**Dov Yarden Hebrew and Arabic linguistic Seminar at the École Normale**
Workshops on Semitic Syntax and Morphology
# Negation in Modern Standard Arabic: tense and agreement
### *Abstract*
This paper addresses two issues that characterize the (morpho)-syntax
of sentential negation in Standard Arabic (SA) and modern Arabic
varieties. The first one is parametric and addresses the location of
negation in the clause structure. The second issue concerns the
agreement markers realized on the negative particle *laysa* along with
the temporal interpretation that some of the negative markers in SA
encode, namely *lan* and *lam*. Two views have been contrasted in the
literature: the *Low-Neg analysis*, according to which Neg is the
complement of TP, and the *High- Neg analysis* whereby Neg is higher
than T. In this study, I will argue that while the two views account
form a good range of empirical facts, *Low-Neg analysis* lacks
empirical adequacy. Similarly, the *High-Neg view* is hard to
reconcile within the Spec-head agreement and the standard Agree
approach. However, I will show that the *High-Neg analysis* can be
still maintained under the Feature-Inheritance approach, in which T
inherits its ø-features and Tense feature from C.
**Keywords**: Negation; Agreement; Standard Arabic; Negative
Projection; Feature Inheritance; Tense Phrase.
## Introduction
In Standard Arabic (SA), there is currently a controversy regarding
the exact syntactic position of NegP. This controversy stems from the
observation that sentential negation in SA presents basically two
challenging issues. The first issue concerns the Neg-subject agreement
associated with the negative *laysa*, which, among other things,
carries the agreement inflection carried by verbs, as indicated in the
sentences below.
1 The ideas presented in this paper originated in my doctoral
dissertation which I did at Mohammed V University- Rabat, Morocco in
2017. I am grateful to my advisors Abdellatif Al Ghadi and El Abbas
Benmamoun for their comments on the different aspects of the analyses
presented here. I would like to thank the participants and audience at
the conference for their feedback. I should also thank the anonymous
reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and their many
insightful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies.
(1)
1. lays-**uu** fii l-bayt-i
NEG-3mp in the-house-GEN ‘They aren’t at home’
2. lays-**at** mariiDat-an NEG-3fs sick-ACC ‘She isn’t sick’
The second problem addresses the issue of the temporal interpretation
that *laa* and its variants *lam* and *lan* encode. The following
examples are illustrative:
(2)
1. Zayd-un laa yu-ħibb-u l-ʔaflaam-a
Zayd-NOM NEG-Present 3m-write-IMP-3ms the-movies-ACC ‘Zayd doesn’t
like movies’
2. lam ya-xruʒ Zayd-un l-baariħat-a
NEG-Past 3m-went out Zayd-NOM the-yesterday-ACC ‘Zayd didn’t go out
yesterday’
3. lan ya-xruʒ-a Zayd-un ɣad-an
NEG-Future 3ms-went out Zayd-NOM tomorrow-ACC ‘Zayd won’t go out
tomorrow’
These problems have been difficult to reconcile within the Spec-head
agreement and the standard Agree approach2. To this end,
the present paper attempts to propose a novel solution to these
problems, providing a unifying account that would explain these
otherwise unrelated behaviors. In particular, the main hypothesis
defended here is that these behaviors are explained on the basis of
Chomsky’s (2005) Feature-Inheritance mechanism, whereby T inherits its
ø- features and tense from C.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 attempts to review the
current analyses to the issues at hand. These analyses are referred to
in the literature as *The Low-Neg Approach* and the
2 Expletive constructions pose a challenge to the spec-head agreement
relation. Consider the following examples:
1. There are men in the room
2. There is a man in the garden
In both examples, the auxiliary agrees with the complements not with
*there*, as wrongly predicted by the spec-head relation. See Chomsky
(2001) for a discussion.
*High-Neg Approach*. Section 3. reviews the Agree mechanism proposed
in The Minimalist Program. This includes a brief survey of the Agree
system and the Feature-inheritance model. In light of this hypothesis,
section 4 presents the basic analysis. Sections 5 and 6 provides an
analysis to the observed adjacency requirement on negation and the
syntactic representation of the negative *maa*, respectively. Finally,
section 7 explores the possibility of reducing the different
realizations of the negative particles to Late Insertion.
