ABSTRACT
This thesis explores the concept of negation in Akan, a Kwa language. It focuses on how negation is marked in Akan and on negative polarity items. Negation in Akan is marked by a homorganic nasal. This marker is prefixed to the verb stem. Adopting the X-Bar theory in the analysis of data on negation, the study discusses the types and scope of negation. Negation projects a negative phrase (NegP) following Saah’s (1995) account. There are two categorizations of negation types— syntactic and semantic. Based on the syntactic categorization, the types of negation identified are sentential and constituent. Explicit and implicit negation are the types identified based on the semantic categorization. Negation takes scope over the VP in an Akan sentence since it c-commands VP. Therefore, objects are also under the scope of negation.
Under negation, there are certain expressions that occur only in negative sentences. These words are referred to as Negative polarity items. In this study, some NPIs identified in Akan include huu, hwee, ka se, di gyina, among others. These NPIs occur in different positions based on their word classes. Also some have restricted occurrence, while others do not. In Akan, it is only negation that licenses NPIs. They cannot be licensed in downward entailing environments as Ladusaw (1980) proposes. Also, Akan NPIs are bound, as stated by Progovac (1991). They are licensed by clausemate negation. They may, however, be licensed by higher clause negation.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE……………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
GENERAL INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………. 1
CHAPTER TWO…………………………………………………………………………………….. 11
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK……………….. 11
- Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….. 11
CHAPTER THREE…………………………………………………………………………………. 40
NEGATION IN AKAN: ITS SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS………………………….. 40
- Overview…………………………………………………………………………………… 40
CHAPTER FOUR……………………………………………………………………………………. 66
NEGATIVE POLARITY ITEMS (NPIs) IN AKAN…………………………………….. 66
CHAPTER FIVE……………………………………………………………………………………… 97
SUMMARY, FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS……………………………… 97
REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………………. 104
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
| 1SG | 1ST Person Singular Pronoun |
| 2SG | 2nd Person Singular Pronoun |
| 3SG | 3rd Person Singular Pronoun |
| AUX | Auxiliary verb |
| COMP | Complementizer |
| COMPL | Completive |
| COND | Conditional marker |
| CONS | Consecutive marker |
| DEF | Definite determiner |
| DET | Determiner |
| FOC | Focus marker |
| FUT | Future Tense |
| INANIM | Inanimate |
| NEG | Negative marker |
| OBJ | Object |
| OPT | Optative |
| PAST | Past Tense |
| PERF | Perfect Aspect |
| POSS | Possessive |
| PROG | Progressive Marker |
| Q | Quantifier |
| SUBJ | Subject |
| UNIV | Universal |
CHAPTER ONE GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Introduction
This thesis explores the concept of negation in Akan. It focuses on how negation is marked in various sentence structures in Akan, and also negative polarity items (items that are found only in negative sentences).
This chapter gives a general introduction to some issues of negation. It discusses the types of negation, negative concord, double negation, and negative polarity items. It also states the research gap this thesis seeks to fill and the research questions that guide the study. The objectives, significance of study, and the organization of the thesis are also presented in this introductory chapter.
Background to negation
‘Negation is one of the distinctive properties of human language (Horn 2001): every natural language includes at least one device that can express the negation of an affirmative constituent’ (Xiang et al. 2014:3). Every natural language expresses negation: reversing or denying the truth-value of an assertion or proposition (Zeijlstra 2013). Every proposition, therefore, is either true or false. This is to mean that, ‘when p is true, not-p is false, and vice versa’ (Miestamo 2007:552). Negation is overtly expressed in all languages: every language adopts at least one method of expressing negation. The expression of this pervasive phenomenon, however, is language-specific: Languages may vary in the form, number and position of the
negative markers in a sentence (Zeijlstra 2013:1). Before discussing negation in Akan, I introduce various aspects of negation below.
Negation Representation
Natural languages mark negation1 either by morphological, phonological, syntactic and/or semantic means (Xiang et al. 2014:6).
Morphological marking of negation refers to overtly attaching a negative affix, a clitic, or a free morpheme to a lexical category or sentence. This is the commonest way of marking negation: Every language marks negation by morphological means. Examples of such languages are English (-n’t, un-, no), Ewe (me..o), French (ne..pas).
Some languages also mark negation by phonological means. In that, there is intonation on the word or sentence. Example is in English (‘Riight’) (Lawler 2007).
There are some lexical words that, though not affixed by any negative morpheme, connote negative meaning. These are semantic negatives. The negative meaning the word connotes is implicit. Not only lexical words, but also phrases and idiomatic expressions, may be negated. For instance, words like seldom, few, lift a finger.
1 A language may express all means of negation marking. For instance, English (un-, Riight, few).
Types of Negation
Negation can be grouped into types depending on some parameters:
First, we can group negation into explicit negation and implicit negation, based on the source of negative meaning (Xiang et al. 2014:6). Explicit negation refers to ‘negation expressed as part of the asserted meaning of an utterance’ (Xiang et al. 2014:6), whereas implicit meaning refers to that expressed as part of the non- asserted meaning of an utterance. All overt negative markers and words, such as un-, no, not, are examples of explicit negation.
Another sub-categorization of negation is based on syntactic and semantic terms. The syntactic types are sentential and constituent negation. With sentential2 negation, the entire sentence is negated. That is to say that negation scopes over the entire clause. This is illustrated below.
- (a) John ate the food.
- John did not eat the food.
In (1b), the truth value of (1a) is averted: The assertion that John ate the food is nullified by the negative marker not. This sentence can have various interpretations:
- (a) John did not eat the food; Ama did.
