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Postverbal negation
Edited by Olga Krasnoukhova, Johan van der Auwera and Mily Crevels
[Studies in Language 45:3] 2021
► pp. 651–683

Innovating postverbal negation in North Africa

ORCID logo | École des hautes études en sciences sociales/CNRS-LIER-FYT

The present study investigates the grammatical origin of the postverbal negator ḇu in Rif Berber (Afroasiatic, Berber; North, Northeast, and Northwest Morocco) and in Moroccan Arabic of Oujda (Afroasiatic, Semitic; Northeast Morocco), the only languages in which it is commonly attested up till now. Based on new data obtained from recent fieldwork in Morocco, the study will demonstrate that this negator is most probably of Berber origin and has been construed out of an existential by system-internal grammaticalization. The study will also provide evidence for quadruple negation marking in Rif Berber, relating to a reduplication of the ḇu-negator. Moreover, it will show how Berber constantly innovates its cyclical negation system, in which, in this case, different Jespersen Cycles and a Negative Existential Cycle are interlaced. Accordingly, the study will prove that ḇu in Moroccan Arabic is an innovation phenomenon induced by contact with Rif Berber and instantiated through the processes of pattern replication and matter borrowing.

Keywords: interlaced negation cycles, quadruple negation, Jespersen Cycle, Negative Existential Cycle, system-internal and contact-induced grammaticalization, Berber, Arabic
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Standard verbal sentential negation in Berber and North African Arabic
  • 3.System-internal innovation of postverbal negation in Rif Berber
    • 3.1The synchrony of the postverbal negator ḇu
    • 3.2The diachrony and typology of the postverbal negator ḇu
      • stage 1: existential verbal form
      • stage 2: negative adverb
      • stage 3: negative particle bo
  • 4.System-external innovation of postverbal negation in MAO
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 27 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.19087.laf
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