[Lingtyp] Ironic negative constructions

[Bastian Persohn]

Dear group members,

I am posting the below on behalf of a student of mine. Any input will be
greatly appreciated, be it on similar conventionalized uses of negation and
irony in other languages of the world, general thoughts, or even specific
remarks regarding isiXhosa (or the larger Nguni branch of Bantu).

Best regards,

Bastian


I would like some help with finding resources/getting more information on
> ironic negative constructions, which are a rather frequent device in
> isiXhosa (Bantu, South Africa). I’m not sure if they go by any other name,
> I found this term in Oosthuysen’s (2016) Grammar of isiXhosa. He describes
> it as “The use of a grammatical negative to convey a predicate with an
> emphatic positive connotation”. So, these constructions read as negative
> statements but in actual fact mean the opposite. The prosody is different
> which helps in realising that it’s the ironic negative. Here are some
> examples (numbers indicate noun classes, FV is the default final vowel
> morpheme):
>
>
> *A-ka-se-m-hle lo mntwana*
> NEG-SBJ.NEG.1-still-1-pretty PROX.1 1.child
> 'This child is so/very beautiful' (lit: 'This child is no longer
> beautiful')
>
>
> *A-ni-sa-hlafun-i*
> NEG-SBJ.2PL-still-chew-NEG
> 'You are chewing so much/so loudly' (lit: 'You are no longer chewing')
>
>
> *A-ndi-sa-dinw-anga*
> NEG-SBJ.1SG-still-be(come)_tired-NEG.PFV
> 'I am so/very tired.' (lit: 'I am not tired anymore')
>
> *Be-ndi-nge-minc-e*
> REC.PST-SBJ.1SG-NEG-tense_up-PFV
> 'I was so very tense' (lit: 'I was not tensed up')
>
> *A-yi-nints-i imi-buzo ya-m*
> NEG-COP.4-many 4-question 4-POSS.1SG
> 'My questions are so many' (lit: 'My questions are not many')
>
> Any input in the form of papers, books, tiny excerpt, noting that it
> you’ve encountered a similar thing in another language etc would be of
> great help.
>
> Thanks!
>
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