Negative grammatical functions in Skou

Abstract

Negation is known to correlate with changes of word order, agreement, or case marking in the clause. I present data from Skou, a language of north-central New Guinea, which show obliques and adjuncts appearing postverbally in the SOV positive clause and preverbally in negative clauses. Moreover, in addition to these changes in the order of constituents, the grammatical functions assigned in the negated clause are not the same as in a positive clause, with obliques and adjuncts assuming object properties in the negated clause, as well as object positions. This results in otherwise unattested trivalent constructions in the language. Show more