## The Position of Neg: Two Main Views
The interaction of negation with tense and agreement has resulted in
two major analyses attempting to capture the structural position of
negation in the clause structure. These are referred to by Soltan
(2011) as *Low-Neg Analysis* and *High-Neg Analysis* Each position
proposes a different analysis and captures different empirical
generalizations. The subsections that immediately follow summarize and
discuss the major claims and generalizations of each.
## Low-Neg Analysis
The *Low-Neg Analysis* suggests that SA is similar to English in that
Neg is dominated by T, selecting VP as its complement.
(3)
(Benmamoun *et al.* 2010: 113)
The Low-Neg Analysis is adopted in Benmamoun (1992, 2000), Ouhalla
(1993) and Aoun *et al.* (2010). As pointed out in Aoun *et al.*
(2010), Neg blocks movement of the verb to T. This movement is blocked
by minimality constraints, namely Head Movement Constraint (Travis,
1984). Adjacent to T, it thus follows that Neg encodes tense. This
approach also provides an adequate analysis of the surface realization
of tense in *lam* and *lan*. In particular, when Neg merges with
TPASTt, *lam* is spelled out, whereas *lan* is selected
when Neg merges with TFUTURE (see for example Benmamoun,
2000).
Furthermore, the *Low-Neg Analysis* seems to explain the discontinuous
negative morpheme exhibited by some Arabic varieties. For instance,
Moroccan Arabic (MA) is a language where sentential negation is
morphosyntactically realized as either a discontinuous morpheme *ma-*
*…-*ʃ or the non-discontinuous *ma*ʃ*i*. On the basis of the syntactic
configuration in (3), the circumfixal behavior of the morpheme is the
result of the successive-cyclic head movement of the verb to T, as
shown in the derived structure in (4):
(4)
As it stands, verb movement to tense must go through the
negative3 projection. Being morphologically dependent, this
allows the negative morpheme to form a complex morphological unit with
the verb (Benmamoun, 2000; Loutfi, 2017).
3 For the analysis that the verb moves to T, the interested reader is
referred to Benmamoun (2000) and Aoun *et al.*
(2010).
## High-Neg Negation
The proponents of this approach (Fassi Fehri, 1993; Shlonsky, 1997;
Soltan, 2006, 2011; Benmamoun *et al.* 2013) assume the configuration
in (9), wherein Neg is higher than T.
(5)
The arguments advanced for the *High-Neg Analysis* are manifold. The
first argument comes from the order of morphemes in MA. In particular,
MA forms future tense periphrastically via the auxiliary *ɣadi* or its
clitic variant {*ɣa*-}, as illustrated in (6):
6) Mohammed ɣadi y-Safr ɣədda
Mohammed WILL-3ms 3ms-travel tomorrow ‘Mohammed is travelling
tomorrow’
The future auxiliary encodes the future interpretation. As a result,
the verb does not move to T. This explains the imperfective morphology
on the verb. Note, however, in the context of negation, the
realization of the negative morpheme is realized on the auxiliary
*ɣadi*, contrary to the pattern predicated by the *Low-Neg Analysis*.
To be precise, the *Low-Neg Analysis* would predict that the sentence
in (7-b) is grammatical. This is largely because Neg in (7) is closer
to the verb than T.
(7)
1. Mohammed ma-ɣadi-ʃ y-Safr ɣədda
Mohammed NEG-WILL-3ms-NEG 3ms-travel tomorrow ‘Mohammed is not
travelling tomorrow’
2. \*Mohammed ɣadi ma-y-Safr-ʃ ɣədda
Mohammed WILL-3ms NEG-3ms-travel-NEG tomorrow
The second argument in favor of the structure in (5) comes from the
accusative case assigned by
*laa* in (8) (Benmamoun *et al.,* 2013:101).
