Negation and V-movement in Igbo: A Minimalist Perspective

Abstract

Negation in Igbo is a predicate operator. In other words, negation is dependent on the verb and therefore marked by verbal affixes. In the literature on Igbo linguistics, the popular view is that the negation of a simple declarative sentence is marked by a templatic morpheme e…ghi comparable to the French ne…pas. However, Dechaine (1993) does not agree with the templatic view of Igbo negation. She rather argues that the e- prefix in Igbo negative constructions is an agreement marker which surfaces in negative constructions to give morphological support to stranded Tense. In line with Dechaine’s view on Igbo negation, this paper provides further arguments in support of the non-templatic analysis of Igbo negation. The paper adopts the vmovement analysis as conceived in the Minimalist Program framework. It argues for four different projections in the Igbo clause structure: AgrP, TP, AspP and NegP. The morphemes marking these functional categories are verbal affixes and so the inflected verb has to move to the relevant functional categories to check off the features associated with the functional categories. Negation interacts with agreement, tense, and aspect in very intricate ways. Above all, the paper shows that tone plays an important role in the morphosyntactic spell out of negation in Igbo.