Cross-linguistic negation contrasts in co-convergent contact languages

Abstract

Sri Lankan contact Malay (SLM) and Portuguese (SLP) share sprachbunddiscordant features, including pre-verbal functional markers for TMA and negation. Yet their negation strategies also differ. In SLM, negation morphology is a diagnostic for the finiteness status of verbs. SLP verbs are contrastively negated, based on aspectual (not tense/finiteness) contrasts, and participles in adjunct clauses have distinctive non-finite negation. SLM marks finiteness status on matrix auxiliaries in a biclausal periphrastic construction. In the SLP construction, auxiliary and participle cannot be independently negated and the auxiliary cannot be separated from the verbal complex, arguing against biclausal status. SLM marks negative polarity in quantified nominal constituents, but has no negative concord, whereas SLP has negative concord, but relatively little negative polarity marking.