(8)
1. mudarris-un ɣaaɁib-un
NEG teacher-ms.NOM absent-3ms.NOM ‘A teacher is absent’
2. laa mudarris-a ɣaaɁib-un
NEG teacher-ms.ACC absent-3ms.NOM ‘No teacher is absent’
Interestingly, similar behavior is exhibited by the complementizers
*Ɂanna* and *Ɂinna*, both of which assign accusative case to the
subject they immediately c-command (see Aoun *et al.* 2010 for
analysis along these lines).
(9)
1. Hind-un fii l-bayti
Hind-NOM in the-house-GEN ‘Hind is at home’
2. Ɂinna Hind-an fii l-bayti
COMP Hind-ACC in the-house-GEN ‘(I confirm that) Hind is at home’
As the data in (9) and (10) show, in the presence of the relevant case
assigner, the subject receives the accusative case; otherwise it is in
the nominative case, as shown in (9-a) and (10-a). In fact, such a
generalization is hard to explain under the *Low-Neg Analysis*. For
one thing, if we assume that Neg is a case assigner, we would predict
that the sentence in (10-b) is grammatical. This is because in (10-b)
the closet case assigner that immediately c-commands Zayd is
Neg4, as is evident from the fact that Neg is a closer case
assigner to the subject than T.
(10)
1. Zayd-un laa yu-ħibb-u l-ʔaflaam-a
Zayd-NOM NEG-Present 3m-write-IMP-3ms the-movies-ACC ‘Zayd doesn’t
like movies’
4 However, note that this prediction is contingent upon the assumption
that *Zayd* is base-generated in the specifier of the VP (see
Mohammed, 2000).
2. \*Zayd-an laa yu-ħibb-u l-ʔaflaam-a
Zayd-ACC NEG-Present 3m-write-IMP-3ms the-movies-ACC
For another, the accusative case assigned to the subject in (8-b)
above will be mysterious, for the evident reason that there is no
overt case assigner. This would also regard accusative case as a
default form on a par with nominative case. This is not
cross-linguistically valid, however (see McFadden, 2004).
To sum up, in this section I have explored the two main views proposed
to account for the representation of sentential negation in SA and in
modern Arabic dialects. I have shown that each approach makes
different predications. The *High-Neg Approach* has been shown to make
the correct predications. However, the High-Neg view is hard to
reconcile within the Spec-head agreement and the standard Agree
approach (Chomsky, 2001). I will show that the High-Neg analysis can
be still maintained under the Feature-Inheritance approach, in which T
inherits its ø- features and Tense feature from C (Chomsky, 2004,
2005; Richards, 2007), supporting the syntactic configuration in (11):
(11)
Before proceeding to the proposed analysis, some background concepts
on the theory of Feature inheritance is deemed convenient.
## Feature-Inheritance
In the Minimalist Program (MP), Chomsky (2004) abandons the assumption
that agreement is established in a Spec-head relation; rather, the
process whereby agreement is obtained is the operation Agree. In
particular, Agree establishes an agreement relation between two
elements. The first element is the Probe, while the other one is the
Goal, a process seen as a mutual valuation of features, in that the
Probe enters the derivation with unvalued uninterpretable features
but the Goal enters the derivation with these features valued (and
vice versa). The existence of unvalued features in both makes them
active, hence visible to the computational system. Once the agreement
relation between the two is established, both the Probe and the Goal
are rendered inactive, i.e. no longer accessible to further operations
(Chomsky, 2001: 6).
(12)
The possible Probes are for instance C, T and little *v*, whereas the
Goal is any DP with matching features in the c-commanding domain of
the Probe. As shown in the tree diagram in (12), T enters the
derivation with uninterpretable (unvalued) ø-features. As a probe, T
locates a local suitable goal with active matching features in its
search domain. T will locate the closest active DP. As demonstrated in
(12), the DP located in the specifier of *v*P qualifies as such a
candidate as it has an unvalued case feature. The DP then values the
unvalued ø-features of T, which in turn values the unvalued case
feature on the nominal expression. It is customary that DPs move to
\[Spec, T\] to check the strong EPP feature (Chomsky, 1995), a feature
requiring that a DP must occupy the \[Spec, T\]. In the MP, this
process is seen as a by-product of Agree. Of interest to the present
purposes is Chomsky’s (2004, 2005) assumption that the formal features
associated with T are inherited from the phase head C
(complementizer).
