Syntactic negation in Ewe (Tongugbe) agent nominalizations

Drawing on evidence from the scope patterns and the availability of negative polarity item (NPI) licensing of the negation marker ma‐ , we show that NegP is realized in Ewe (Tongugbe) agentive nominals. We conclude that agentive nominals accommodate sentential negation, posing a challenge to previou...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Syntax (Oxford, England) England), 2024-02
Main Authors: Gotah, Selikem, Lee, Soo‐Hwan
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Drawing on evidence from the scope patterns and the availability of negative polarity item (NPI) licensing of the negation marker ma‐ , we show that NegP is realized in Ewe (Tongugbe) agentive nominals. We conclude that agentive nominals accommodate sentential negation, posing a challenge to previous assumptions. The implication of this work is that agent nominalizations can be more verb‐like than what has been reported in the literature. We further examine where the Ewe agentive suffix ‐lá resides in syntax based on the argument structure of the predicates realized inside agentive nominals.
ISSN:1368-0005
1467-9612
DOI:10.1111/synt.12280