Polarity: polarity
| Value : | Neg | Pos |
Neg: negative
In Naija, function words which are used to negate are marked with the Polarity feature. This typically applies to some particles and auxiliaries.
Example
- na ma papa no get money “It is my father who does not have money”
- de not rush you “They don’t rush you”
- we neva send our pikin go school “we haven’t sent our child to school”
Pos: positive
Positive polarity (affirmativeness) is rarely, encoded using overt morphology. Naija uses it to distinguish response interjections yes and no.
Example
- dem want come every day ? yes “Do they want to come every day ? Yes”
Polarity in other languages: [bej] [bg] [bm] [cs] [el] [en] [es] [et] [fi] [fr] [ga] [gd] [gub] [hy] [jaa] [ky] [pcm] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urj] [xcl]