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The Nature of the Licensing Relation

Doris Penka

in Negative Indefinites

This chapter takes up issues surrounding the licensing relation between negative indefinites and negation. It shows that approaches assuming certain syntactic configurations (e.g., the NEG criterion ... More

This chapter takes up issues surrounding the licensing relation between negative indefinites and negation. It shows that approaches assuming certain syntactic configurations (e.g., the NEG criterion by Haegeman and Zanuttini (1991)) or a semantic licensing relation (in the style of Ladusaw (1992) or using Hamblin alternatives) face problems once the kind of data crucial for the analysis of negative indefinites in German is taken into account. The chapter also discusses the distribution of different indefinite series in negative contexts. It argues that in many languages, general indefinites and negative polarity indefinites cannot occur in contexts in which negative indefinites are licensed due to morphological blocking.Less

Summary

Doris Penka

in Negative Indefinites

This chapter gives a brief summary of the analysis and the typology of negative indefinites in the languages discussed. Some consequences of the analysis are suggested.

Indefinites in the scope of negation

Anne Breitbarth

in The History of Low German Negation

This chapter studies the patterns of interaction between negation markers and indefinites, and diachronic changes affecting this interaction. The chapter demonstrates that Old Low German in ... More

This chapter studies the patterns of interaction between negation markers and indefinites, and diachronic changes affecting this interaction. The chapter demonstrates that Old Low German in particular represents a type of interaction that has hardly been noticed so far in the literature, viz. the fact that there can be languages such as Old Low German with a negative head, but without negative concord. Negative concord is shown to only develop during the Old Low German period. It is furthermore argued that ‘negative concord’ (i.e. the multiple expression of negation with single semantic negation) should only refer to standard negators. This implies that Middle Low German had no negative doubling. The present chapter statistically analyses the language-internal and language-external factors influencing (a) the variation in the use of n-marked indefinites in the Heliand and (b) the language-internal and language-external factors influencing the loss of ‘ne/en’ in Middle Low German.Less

Negation in the history of Low German and Dutch

Anne Breitbarth

in The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies

This chapter looks at the progress of Jespersen’s cycle in Low German and Dutch, tracing the emergence of a new marker of negation (nicht, niet) replacing earlier preverbal ni/ne/en and the very slow ... More

This chapter looks at the progress of Jespersen’s cycle in Low German and Dutch, tracing the emergence of a new marker of negation (nicht, niet) replacing earlier preverbal ni/ne/en and the very slow process by which the original marker fell out of use. It also considers issues in language contact and variation within Low German and Dutch, including discussion of dialects, such as West Flemish, where the original marker of negation survives, in a new function, to this day. With negative indefinites, negative concord is lost in the shift from Old Low German (Old Saxon) to Middle Low German as Jespersen’s cycle proceeds.Less

Introduction

Doris Penka

in Negative Indefinites

This chapter lays the ground for the following discussion by introducing central concepts such as negative indefinites, sentential negation, and constituent negation. It also provides background on ... More

This chapter lays the ground for the following discussion by introducing central concepts such as negative indefinites, sentential negation, and constituent negation. It also provides background on the syntactic and semantic framework in which the book is couched, and gives an outline of the following chapters.Less

Negation in the history of the Slavonic languages

David Willis

in The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies

While Slavonic languages have been conservative in their expression of sentential negation, retaining the inherited marker ne, there has been much change in other aspects of the system. This chapter ... More

While Slavonic languages have been conservative in their expression of sentential negation, retaining the inherited marker ne, there has been much change in other aspects of the system. This chapter looks at some of these areas, focusing in particular on the general decline in the requirement that objects in the scope of negation are genitive (genitive of negation) and its interaction with existential clauses, the frequent renewal of negative indefinites, above all by former free-choice items and free-relative markers, and the increasing generalization of strict negative concord.Less

Comparing diachronies of negation

David Willis, Christopher Lucas, and Anne Breitbarth

in The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies

This chapter provides an overview of the typical pathways for the development of negation, focusing on the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. It considers the frequency and causes of ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the typical pathways for the development of negation, focusing on the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. It considers the frequency and causes of Jespersen’s cycle, the emergence of new markers of negation from emphatic constructions that eventually come to replace the original marker of negation. It looks at the sources of new negative markers, from minimizers (‘not a bit’) and generalizers (‘not in any possible way’) and at the historical progress of the negative cycle that has occurred in almost every language in western Europe, showing considerable differences in detail despite overall commonality. The chapter also considers how expression of negative indefinites (e.g. ‘nothing, nowhere’) changes over time, including changes in negative concord systems. Common developments here include, for instance, the tendency for items to become more ‘negative’ (the quantifier cycle) and for free-choice items (‘anything you like’) to spread into negative contexts.Less

Distributional Restrictions in Scandinavian

Doris Penka

in Negative Indefinites

In the Scandinavian languages, negative indefinites show a restriction in their distribution to the effect that they have to be adjacent to a position a negative marker can occupy. This chapter shows ... More

