Abstract
This article examines constituent negation in Sesotho, focussing on negation of the subject with nominal modifiers of matrix clauses. Sesotho is an African language that falls under the Bantu family. Unlike English, which makes use of negative elements to negate clausal constituents, such as no in no children have eaten , Sesotho does not have a direct means of negating a clausal constituent. The central aim of this article is to demonstrate how Sesotho employs negative clauses, such as negative cleft sentences, negative pseudo-cleft sentences and negative clauses, together with the marker ho , to realise constituent negation. This article will also argue that, in terms of Haegemen’s (1995) Neg-Criterion, Sesotho does not have non-negative operators that could constitute the realisation of local or constituent negation.
Highlights
Sesotho is one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, spoken in Lesotho and South Africa
Clauses negating the subject argument with nominal modifiers are realized by negative cleft sentences, negative pseudo-cleft sentences and negative clauses with AGRS, ho
It is necessary to give an overview of grammatical concepts such as the notion ‘subject’ and its http://spilplus.journals.ac.za structural position, the nominal modifiers in Sesotho, the notion ‘negation’ and in particular constituent negation and demonstrate how negative clauses such as negative cleft sentences, negative pseudo-cleft sentences and clauses with marker [ho] are used in Sesotho to achieve constituent negation
Summary
Sesotho is one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, spoken in Lesotho and South Africa. Negation of subject arguments will be considered within the framework of the Minimalist Program, which maintains that a language consists of the lexicon and the computational system, where the operations Merge and Move generate sets of structural descriptions It is driven by the principle of Economy, which stipulates that movement should take place only when necessary for the purpose of case checking. Sesotho negative clauses have a functional projection, called a Negative Phrase, which has the negative morphemes /ha/, /sa/, and /se/ as heads. It is necessary to give an overview of grammatical concepts such as the notion ‘subject’ and its http://spilplus.journals.ac.za structural position, the nominal modifiers in Sesotho, the notion ‘negation’ and in particular constituent negation and demonstrate how negative clauses such as negative cleft sentences, negative pseudo-cleft sentences and clauses with marker [ho] are used in Sesotho to achieve constituent negation
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