‘Ja-nee. No, I'm fine’: a note on YES and NO in South Africa

Abstract

This paper considers some unusual uses of NO and YES observed in South African English (SAE) and other languages spoken in South Africa. Our objective is to highlight the fundamentally speaker-hearer-oriented nature of many of these elements, and to offer a formal perspective on their use. We also aim to highlight the value of pursuing more detailed investigations of these and other perspectival elements employed in SAE and other languages spoken in South Africa.

Keywords

• negation
• affirmation
• speaker-hearerperspective
• clause structure
• pragmaticalisation