Negative Morphemes in Nenwe Dialect of Igbo

Abstract

One putative view in literature on Igbo negation is that the widest distributed negative marker –ghI (-ghi/-ghị) is attached to the root of lexical or auxiliary verbs. This paper aims at examining the basic characteristics of negation in Nenwe with respect to the position of the negative morphemes. The paper adopts descriptive analysis and data for the study were gathered from primary sources. Findings show that contrary to what obtains in Standard Igbo, the widest distributed negative morpheme in Nenwe –hU (-hu/hụ) is attached to the root of the lexical verbs only and not on the auxiliaries. The implication of this is that Nenwe dialect has not witnessed any negative shift unlike dialects like Echie that had witnessed total negative shift from the lexical verbs to the auxiliary verbs. The paper also observes that in Nenwe dialect, negation marking exhibits rich morpho-syntactic and phono-syntactic processes; for instance, the difference between the affirmative simple future tense construction and the progressive aspect type lies in the tone of the verb to which the future and progressive marker là- is attached.
However, their negative counterparts have similar tones thereby having their meanings deduced from the contexts of use. The paper equally shows that tense, aspect and mood markers are neutralized when negated in the dialect in a manner similar to what obtains in Standard Swahili, Lamnso and Standard Igbo.