Two syntactic corollaries arise herein. First, T is a probe only when
it is selected by C. In view of this fact, raising and ECM
(Exceptional Case Marking) are given a straightforward analysis, i.e.
each construction lacks C (Richards, 2007). Second, operations such as
subject-verb
agreement and subject movement now arise via the mechanism of Feature
Inheritance. In a finite declarative sentence, this is visualized in
(13) below:
(13)
As will be delineated in what follows, agreement and tense realized on
negative particles in SA provide a strong empirical support to the
structure in (11).
## Proposed Analysis
As has been discussed in section 2, the different structures posited
as to the position of Neg in Arabic have different implications. While
the *High-Neg Analysis* correctly captures the Future- Neg-Verb
pattern in MA, a complication arises as to how and why some negative
particles encode tense and establish Subject-Neg agreement in SA.
Under the Feature-Inheritance model suggested above, this is
straightforwardly accounted for. Starting with the Subject-Neg
agreement, this can be explained on the basis of the following
structure:
(14)
The structure above illustrates that upon merging, C transfers its
ø-features to Neg. Neg now has \[-interpretable\] ø-features, hence
it is active. It probes for a local subject in its c-command domain.
As a result of the Agree operation, these ø-features are valued and
deleted. The agreement morphemes on Neg are thus the reflex of the
Agree operation established with the subject.
Note that in the representation in (14), TP is not projected. One
argument in favor of this is that *laysa* appears in nominal
constructions, where no verbal copula is realized. In the absence of
the relevant verbal copula, the default present interpretation always
follows. In the MP,
however, nominative case is intimately related to the presence of a
tense head. Without further speculation, this paper assumes as
provisionally correct that since SA displays a default nominative case
system, its realization in verbal constructions is default. As such,
no TP projection is required.
Along these lines, Benmamoun (2000) puts forth a number of arguments
in support of the projection of tense in verbless constructions. One
of these arguments is expletive constructions, the standard assumption
within the principles-and-parameters framework being that expletives
satisfy the EPP feature located under T.
15) hunaka Tullaab-un fii l-bayti
there students-NOM in the-house-GEN ‘There are students in the house’
Interestingly, Subject-Neg agreement is not established when the
expletive ‘*hunaaka*’ intervenes between the subject and *laysa*.
(16)
1. laysa hunaaka Tullaab-un fii l-bayti
NEG-3ms there students-NOM in the-house-GEN ‘There are no students in
the house’
2. \*lays-uu hunaaka Tulaab-un fii l-bayti
NEG-3mp there students-NOM in the-house-GEN
As illustrated in (16-b), when the Neg-subject agreement holds,
ungrammaticality ensues. This ungrammaticality can be accounted for if
one assumes that T, if present, blocks the agreement process. Another
piece of evidence supporting the configuration in (14) comes from
Maltese Arabic. Like MA, negation in Maltese Arabic is expressed
through the circumfix ma- -x5, as illustrated in (17):
(17)
1. smajt l-istorja Kolha heard-1sg the-sotry all
‘I heard the whole strory’
5 The vowel *a* is deleted when it is followed by a round vowel, as
shown in (18-19) below.
2. ma-smajt-x l-istorja kolha NEG-heard-NEG the-story all ‘I didn’t
hear the whole story’
(Borg and Azzopardi-Alexander, 1997: 88)
Furthermore, in the absence of a finite auxiliary verb, negation is
realized by the negative circumfix ma-…-x along with the pronominal
-*hu-*. As argued in Benmamoun (2000: 79), this pronominal clitic
carries the third masculine singular features. This feature is often
associated with the expletive pronoun in Arabic.
18) m-hu-x se jmur id-dar
NEG fut. goes-3ms the-house ‘He isn’t going to go home’
Interestingly, in the absence of an auxiliary verb the discontinuous
negative morpheme merges with the expletive, as illustrated in (19):
19) m-hawn-x hafna traffiku fit-triq
NEG-here-NEG much traffic in-the-road ‘There isn’t a lot of traffic in
the road’
The facts in (18) and (19) follow if one assumes that T is not
present. This allows the negative morpheme to freely merge with the
pronominal *-hu-* in (18) and the expletive in (19). Another piece of
evidence supporting our claim comes from the co-occurrence restriction
that holds between *laysa* and the auxiliary *kaan*, as the
ungrammaticality of the examples in (20-c) and (20-e) show.
