Introduction

Chothe is one of the indigenous tribal languages which are spoken in Manipur and is included in the list of the thirty-three recognised languages in Manipur. It belongs to the Old Kuki sub-group of Kuki-Chin within the Tibeto-Burman Language sub family. The language is spoken by the people of the Chothe tribe in their domestic and village life. They inhabit the hills around the valley of Manipur. The language has become endangered, as their population is very limited at 2571, according to the census report 2001. This language does not have its own script.

The normal word order of the Chothe language is subject-object-verb (SOV). This word order is the same for all types of basic sentences, that is declarative, interrogative and imperative. The suffix -e, with variants ∼ye∼ke∼ne∼te∼we∼pe∼le etc. is suffixed to verbal roots or stems to form declarative sentences, as in (la). The question markers –mo and –me are used for the formation of the interrogative sentences, discussed in Section 3.1.4. here. The marker –o, with variants ∼wo∼ko∼ho∼lo is used in imperative sentences.

This article discusses the negative construction; the types of negative markers and how the negative marker -no is used in different kinds of sentences i.e. simple sentences, command sentences, interrogative sentences, etc. as well as how the negative marker -l∂w is used at a morphological level. Lexicalised negators, double negation, negative strengthening and negative polarity are also presented in this paper.