Tense/Aspect and Negation in M??bà (A Yorùbá Dialect)

Abstract

The main thrust of this study is to shed light on the grammatical rules and system that are typical of M??bà dialect with reference to tense/aspect and negation.  The study shows that M??bà has one future tense marker and the occurrence of tense/aspect markers in the dialect and standard Yorùbá resembles each other.  The study identifies four negation markers in M??bà and posit that ??k??, one of the negation markers in the dialect is probably the origin of negation marker k?? in standard Yorùbá.  The use of the negation marker rì in the dialect require that àì be analyzed as non-unitary morphemes in standard Yorùbá.

Keywords: aspect, dialect, M??bà, negation, tense, Yorùbá