Songhay verbal negation in its dialectal and areal context

The paper analyzes the TAM negation in Songhay as a complex paradigm, data from different sub-structures of various tonal and non-tonal dialects of Songhay are contrasted.Two exponents of negatives, displaying different dialectal varieties of *MANA/*NA and *SI/SU, are used in the indicative perfective and imperfective. In these core paradigms, polarity contrasts of positive/negative is expressed in a suppletive way. For less gramaticalised periphrastic TAM paradigms, the features of suppletivity are weaker or non/existent. Classical, non/suppletive negation is used for non/indicative subjunctive paradigms.Typological parallels in Chadic (Hausa) and Niger/Congo (including Mande and Bantu) are thus no specific exceptions, their more general roots are yet to be established