Post-head negation in Tujia.

• Negation in Tujia is expressed by five negators. • The five negators result from the fusion a negator with different adjacent elements. • The five negators display a mixed pre-head and post-head word order. • The negator in Tujia has been realigned from pre-head to post-head. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive description of the negation system of Tujia, an endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken in south-central China. There are five negators, which display a mixed pre-head and post-head word order. Simple verb negation is usually post-head, but in existential constructions the negator precedes the verb, while in imperative constructions negation can either follow or precede the head. We argue that there is only one original negator, and the other forms result from the fusion of the negator with adjacent elements, such as the existential verb or aspect particles. Our analysis shows that, diachronically, the negator in Tujia has been realigned from pre-head to post-head. This paper contributes to the typology of negation in Tibeto-Burman languages, as well as the cross-linguistic development of negation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]