Kwara State University
Samson Tella
Designation: Assistant Lecturer
Department: Linguistics African and European Languages
| My Publications | ||||||||
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| S/N | Title | Abstract | Authors | Volume Numbers | Publication Type | Publication Date | Link | |
| 1 | Negation in Batonu Language |
Negation is a syntactic phenomenon which is attested cross-linguistically. Invariably, every language has a way of contradicting or denying its affirmative as established by Linguists; even though, its realization in some languages may comply or violate the theoretical requirements propounded by the scholars. This paper then seeks to explore the scope of Negation in Bàtònu; a Niger-Congo language of Benin which dialect is spoken in Baruten local government areas of Kwara State within the theoretical manifestation of the Minimalist Program (MP) propounded by Chomsky. We observed from our analysis that Bàtònu attests five (5) unique negative markers which distributions are complementary. This means that, the environment at which one occurs the others do not. We also discovered that the second person plural pronoun which must be non-overt in negating an imperative in English, Yoruba and others languages must compulsorily be overt if such will be grammatically acceptable in the language. We also noticed that these markers double as the tense and aspectual markers in the course of their interaction. Finally, our findings revealed that the movement of the whole lexical VP to the DP position of the TP triggered by the word order gives the language a SVO instead of the SOV order kind of. Key words: Negation, Language, Minimalist Program, Bàtònu, Complementary Distribution. | Tella Samson Adekunle | Jolan Supplement IV | Journal | 2020-01-10 | ||