The Syntax and Morphology of the Negative Morphemes /sa/ in Sesotho

Sesotho is one of the African Languages where sentence negation is expressed by means of bound negative morphemes. It has only three negative morphemes which are spread across the Sesotho matrix and subordinate clauses. They are the negative morphemes /ha/, /sa/ and /se/.These morphemes are bound verbal morphemes that negate various predicate forms and only appear in restricted sentence types. The central aim of this paper is to examine sentence constructions that realize negation by means of the negative morpheme /sa/ and its syntactic distribution within copulative verbs, non copulative verbs, deficient verbs and aspect morphemes over a full range of inflectional categories such as tense, aspect and mood. This morpheme will be examined within the general framework of the Minimalist Programme, which holds that inflectional categories occur as heads of phrasal categories. This paper will further illustrate the morphological representations of these morphemes within Beard’s (1995) Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology, which defines morphology as the sum of all the phonological means of expressing the relations of constituents in words, of words in phrases and of phrasal constituents in sentences. It distinguishes lexemes from bound morphemes.


Introduction
In African languages, negation as a grammatical phenomenon has not been widely investigated within the Generative Approaches. It has been dealt with in relation to positive sentences, where it is usually indicated that negative sentences correspond to positive sentences.
Within the structural approach, Doke and Mofokeng (1985: 196) recognized the negative prefix /sa/ as a negative form that corresponds to definite and indefinite present positive tenses and appears in all tenses of the participial mood. They distinguished negative conjugation of Sesotho into six types, of which two have the negative prefix /sa/ as a negative marker. Guma (1971:166) identified the negative morpheme /sa/ as a conjugational morpheme, an indicative participial negative prefix that appears in the present, perfect and future tenses.
Negation according to Zanuttini (1997) is a syntactic process whereby a language employs negative markers to negate a clause. She categorizes negative markers into pre-verbal negative markers and post-verbal negative markers. Pre-verbal negative markers that can negate a clause on their own head a negative phrase. They have strong features which need to be checked, and structurally they precede all the clitics. Klima (1964) stipulates that sentence negation is realized when negative pre-verbal particles are present in the sentence. Haegeman's (1995) analysis of sentence negation is based on Negative-Criterion, the well-formedness condition that determines the distribution and interpretation of the negative element. It requires the spec-head relation between the negative operator and the negative head in terms of the X-bar scheme. In his comparative analysis of the negative, Guldemann (1999: 545-587) maintains that Bantu Languages express negation by way of periphrastic construction, by giving a distinction between bound and unbound negative markers and by ordering morphemes into pre-initial affixes or post-initial affixes. He goes on to say that with pre-initial negation, the predicate can be analyzed as a binary structure wherein a negative nucleus bears the illocutionary force and a finite satellite conveys the prepositional information of the predicate. This paper will examine the distribution and morphology of the negative morpheme /sa/ within non-copulative verbs, copulative verbs, deficient verbs and aspect morphemes. It will also be demonstrated that the negative morpheme /sa/ is a bound verbal morpheme, a functional category that heads the negative phrase.

