Standard negation in Pangasinan comes in two forms, ag and aga. Benton’s 1971 grammar of Pangasinan describes the aga form of negation as occurring specifically with third-singular pivot arguments, which if correct would constitute a typologically unusual instance of marked thirdsingular morphology. We argue against this characterization and instead propose that aga is an allomorph of ag historically motivated by a disyllabic word minimum requirement, with some conventionalized restrictions on its distribution. We offer an explanation for its incorrect previous descriptions and discuss similar alternations between monosyllabic and disyllabic allomorphs of negation in other Austronesian languages and consequences for the prosodic status of second-position clitics.

Keywords: Pangasinan negation allomorphy second-position clitics clitic pronouns agreement syntax phonology