The Distribution of the Sentential Negative Marker in Dashtestani Dialect: A Minimalist Approach

The present paper aims to investigate the distribution of the sentential negative marker in Dashtestani dialect within the framework of Chomsky’s (1995; 2001) Minimalist Program. As well as adhering to the beginning of the tensed main verbs and tensed auxiliary verbs, the sentential negative marker in this dialect is able to sit immediately before the objects. Following Zanuttini (1997; 2001), Haegeman (1995), Haegeman and Zanuttini (1991), Payne (1985), Ouhalla (1990), Halle and Marantez (1993), and Laka (1991), the study examines the morphological and phonological nature of the sentential negative marker, together with its distributional properties on the hierarchical structure of the sentence. The findings of the study show that the sentential negative marker is considered a ‘negative prefix’ in the position immediately preceding the tensed main and auxiliary verbs and a ‘negative particle’ before the object. Having generated in the head of NegP, the negative marker as the negative prefix agrees with the verb so that its uninterpretable features are checked and valuated. The negative marker is then manifested on the verb after the syntactic levels by means of the application of morpho-phonological rules. It is also suggested that negative marker as a negative particle is generated in the head of a different NegP.