1.Theoretical background
The morphology of the negative morpheme /sa/ is examined within the Lexeme-Morpheme base Morphology of Beard (1995), which distinguishes lexemes from bound grammatical morphemes. Lexemes are signs which appear in open classes as direct specified sequence of phonemes with grammatical and semantic intensions. They are the only minimal grammatical elements in the language and each lexeme has a set of three representations, viz. phonological, grammatical and semantic representations. Morphemes, according to Blake and Moorhead (1993: 5), are the smallest units of language that have independent meaning. Beard (1995) distinguishes between bound grammatical morphemes, which are morphological spelling operations that mark modifications in inflectional categories, and free morphemes which mark closed grammatical categories such as articles, prepositions and pronouns.
In terms of bound morphology, derivation on lexemes is referred to as lexical derivation, where morphological spelling operations change the categorical status of lexemes. In Sesotho for instance, the verb [sebets-] will change its verbal status to that of nominal status as [mo-sebets-i According to the structure in (1) above, the negative morpheme /sa/ is a bound morpheme that is inflected to the lexeme /ken/. It precedes the verb and therefore a pre-verbal negative morpheme. According to Haegeman (1995), bound morphemes have strong morphological features and, following Zanuttini's (1997) view, pre-verbal negative markers should head negative phrases.
The syntax of the negative morpheme /sa/ will be examined within the Minimalist Programme. It maintains that the properties and distribution of clauses are determined by the nature of verb inflection. Inflectional features are separated and turned into fully phrasal categories, with their morphemes becoming heads of such phrases. Tense, mood, agreement, aspect and negative will be turned into TP, MP, AGRSP, AGROP, ASPP and NEGP. According to Thrainsson et al. (1996), the order and nature of these inflectional categories is determined by the Mirror Principle, which stipulates that morphemes furthest from the verb occupy higher structural positions in the functional layer of the clause. Haegeman (1997), states that strong morphological features of functional categories are phonologically visible, and bound morphemes have strong features that will cause the verb to move and check its inflected features. Negative sentences are therefore constructions, which minimally have negative features associated with a functional head of the extended projection of the verb. This implies that the negative elements are identified as negative phrases headed by a negative head, where the head is in geometrical position with its specifier. Zanuttini (1997) also maintains that pre-verbal negative markers have strong features and head a negative phrase. Following Haegeman's (1997) and Zanuttini's (1997) views, the negative morpheme /sa/ in Sesotho will head a negative phrase as illustrated in diagram (2) below:

Diagram 2: NegP with the negative morpheme [sa] as head
Having discussed the theoretical background, this paper shall now look into the morphology and distribution of the negative morpheme /sa/.

The syntax and morphology of the negative morpheme /sa/
The second negative morpheme in Sesotho is the negative [sa]. It occupies the third position in the linear order of the verbal prefixes of Sesotho. The negative morpheme [sa] only appears in the participle and the relative moods. Its distribution will therefore be investigated within these two moods and predicate forms such as non-copulative verbs, copulative verbs and deficient verbs, as well as aspect morphemes. Further more, the negative morpheme [sa] as a bound morpheme, appears as a circumfix with the negative suffixes such as [-e] and [-a] as determined by the types of tenses it appears with. Its morphology will therefore be treated simultaneously with its syntactic distribution through diagrammatic representations.
2.1.The negative morpheme /sa/ in non-copulative verbs Du Plessis and Visser (1992: 1) classify verbs according to the number of arguments upon which a predicate operates. They are described as one-place predicates (intransitive), two-place predicates (transitive) and three-place predicates (ditransitive). It is the last type of verbs which is going to be considered in this paper, especially with reference to subordinate clauses.
In this case, the negative morpheme [sa] appears in the participial mood within three tenses, namely the present, perfect and future tenses. In the present tense, the negative morpheme [sa] appears with the negative suffix [-e] as shown in (2) and diagram (3) below:

Diagram 3: Morphological structure of negative morpheme [sa] in the Present tense
(2) Ba -tsamaya ba -sa -bu -e They walk they not talking 'They walk while not talking' In the perfect tense, the negative morpheme [sa] appears with the suffix [-a] and the perfect negative morpheme [-a] does not appear. The sentence in (3) with the morphological structure of the participial complement in diagram (4) illustrate the above observation:  (4b). The morphological structure of (4a-4b) will be the same as illustrated in diagram (5)  It is observed from the above sentences that the negative morpheme [sa] appears with different morphemes in the participial mood depending on various tenses. In the present tense the verb employs the negative suffix [-e], in the perfect tense the verb retains the suffix [-a], and in the future tense the verbs employ the future tense morpheme [tla].
The negative morpheme [sa] may also appear in the relative mood with three tenses, namely the present, future and perfect tenses. It should be noted that the relative in Sesotho appears in two different forms. In the first case, when the antecedent of the relative clause is also the subject of the relative clause, the subjectival agreement [AGRS] in the relative clause coalesces with the complementizer of the relative clause. The sentence in (5.a) becomes the sentence in (5b), as the arrow indicates. See the illustration in (5)  In this case as in (5b) above, an empty [pro] coindexed with the antecedent and the complementizer appears as illustrated in (6)  In the second case, the subject of the relative clause is not the antecedent and the subjectival agreement is retained as indicated in (7)  The morphological structure of the sentence in (7) above will be as in diagram (6) below: The relative sentences such as those in (6) and (7)  The morphological structures of the sentences in (8) will be as in diagram (7)  The morphological structure of the negative predicates in (16) will be the same as in diagram (9) below:

