Abstract
Double and triple negation marking is an ancient and deep-rooted feature that is attested in almost the entire Berber-speaking area (North Africa and diaspora), regardless of the type of negators in use; i. e., discontinuous markers (preverbal and postverbal negators) and dedicated negative verb stem alternations. In this article, we deal with the main stages that have led to the present Berber negation patterns and we argue, from a typological viewpoint, that certain morphophonetic mechanisms are to be regarded as a hitherto overlooked source for new negators. Moreover, we present a number of motivations that account for the hypothesis that, in Berber, those languages with both a preverbal and a postverbal negator belong to a diachronic stage prior to the attested languages with a preverbal negator only. Consequently, the study demonstrates that the Jespersen Cycle is back to the beginning in certain Berber languages. In doing so, we also show that Berber is to be regarded as a substrate in the development of double negation in North African Arabic. In addition, the study accounts for the asymmetric nature of Berber negation, although some new developments towards more symmetrical negation configurations are also attested.
Abbreviations
- 1
first person
- 2
second person
- 3
third person
- a
aspect(ual)
- acc
accusative
- aor
aorist
- aux
auxiliary
- deict
deictic
- dem
demonstrative
- pro.dir
direct object pronoun
- ds
dependent state
- ext.neg
existential negation/negator
- f
feminine
- imp
imperative
- ipfv
imperfective
- irr
irrealis
- m
masculine
- neg
negation, negator
- nipfv
negative imperfective
- npfv
negative perfective
- pfv
perfective
- pl
plural
- prdr
predicator
- prox
proximal
- prsm
personal marker
- ptcp
participle
- ptcpm
participle marker
- res
resultative
- s
subject
- sg
singular
- vent
ventive
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