1.  ove1 shuie 2 yes1 , it is2       2. moe1 shuimoe2 no1, it is not2       3. ove1 shuimoe2 yes1, it is not2       4. moe1 shui2  no1, it is2
Thus there are four responses possible for the same stimulus. As has been mentioned (fn. 19), response 2 treating Neg as part of the proposition is not acceptable to some speakers. It is difficult to see why it is not, when response 1 is, except that response 4 is at variance with the grammaticalised information-confirming expectation of the interrogating speaker.
Since Mao Naga allows, in a continuous utterance, a disjunctive between a comment on the proposition and the speaker’s own averment, which could stand independent of the comment, and further since the affirmative and negative declarations in the nature of comments can look upon the Neg element as being inside or outside the propsotion, the speaker’s initial comments on the proposition, the speaker’s initial comments on the proposition, of negation, are not complete and in fact, are not meaningful per se. More simply put, the negative comment viz. mo-e ‘no’ can not stand independent of the speaker’s own statement. Thus in
309 A:  izho1 shui2 mo3 -do4 today1 is2 not3 a holiday2 , is it ?4           B:  *mo-e no
B’s response is devoid of sense because one could have
a.  mo-e shui-e ‘no, it’s a holiday’ b.  mo-e shui mo-e ‘no, it is not a holiday’
Note that, in contrast, a whole variety of languages allow this. In English, for instance,
310A:    ‘is it not a holiday today ?’       B: a.  ‘yes, (it is)’         b.  ‘no, (it isn’t)’
both of B’s responses are valid without the parenthesized sentences because in English, there is no disjunctive between the speaker’s comment on the proposition and the speaker’s own description of the actual state of affairs. In languages such as English, such a disjuncture in the speaker’s response is possible either when the speaker is his own interlocutor as in a(n) (literary) aside or when the stimulus is a no interrogative discourse. Supposing a debater ends with
311.	Spaker A: ‘India, then, has had no worthwhile cultural heritage’
one of his interlocutors respond with ‘yes (= that’s right; what the speaker is saying is right), India has had no worthwhile cultural heritage’.
Note further that the impossibility of a response is sensitive also to the expectation on the part of the interrogating speaker. Thus, in response to the negated ho- interrogative
312  lo1 le2 mo3 ho mo-e4   will2 (you) not3 go down1 ?4   (you) will not go, will (you) ?         one could have       a.  mo-e1 lo2 le3   no (= what you are saying is not right)1 , (I) will3 go2     b.  ove1 lo2 le3 mo-e4   yes (= what you are saying is right)1 , (I) will3 not4 go2     c.  mo-e1 lo2 le3 mo-e4   no1 , (I) will3 not4 go2         but not       d.  ove lo le   ‘yes, (I) will go’
Responses a-c accord well with, but d. is at variance with, the expectation that is grammatical in A’s question. In the purely information-seeking
313  lo1 le2 mo3 mo-e4 / ama4   will2 (you) not3 go1 ?4
there is no expectation of any kind so that both responses appropriate to an information-seeking question are possible
a. ove lo le ‘yes, I will’       *b.  ove lo le mo-e ‘yes, I will not’       *c.  mo-e lo le ‘no, I will’       d.    mo-e lo le mo-e   ‘no, I will not’