Diagram 9: Negative morpheme [sa] in the relative mood of the present tense with copulative [ba]
In the perfect tense, the negative morpheme [sa] will appear with the relative marker [-ng], but retain the suffix [-a] as demonstrated by the sentences in (17)  The above sentences in (17) will have the morphological structure in (10) below:

Diagram 10: Negative morpheme [sa] in the relative mood of the prefect tense with the copulative [ba]
In the future tense, the negative morpheme [sa] will appear with the future tense morpheme [tlo] and the deficient motion verb [yo], which is the coalesced forms of the present tense [tla] and the verb [ya] with the infinitive. The sentences in (18) and (19) with their morphological structure in diagram (11)  The morphological structure of the above sentence in (20) will be as in diagram (12) below:

Diagram 12: Negative morpheme [sa] in the participial mood of the present tense with copulative [ba]
In the perfect tense, the negative morpheme [sa] appears with the suffix [-a], the negative perfect morpheme [-a-] disappears as the sentence in (21) with its morphological structure in diagram (13) will illustrate: According to Guma (1971: 187), deficient verbs are verbs that cannot be used by themselves to have a complete verbal predicate, but need another verbal complement for a complete meaning. He distinguishes two types of deficient verbs, namely permanent deficient verbs and non-deficient verbs which are deficiently used. He further divides deficient verbs into influencing and non-influencing verbs. There are however some deficient verbs which may play a specific role in negative sentences: In this case the negative morpheme [sa] only appears with the deficient verb [ka] in the compound tense of the consecutive mood and the negative of the potential mood. In the negative of the compound tense, the deficient verb [-ile] disappears. The negative of the clause in (24) will be formed by the negative morpheme [sa] and the deficient verb [ka]. The negative prefix [-a] of the perfect tense does not appear. The negative sentence of the above sentence in (23) will be as in (24) with its morphological structure illustrated in diagram (15)

The negative of the potential mood
The sentence constructions in potential mood are recognized by the potential morpheme [ka], which appears before the verb stems as shown in (25)  As observed from the sentences in (27) above, there is no negative morpheme that appears with the deficient verb [-eso-]. The negative morpheme [sa] also, cannot appear with the deficient verb [-eso-]. It would seem this deficient verb only appears as the negative verb with the negative morpheme [ha]. Where there is no negative morpheme as in (27) above, the verb [-eso-] becomes the negative morpheme as illustrated by the structure in diagram (17)  The notion aspect according to Canonici (1995: 67), quoted by Sithole (2003: 202), refers to the duration and type of action being described, it relates to internal time of the situation, divided into perfective and imperfective, and is expressed by some morphemes on the verbs or by a special periphrastic verb constructions.
The aspectual morphemes identified in Sesotho are the progressive aspect morpheme [sa], the necessity aspect morpheme [-no-], the consecutive aspect morpheme [-nto-] and the temporal aspect morpheme [tswa]. Chapole (1992: 54)  The sentence in (28) above is problematic in that the negative morpheme of this mood is also [sa]. It is therefore not a readily acceptable construction. To force an acceptable negative, the deficient verb [se] is used and is followed by the negative complement with [sa] and the negative suffix [-e], as indicated by (29) and in diagram (18)  The morphological structure for the negative complement in (31a) will be the same as the structure in (19)  The morphological structure of the negative complement in (32) will be as in diagram (20)

Summary and conclusion
In this paper, the syntactic distribution of the negative morpheme /sa/ has been explored within various types of predicates such as copulative verbs, non-copulative verbs and deficient verbs as well as its appearance with aspectual morphemes. It has been observed that the negative morpheme /sa/ is unevenly distributed in various types of Sesotho sentences, moods and tenses.
 With regard to non-copulative verbs, the negative morpheme [sa] appears in tensed subordinated clauses within the relative and participial moods.