A Minimalist Investigation of Ambiguity in English and Urhobo Negative Sentences

This paper investigates the syntactic operations that cause certain English negative sentences to yield dual interpretations, while the translation equivalent of such ambiguous English sentences yields an unambiguous interpretation in Urhobo, a South-Western Edoid Nigerian language. The adopted theoretical framework is the minimalist program (MP) of generative syntax. The data comprises the relevant English sentences and their Urhobo translation equivalent. Two research questions guide the data analysis: (i) What syntactic rules and operations cause certain English negative sentences that comprise a matrix and an embedded because-adverbial clause to yield dual interpretation, and (ii) Why do their Urhobo translation equivalent structures yield unambiguous interpretation? The data analysis shows that in the English sentence, both the verb (V) of the matrix clause and the adverbial (Adv) head of the embedded because-adverbial clause (AdvP) fall within the scope of negation; that is, they are either c-commanded by the negater (Neg/T-Neg) or else are adjacent lexical/syntactic units relative to Neg/T-Neg; hence the English expression yields two interpretations at LF. On the other hand, in the Urhobo translation equivalent, only the adverbial (Adv) head of the embedded adverbial phrase (AdvP) falls within the scope of negation; that is, AdvP is the complement of Neg/T-Neg; hence, the Urhobo translation equivalent yields only one interpretation.