Abstract
Bengali has two negative markers: ni with perfects, and na everywhere else. When a perfect is elided, however, only the elsewhere form is permissible. Hence, in Bengali, ellipsis bleeds allomorphy. Ellipsis in Bengali is analysed as PF deletion, since differential object marking and quirky case are preserved out of ellipsis sites. Given these facts, this paper argues that in a Distributed Morphology framework, ellipsis in Bengali is implemented as terminal obliteration prior to Vocabulary Insertion. This contrasts with Irish, where it appears stress placement bleeds ellipsis. Some implications for the timing of ellipsis cross-linguistically are discussed.
Highlights
Bengali (Eastern Indo-Aryan, called Bangla) has two morphemes that negate non-copular clauses
This paper has investigated the distribution of negative forms in Bengali clausal negation
Since ellipsis, which was shown to be PF deletion, is able to bleed this choice of negation, it was argued that TP ellipsis must be implemented as termial node obliteration in Bengali
Summary
Bengali (Eastern Indo-Aryan, called Bangla) has two morphemes that negate non-copular clauses. Since the “correct” negation is unavailable with an elided perfect, ellipsis appears to bleed the choice of negative morpheme in Bengali. B. {mach} kha-i {*mach} na/ni {mach} {fish} eat-1 {*fish} NA/NI {fish} ‘I {don’t eat/haven’t eaten} fish.’ Both of these facts strongly suggest that negation in Bengali is always a head. Following Zeijlstra (2008), if negation only has surface scope, it must be licensing the subject from above Spec-Infl. This suggests a high position for negation. We can conclude from this that the Bengali verbal spine looks as shown in (7)
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