The Syntax of Negation and Negative Polarity Items in select Boro-Garo Languages
Date18th Nov 2021
Time11:00 AM
Venue Google-meet
PAST EVENT
Details
The study examines the syntactic dependencies between negation and negative sensitive items in select Boro-Garo languages. It first outlines a description of the distribution of the negative markers in Boro-Garo languages: position of negation in clause structure with regards to different lexical and grammatical components. It then identifies sentential negation to that of constituent negation. The post-verbal negation marks the sentential negation and is located outside VP and below TP (in the verbal complex), whereas the post-nominal negative nominalizer marks the constituent negation and is located outside NP and below DP (in the nominal complex) in the functional layer. In addition, the study offers a detailed discussion of the distribution and description of Negative Polarity Items in Boro-Garo languages. Grounded on the nature of root word, I observed three kinds of NPIs in Boro-Garo, namely classifier NPIs (NPICLF), quantifier NPIs (NPIQN), and adverbial NPIs (NPIADV). All NPIs require the obligatory presence of overt negation both in local and non-local (long-distance) licensing. The licensing is followed by the valuation of probe-goal (Agree) relation, where NPI probes and identifies negation as the only active goal which carries an uninterpretable [uNeg] feature. Prior to Agree, negation locates constituent NPIs marked with the enclitic focus *=bV (having the least value in my proposed pragmatic scale), so that negation licenses the matching constituent under the c-command condition.
Speakers
Mr. Sansuma Brahma [HS17D009] Ph.D Research Scholar
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras - 600 036.