20) 1. kaan-at Hind-un mariiDat-an
AUX-PAST-3fs Hind-NOM sick-ACC ‘Hind was sick’
2. lays-at Hind-un mariiDat-an NEG-3fs Hind-NOM sick-ACC ‘Hind is not
sick’
3. \*lays-at kaan-at Hind-un mariiDat-an
NEG-3fs AUX-PAST-3fs Hind-NOM sick-ACC
4. Hind-un lam ta-kun mariiDat-an
Hind-NOM NEG-Past 3fs-AUX sick-ACC ‘Hind wasn’t sick’
5. \*Hind-un laysat ta-kun mariiDat-an
Hind-NOM NEG-3fs 3fs-AUX sick-ACC
In much the same way, in the past tense, *laysa* is blocked by *lam*,
as shown in (21) below:
21) lam ta-kun fii l-bayt-i
NEG-Past 3fs-AUX the-house-GEN ‘She wasn’t home’
Similarly, *laa* and its variants cannot occur in verbless sentences
(Fassi-Fehri, 1993:164):
22) \*laa/\*lan/\*lam fii l-bayti
NEG/NEG-Fut/NEG-Past in the-house-GEN
In view of these facts, it is tempting to argue that Neg transfers
ø-features to T, and only then does T, being active, probe the
subject. As for tense, two analyses are conceivable, the first of
which is where Neg can be said to keep tense. Hence, no tense-sharing
relation with T applies. The second analysis is to argue that Neg
shares tense with T6. As a matter of fact, the first
analysis seems more plausible than the second one, for the evident
reason that, in the presence of a negative element, the verb appears
in the imperfective morphology (23-b); otherwise the verb is
morphologically marked as perfective (23-a). This suggests the failure
of the tense-sharing process.
23) 6. xaraʒ-a Zayd-un l-baariħat-a
went-out-3ms Zayd-Nom the-yesterday-ACC ‘Zayd went out yesterday’
7. lam ya-xruʒ Zayd-un l-baariħat-a
NEG-Past 3m-went out Zayd-Nom the-yesterday-ACC ‘Zayd didn’t go out
yesterday’
6 Ouali (2010, 2013) argues that there are three logical possibilities
implied in the Feature-Inheritance model. These are DONATE, KEEP, and
SHARE.
The fact that Neg transfers its features to T is supported by Ouali’s
(2011) *C-to-Neg-to-T ø-Feature Transfer*, stated as follows:
## C-to-Neg-to-T ø-Features Transfer
C transfers its ø-features to T via Neg
(Ouali, 2011: 33)
To illustrate with a concrete example, Tashlhit Amazigh realizes
negation through a preverbal morpheme *ur* and the epenthetic vowel
*i* (Ouali, 2011; Bensoukas, 2015).
25) 8. idd**a** Hicham left-3ms. Hicham ‘Hicham left’
9. ur idd**i** Hicham
NEG left-3ms.NEG Hicham ‘Hicham didn’t leave’
Ouali (2011) proposes that the negative morphology on the verb in
(25-b) is a remnant of the *C-to-Neg-to-T ø-Feature
Transfer*7*.* On the basis of these facts, the feature
transfer process is obtained as follows:
26)
In the absence of an intervening head, in this case Neg, Subject-verb
agreement holds perfectly, as C transfers its ø-features directly to
T. Thus, when T is projected, the Subject-Neg agreement does not hold.
This is the case in verbal constructions in examples (2) above,
repeated below for convenience:
7 Negation in Moroccan Amazigh is much more complex than the facts
presented here. See Ouali (2011) and Bensoukas (2015) and the
references cited therein.
