'by Mary Steele
Negative Marking
Kaa is made up of two morphemes, a fusion of the clause conjunction ki and the negative particle aa, resulting in the word kaa, meaning 'and did not'. It is both a clause conjunction, joining two clauses, and a negative particle. conjunction'.
There are other similar lexical items, consisting of a personal pronoun, or a class pronoun, fused with the negative particle aa as follows:
- baa consisting of two morphemes/parts of speech
- bi 'they' 3rd person pl. pronoun, fused with the negative particle aa to form the word baa meaning 'they not'.
There are other examples like the above, as any class pronoun may fuse with a following negative particle, as follows:
- laa formed from the fusion of li 'class 8 pronoun' and aa 'negative particle' meaning 'it cl.8 not'
- waa from the fusion of u 'class pronoun 1, 2, or 3 with aa 'negative particle' meaning 'it cl. 1, 2, or 3, not'
just to give a few examples.
TypeCraft contains at present these examples illustrating annotation of negation in Konkomba:
Kijuk ki bi lijal paab na aa ŋan.
“The knife which is on the chair is no good”
Kijuk ki bi lijal paab na aa ŋan.
“the knife which is on top of the chair is not good”
| paab |
| paab |
| on-top-ofLOC |
| PRT |
Uja cha kinyaŋ ni u ti daa unaa
“The man is going to the market to buy a cow”