Abstract

The goal of this paper is to explore negation in Nduindui, drawing out empirical generalisations regarding negation and the implications of such generalisations in terms of analysing the clause structure in the language. Nduindui shares an interesting feature with many of its neighbours: consistently exhibiting discontinuous bipartite negation, where the two negators he and tea encircle verbal material. This paper presents novel data regarding negation in Nduindui and its interaction with other elements in the clause like tense and aspect. Empirical generalisations are formed from the attested patterns of negation, and a comparative discussion is provided with other languages in the region. The paper then explores what might be the best way to capture the generalisations within a generative syntactic framework. One of the most widely accepted theoretical analyses for bipartite negation is based on French (see Pollock, 1989), where the two negators are argued to be the head and the specifier of the same phrase/NegP; this paper discusses how the Nduindui patterns present challenges to such an analysis. The paper then evaluates the consequences of extending three alternative analyses that can capture bipartite negation: (a) the PolP account of Oosthuizen (1998) and also Biberauer (2007, 2008), (b) the Expanded/Articulated NegP of Bell (2004), and (c) an account with two separate NegPs combined with VP/V-movement. The paper demonstrates how the Nduindui patterns remain a challenge to all the existing theoretical approaches, as none of them can explain the patterns without either making wrong predictions or needing additional stipulations.

Te Reo-Volume 68-Issue 4-pp. 197–218