Negation in Lekuwa (C27)

This paper investigates sentential negation in Lekuwa within the framework of Principles and Parameters developed by Noam Chomsky in the 1980’s [1, 2, 3]. Sentential negation is expressed by the negative markers te, ka, lawi, o-tano and the negative indefinite o moto. The base and surface position of te, ka and lawi is post-verbal, while that of otano and o moto is preverbal. It is demonstrated that negation in Lekuwa is a functional head which projects a NegP. Its head status is due to the fact that it selects a non-finite VP as complement, triggers the leftward movement of the object NP, and thus satisfies the ECP, and requires the use of a dummy auxiliary to carry T(ense) inflection like in English. The proof of the presence of NegP in Lekuwa brings further evidence to the existence of a Universal Grammar. {"references": ["L.R. Horn, Multiple negation in English and other languages, In: Horn, L.R (ed). The expression of Negation. Berlin/New York: De Gruter Mouton, 2010, 111-148", "S. Abney, The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect, doctoral diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1987.", "L. Rizzi, andG. Cinque, Functional Categories and Syntactic Theory, In Annual Review of Linguistics, 2016, 2:139-63. Linguist. Annualreviews.org. Retrieved on December 20th 2020", "D. Ngonyani, The Morphosyntax of Negation in Kiswahili, 2001, Swahili Forum VIII 17-33", "V.A.Tanda, and A. Neba, Negation in Mokpe and two related coastal Bantu languages of Cameroon. African Monographs, 2005, 26(4) : 207-219", "Pollock, J. Y. (1989). Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the Structure of IP. In:Linguistic Inquiry, 1989, 20-3, 365-424", "N. Chomsky, Some Notes on the Economy of Derivation in MIT working Papers in Linguistics, Edited by Itziar Laka and Anoop Mahajan,MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Vol 10, 1989."]}