NEGATION IN TIV

Abstract

The article explores and discusses negation in Tiv syntax under the universal context of negator as an element that changes the truth  value of aproposition. It identifies the negative markers in the language and gives a description of the positions in the structure  that they are marked, and with the resultant structural change. The justification forth is work is premise don the fact that negation in Tiv  is not formally explored and it is hoped that the work will present a formal account of negation in the language for cross-linguistic  studies. Data for discussion were obtained through participant  observation and the Author’s native introspection. For analysis, the work adopted the constructs of the Principles and Parameters (P and  P) approach. Th escope of the study covers important aspects like subject and  object negation, as well as negation in relative  structures. In the article, it is presented that Tiv has two exponent  markings fornegation; ei‘ no’in the CP domain and ga‘not’in the IP domain. The article goes ahead to show that imperative marks  negation sentence initial (CPdomain), while the declarative marks it  sentence final (IP). In the analysis, it is discovered that negation in  sentence initial position is for force of negation. The analysis also  discloses that, although the negation in declaratives is marked in situ in sentence final position, the negated element can be extra posed for focus.The study concludes that negation in Tiv is characterized by scope and the aspect of left/right periphery marking  is typical to edge feature percolation.