Comparing constituent negation in English and Dondo

Abstract

This paper compares constituent negation in English and Dondo in the light of Chomsky’s Minimalist Framework which allows such functional projections as TP, AspP and NegP between CP and VP. The paper demonstrates that negative lexical items cannot function as small clauses in English. However, in Dondo, a lexical item such as ngo (no) can surface as a small clause. Under this condition, the refusal is fully expressed thanks to the reduplication of ngo and possessive markers which agree in number and person (ngo-ngo-ani = ‘I refuse’). Next, not occurs in front of (proper) nouns in English usually relativized or followed by a but-phrase considered as an afterthought. It does not need any other Neg word to fully cover a part of a sentence. However, in Dondo, the Neg marker ko follows the aforementioned grammatical categories. In any cases, the Neg ko requires a negative partitive to restrict its negative reading meaning impact to a part of a sentence. This NegPa triggers off the negated constituent to move from final to initial position of the sentence, thus giving rise to an OSV derivation/spell-out.