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Negation strategies in Pangkhua and South Central Tibeto-Burman (Kuki-Chin)

 | Wenzhou-Kean University
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Abstract
This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of negation in Pangkhua, a South Central Tibeto-Burman (Kuki-Chin) language, situating its system within a broader comparative and historical framework of the subgroup. Based on extensive primary fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2020, this study offers a detailed synchronic account of Pangkhua’s a multi-layered negation system, which includes standard sentential, prohibitive, existential, discourse-emphatic, and negative indefinite constructions. Drawing on data from twenty-nine South Central languages across the Northwestern, Central, and Peripheral branches, it revises previous reconstructions of Proto-South Central negation, arguing that *-ma (not *-law) represents the most plausible ancestral negator. Reflexes of *-ma are widely distributed across the subgroup, questioning earlier claims that it was largely confined to the Northwestern branch. The study further identifies branch-specific innovations, such as lateral-initial (-lV(C)) negators in the Central branch and nasal-initial (-nV(C)) negators marking irrealis or future contexts, revealing patterns of internal diversification. Notably, this study also points to residual traces of preverbal negation in a few South Central languages including Monsang and Daai Chin, which complicates the reconstruction of a fully postverbal Proto-South Central system. Finally, the paper proposes a new diachronic model wherein innovative negators emerge first in standard negation and may subsequently extend to prohibitive constructions, offering a detailed account of negation change in South Central languages. These findings have broader implications for the typology and historical reconstruction of negation in Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) languages.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Pangkhua and South Central (Kuki-Chin)
  • 3.Negation in South Central: An overview
  • 4.Negation in Pangkhua
    • 4.1Morphosyntax of negation
    • 4.2Standard negation
      • 4.2.1Clitic status of =lo
        • 4.2.1.1Attachment to various hosts
      • 4.2.2Morpholexical extensions of lo negation
        • a.Lexical compounds
        • b.Nominalized predicates
        • c.Compound coordinators
    • 4.3Existential negation
    • 4.4Prohibitive
    • 4.5Discourse-emphatic negation
    • 4.6Negative indefinite constructions
    • 4.7Summary and typological remarks
  • 5.Negation in South Central (Kuki-Chin)
    • 5.1Standard negation in South Central
    • 5.2Prohibitive in South Central
    • 5.3Comparative distribution of standard negation and prohibitive forms
    • 5.4Diachrony and reconstruction of negation in South Central (Kuki‑Chin)
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • List of abbreviations
  • Author queries
  • References
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