verb mean the opposite, thereby making it become negative?
Like this: "I love you" --> "I unlove you" --> "I don't unlove you"="I love you"
It doesn't look good in english becuse the un- doesn't work quite like that but perhaps if you create a conlang with a stronger un- then it might work

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Sadanjatås = I wished we had survived, too bad we didn't


Talar svenska flytande (eller ja, typ skånska)
Speaking english, but dammit it's hard to spell!
Mi komencas paroli esperanton
Wo bu xihuan shou hanyu
Deutsche? Danke, aber nein

I appreciate all of your efforts to help me, but you're not really on topic right now. :C

I'm not looking for a way to circumvent this, I'm looking for a language with the phenomenon in question.

If I use your proposition in the way I want:

ex. I indeed seenot. (It's true I don't see.)

Then it doesn't work.

"I unfriended her"

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Mekoshan
Alpic

The thing is, the "positive particle" you are looking for isn't an antonym to "not", but a synonymous allomorph. What the particle "do" in "I do seenot you" meaning "I see you" does is to negate the verb "seenot".

The word you are looking for is the word "not" itself!

The "do" I used in my first post is not the real English "do". ^^ (But it's okay to have been mixed up by my attempt.)

Then, unattested? :C Haven't found anything in WALS yet.

No language defaults on negation because negation is, technically speaking, a hypothetical state that relies upon the factual existence of something. Consider, for example, the notion of a cat. When you state that 'there is a cat', you're actually identifying something through your senses and relaying that information so that another interlocutor can decode and re-identify that information. To say 'there is no cat' implies the existence of the notion of a cat and prior knowledge of its existence. If no such knowledge exists, then the information is perceived as broken or incomplete.

Considering that identifying things and phenomenons through our senses is easier than identifying those that do not exist or that are not happening, it is understandable that language defaults on the affirmative-existential form while marking the negative one. It should be noted, however, that there are 'positive'-like morphemes found in languages. As an example, Okinawan marks verbs for the predicate and the attribute forms. So a verb like tubu-n "fly-PRED" is overtly marked just like a negative form would be.

It is also worth noting that a 'positive' particle could very well actually be a negative one. If I told you that "die" was an inherently negative verb with the underlying meaning of "not-live", then "to not die" would have the underlying representation of "not not-live", and is consequently equivalent to "to live".

The last few posts make so much sense!

Now if we're talking suffixes, maybe you could imagine that negative could be marked with a zero suffix and positive with an actual suffix. Not that the suffix would have the sole function of "positive", but maybe functioning as a time marker.

For example if "pak" is the root of a verb and "pakil" is future, "paka" is present and "paken" is past, but the negative form would be "pak" in all tenses.

I know Danish imperatives work by taking away the infinitive ending.

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I don't know of any verbs like that, however, Dutch does have an antonym for 'niet' (not), which is 'wel,' which, as far as I know, sadly has no English equivalent.

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