27) 10. Zayd-un laa yu-ħibb-u l-ʔaflaam-a
Zayd-Nom NEG-Present 3m-write-IMP-3ms the-movies-Acc ‘Zayd doesn’t
like movies’
11. lam ya-xruʒ Zayd-un l-baariħata
NEG-Past 3m-went out Zayd-Nom the-yesterday ‘Zayd didn’t go out
yesterday’
12. lan ya-xruʒ Zayd-un ɣadan
Neg-Future 3ms-went out Zayd-Nom tomorrow ‘Zayd won’t go out tomorrow’
## Negation and Adjacency Requirement
It has been observed that the distribution of negation in SA displays
a strict adjacency requirement, according to which *laa* and its
variant must be adjacent to the verb (Fassi Fehri, 1993; Benmamoun,
2000); otherwise, ungrammaticality ensues, as shown in (28-b).
28) 13. lan ya-ʔti-ya **Zayd-un**
NEG-Future 3ms-come Zayd-NOM ‘Zayd won’t come’
14. \*lan **Zayd-un** ya-ʔti-ya
NEG-Future Zayd-NOM3ms-come
*laysa*, on the other hand, does not observe such requirement, as
shown by the fact that the subject can intervene between the negative
and the verb.
29) 15. **Zayd-un** laysa maRiiD-an
Zayd-NOM NEG-3ms sick-ACC ‘Zayd isn’t sick’
16. laysa **Zayd-un** maRiiD-an
NEG-3ms Zayd-NOM sick-ACC ‘Zayd isn’t sick’
In this study, the adjacency requirement is explained on the basis of
the syntactic configuration in (30). In particular, when T is present
the verb must move to check the \[V\] feature of tense (Benmamoun,
2000). This explains why the two lexical heads, Neg and V, are
adjacent, forming a complex head. This is made clear in the following
tree diagram:
30)
In the absence of T in a non-verbal context, however, no such a
requirement is instigated, thus accounting for (28). Before closing
this section, it has been pointed out by Benmamoun (2000), building on
Moutaouakil (1993), that *laysa* appears in verbal contexts as well,
as indicated by the grammaticality of the following sentence:
31) las-tu ʔa-drii
NEG-3ms 3ms-know ‘I don’t know’
This being the case, however, this does not seem to undermine our
thesis that *laysa* appears in a clause structure where TP is not
projected. There is supporting evidence that the verb in the
imperfective form does not move to T. This is evident from the
ungrammaticality of the periphrastic causative sentence in (32-b),
where the verb movement in the embedded clause is not possible (see
Loutfi, 2017 for an analysis).
32) 17. ʒaʕal-a Zayd-un l-bint-a ta-rqusu
made-3ms Zayd-NOM the-girl-ACC 3fs-dance ‘Zayd made the girl dance’
18. \*ʒaʕal-a Zayd-un ta-rqusu l-bint-a
made-3ms Zayd-NOM the-girl-ACC 3fs-dance ‘Zayd made the girl dance’
The idea that the verb does not move in embedded clauses is consistent
with the analysis suggested in Loutfi (2017), according to which
embedded clauses in periphrastic causatives do not project a TP.
Instances where the verb, although appearing with imperfective
morphology, undergoes verb movement to T can still be maintained if we
assume the Neg head does not share tense with T.
## The Negative *maa*
If the analysis proposed is maintained, *maa* seems to pose problems.
As has been pointed out, *maa* appears in a wide range of contexts,
both verbal and non-verbal, and its distribution does not seem to be
restricted by tense. This is coupled with the fact that the verb
negated by *maa* is conjugated according to the tense of the sentence,
which means that *maa* does not block verb movement to T (Aoun *et
al.* 2010).
33) 19. maa xaraʒ-at Hind-un
NEG went-out-3fs Hind-Nom ‘Hind didn’t go out’
20. maa ta-xruʒ-u Hind-un fii layl-i
NEG 3fs-go-out’3fs Hind-Nom in night-GEN ‘Hind doesn’t go out at
night’
21. maa Sa-tu-saafir-u Zaynab-un
NEG FUT-3fs-travel-3fs Zaynab-Nom ‘Zaynab won’t travel’
22. maa Hind-un fii l-bayt-i
NEG Hind-Nom in the-house-Gen ‘Hind isn’t at home’
23. maa xaalid-un ħaziin-un NEG Khalid-Nom sad-Nom ‘Khalid isn’t sad’
Ouhalla (1993) argues that *maa* acts as a marker of negative
contrastive focus, as it contrastively focuses the whole proposition.