- John did not eat the food; she drank the water.
In order to disambiguate this sentence, we need to negate the constituent under discussion. This is termed constituent negation. A constituent is negated to narrow
2 There are three classes of marking sentential negation: negative verbs, negative markers, and negative particles (Zeijlstra 2013:4). See also Zanuttini (2001).
the scope to only that category. In negating a constituent, various language-specific strategies are adopted. One strategy is constituent clefting3. In constituent clefting, the category being negated is focused. This is illustrated below.
- (a) [It is not John] who ate the food.
- [It is not the food] that John ate.
In the examples in (3), John (a) and the food (b) are the entities negated.
The semantic types coincide with the syntactic types of negation. The two types of negation grouped in terms of the meaning scope they carry are Wide and Narrow (Amfo 2010). Negation is said to take scope over an entire sentence when we talk of wide scope of negation. This coincides with sentential negation. However, when a constituent is negated (constituent negation), it is said that negation takes a narrow scope (that is, scopes over only the constituent).
Multiple Negation
Some languages permit a negative sentence to have two or more negative markers. A clause with two negative markers may be interpreted as one (concord) or double cases of negation (where they neutralize each other) (Haegeman & Zanuttini 1996:117). Examples can be seen below.
- (a) Ik heb niet niets gezegd. (Standard Dutch) I have not nothing said
3 The cleft expression is ‘It is not X’, as indicated by the square brackets in example (3).
- Nu am vazut pe nimeni. (Romanian)
NEG have seen nobody ‘I haven’t seen anybody.’
(Haegeman & Zanuttini 1996:117-118) Example (4a) illustrates double negation, and (4b) illustrates negative concord.
Negative Polarity Items
Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) refer to “words or expressions that can only occur in contexts that are in some sense negative: (Penka & Zeijlstra 2010:772). Lawler (2007:1) defines NPI as ‘a term applied to lexical items, fixed phrase, or syntactic construction types that demonstrate unusual behavior around negation’. They can be found in almost every natural language (Giannakidou 2008). Examples include any in English (Krifka 1995, Rothschild 2009, Giannakidou 2011), tipota ‘anything’ in Greek, ook maar iets ‘anything’ in Dutch (Giannakidou 2011) as illustrated in (5) below.
- (a) Bill didn’t buy any books.
- *Bill bought any books.
(Giannakidou 2011:1661)
In the above sentences (5a &b), we can deduce that any occurs in negative contexts (as seen in (a)), but not in positive sentences (as in (b)). According to Rothschild, NPIs “seem happy under negation and are sometimes unhappy without negation” (Rothschild 2009:2).
One feature of NPIs is their ‘exclusion from positive assertions with simple past’ (Giannakidou 2011). In (5) above, usage of any in simple past tense in a sentence (5b) renders the sentence ungrammatical.
Another feature of NPIs is that they ‘give rise to minimal pairs of affirmative and negative sentences, of which only the negative member is grammatical.’ (Hoeksema 2000). This accounts for the ungrammaticality of the affirmative sentence in (6a) below.
- (a) *I have any book.
- I don’t have any book.
Akan and its speakers
Akan belongs to the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language family, which is spoken primarily in Ghana and Ivory Coast. It has a population of approximately 47.5% (Ghana Statistical Service 2012), with several dialects including Asante Twi, Fante, and Akuapem Twi. According to the 2000 census, Akan carries majority (40%) of speakers in Ghana (Ghana Statistical Service 2000).
In this study, most the examples would be taken from the Asante Twi dialect. Where necessary, examples would be taken from the other dialects.
Problem Statement
One subject this thesis will touch on is Negative polarity items (NPIs) in Akan. This is a less researched area in Akan syntax. Negative Polarity Items refer to “words or
expressions that can only occur in contexts that are in some sense negative: (Penka & Zeijlstra 2010:772). For instance, any in English.
- (a) Bill didn’t buy any books.
- *Bill bought any books.
(Giannakidou 2011:1661)
In the above examples, it can be realized that any operates better in a negative context (with the introduction of not) but otherwise without it (as in b.).
According to Giannakidou (2008), almost all natural languages have NPIs. In this research, I find out if Akan has NPIs, and if it does, what their distributions and behavior are in negative sentences.
Kobele & Torrence (2006), claim that NPIs are licensed in the direct object position.
- (a) Me [n-hia hwee]. “I don’t need anything”
- *Me hia hwee. “I need anything”
Is it possible to have an NPI in any position other than the direct object position in Akan? If that is possible, how do we interpret its scope under negation?
- (a) [Hwee] re-n-hia me.
- [Hwee] na me-n-hia.
In (9a), the NPI is in the subject position. I would analyse whether it can be licensed in that position. Also, as in (9b), I find out how possible NPIs are to occur without negation.
Therefore, this thesis to find answers to negation and the fresh ground of research (negative polarity) in Akan.
Objectives
The objectives of this study are to:
- Find out the various ways in which negation is expressed in Akan.
- Describe the structure of negative sentences.
- Identify and describe the distribution of NPIs in negative sentences in Akan.
Research Questions
This research therefore seeks to answer the following questions:
- What are the types of negation in Akan?
- How do we account for negation in various sentence structures?
- What are the types of NPIs in Akan?
- What licenses or triggers NPIs in Akan?
- What is the distribution of NPIs in negative sentences?
Significance
This research would serve the following purposes:
- It would provide a comprehensive description of negation in Akan.
- It would serve as a reference point for future research in the language and other related languages in the area of syntax.
- It would add up to already existing literature on negation and Akan.