As defined by Ouhalla (1993: 277), ‘negative focus is used to assert
the falsity of a given prevailing piece of information, which can be
encoded in a whole proposition (sentence), or in just a constituent of
a sentence’. Assuming that this analysis is on the right track, this
explains why *maa*, contrary to the other negative particles, does not
participate in the Feature-Inheritance model. More precisely, *maa* is
merged higher in the structure than C and T. This also explains the
co-occurrence of both the discontinuous morpheme *ma-…-*ʃ and the
non-discontinuous *ma*ʃ*i* in (34).
34) 24. maʃi ma-ʒa-ʃ
NEG NEG-came-3ms-NEG ‘Not that he didn’t come’
25. maʃi ma-zwin-ʃ
NEG NEG-beautiful-3ms-NEG ‘Not that he isn’t beautiful’
Similar to *maa*, *ma*ʃ*i* also acts as a focus marker, contrastively
focusing the whole proposition, as *ma*ʃ*i* in (38) clearly asserts
the falsity of the proposition that ‘he didn’t come’. Since *ma*ʃ*i*
and the discontinuous morpheme *ma-…-*ʃ are not in complementary
distribution, the two negative morphemes cannot be said to occupy the
same position. This fact suggests that *ma*ʃ*i* is higher in the
clause than C. Following Ouhalla (1993), *ma*ʃ*i* is similar to *maa*
in that the two are the heads of the focus projection located higher
than C and T. This explains why *maa* neither carries tense nor
inflects for agreement. Therefore, *maa* does not block the feature
sharing process.
## Negation and Late Insertion
With *laysa* and *laa* and its temporal variants instantiating
different syntactic configurations, it is tempting to advance the
proposal suggested in Benmamoun (2000), according to which there is
one single negative element. With the exception of *maa*, this
proposal is also supported by the fact that the different negative
particles share a common phonological form. Given our theoretical
approach, we diverge from Benmamoun’s implementation of this proposal,
however, proposing that their realization is governed by Late
Insertion (Halle and Marantz, 1993, 1994). As shown in (59), each
negative element is specified with a set of specific features that
licenses its context of insertion.
35) ### *Vocabulary Items proposed for Negation*
26. laa ⇔ \[+V, TPresent\]
27. lam ⇔ \[+V, TPAST\]
28. lan ⇔ \[+V, TFUTURE\]
29. laysa ⇔ \[+V, +N\]
30. maa ⇔ \[Focus\]
# Conclusion
The locus of interest of this paper has been to explain the seemingly
disparate range of empirical facts displayed by the negative elements
in SA. These are the Subject-Neg agreement triggered by *laysa* and
the temporal interpretation associated with *lan* and *lam*. It has
been demonstrated that these behaviors are unified under the Feature
Inheritance system suggested in Chomsky (2004, 2005), whereby T
inherits its tense and ø-features from C. The advantages of this
system are twofold. First, it has been shown that the Subject-Neg
agreement and the tense encoded by *lan* and *lam* are not
coincidental, but the result of the mechanism Agree, thereby unifying
these two seemingly unrelated phenomena. Second, it has been
demonstrated that the *High-Neg* analysi*s* proves more explanatory
than the *Low-Neg* approach.
Furthermore, an adequate and unified analysis of the adjacency
requirement on the verb and the negative *laa* and its temporal
variants has been provided. As opposed to Benmamoun (2000), I have
shown that the adjacency requirement (or its lack thereof) boils down
to the (un)- availability of movement of the verb to T. In
non-verbless sentences, where T was argued not to be projected, such a
requirement is not observed. This analysis straightforwardly captures
the generalization that *laa* and its variants always requires the
presence of a verbal head. Granted that the analysis proposed herein
is on the right track, the feature inheritance approach to agreement
would have several implications on the realizations of agreement and
case in SA, an issue we leave to future research.
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