In the Scandinavian languages, negative indefinites show a restriction in their distribution to the effect that they have to be adjacent to a position a negative marker can occupy. This chapter shows that this distributional restriction follows from the analysis proposed for German in Chapter 3. It discusses other approaches to negative indefinites in Scandinavian and shows that these are insufficient in the light of split readings that also arise in these languages. The chapter concludes with remarks on the resulting cross-linguistic analysis of negative indefinites and its possible extension to other languages, in particular English.Less

Negation in the history of (High) German

Agnes Jager

in The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies

This chapter traces the expression of negation and negative indefinites from Old High German to the present day. In Old High German, sentential negation was expressed by a preverbal negative particle ... More

This chapter traces the expression of negation and negative indefinites from Old High German to the present day. In Old High German, sentential negation was expressed by a preverbal negative particle and there was optional negative concord with negative indefinites. In Middle High German, as in English, the preverbal negator was reinforced and replaced by a new negator, nicht, deriving from a negative indefinite pronoun, and, with negative indefinites, a non-negative-concord grammar emerged, as is the norm in German today.Less

Negation in the history of the Brythonic Celtic languages

David Willis

in The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies

This chapter sets out the separate but parallel emergence of new markers of negation in Welsh and Breton, Welsh ddim from an earlier indefinite pronoun ‘nothing’ and Breton ket of unknown origin, and ... More

This chapter sets out the separate but parallel emergence of new markers of negation in Welsh and Breton, Welsh ddim from an earlier indefinite pronoun ‘nothing’ and Breton ket of unknown origin, and the subsequent erosion of the former marker of negation nid to a prefix d- in Welsh. Interactions with other areas, such as the loss of true negative imperatives, reorganisation of the system of negative concord, and the trend for indefinites to acquire a negative interpretation are also considered, along with issues in the syntactic reconstruction of Common Celtic and language contact between Welsh and English and Breton and French.Less

Negation in the history of English

Richard Ingham

in The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies

This chapter looks at the emergence of not and -n’t as clausal negators and their replacement of earlier ne in the history of English, charting the spread of not in Middle English and its interaction ... More

This chapter looks at the emergence of not and -n’t as clausal negators and their replacement of earlier ne in the history of English, charting the spread of not in Middle English and its interaction with other aspects of English clause structure. In the indefinite systems, it shows in particular the loss of negative concord in standard English and the variation between negative quantifiers (nothing, never) and any-series items (not…anything and not…ever) in the expression of negation, integrating these observation with current Minimalist analyses of negation and negative concord.Less

Feature reanalysis and the Latin origin of Romance Negative Concord

Chiara Gianollo

in Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change

This chapter investigates the sequence of changes leading from the Latin system of negation to the various Romance outcomes. While Classical Latin is a Double Negation language, the earliest Romance ... More

This chapter investigates the sequence of changes leading from the Latin system of negation to the various Romance outcomes. While Classical Latin is a Double Negation language, the earliest Romance varieties show a Negative Concord grammar. In the proposed analysis, this seemingly paradoxical development is explained by situating the prerequisites for Negative Concord already at the Late Latin stage. In Late Latin, a featural and structural reanalysis of the negative marker entails the activation of a projection in the clause where sentential negation has to be identified. This, in turn, triggers the grammaticalization of new negatively marked indefinites licensed in the scope of negation. These indefinites establish a syntactic relation first with the Focus Phrase (as negation strengtheners) and subsequently with the Negation Phrase, yielding a Negative Concord system. This study highlights the importance of generative research on the nature and format of syntactic features for our understanding of diachrony.Less

Negation in the history of the Mordvin languages

Arja Hamari

in The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies

Negation in Mordvin languages (Erzya and Moksha), as in the Uralic languages more generally, is expressed via negative auxiliaries and has therefore undergone patterns of change radically different ... More

Negation in Mordvin languages (Erzya and Moksha), as in the Uralic languages more generally, is expressed via negative auxiliaries and has therefore undergone patterns of change radically different from those found in western Europe. This chapter examines the sources of the new negative auxiliaries and particles that have developed for different tenses and moods in the Mordvin languages, distinguishing three different periods of innovation, pre-proto-Mordvin, proto-Mordvin, and recent innovations found only in a single Mordvin language.Less

Conclusion

Anne Breitbarth

in The History of Low German Negation

This chapter summarises the empirical and theoretical findings of the book and points out their wider significance. The main developments regarding the expression of negation in historical Low German ... More

This chapter summarises the empirical and theoretical findings of the book and points out their wider significance. The main developments regarding the expression of negation in historical Low German are the grammaticalization of a new negator from a negative indefinite (niouuiht > nicht) (Jespersen’s Cycle), the loss of the original negator ne/en (and its exaptation in exceptive clauses as a C-element), and the changing interaction between the expression of sentential negation and indefinites in its scope (negative concord). The wider significance of the book lies in it being the first large-scale diachronic study of the development of negation in historical Low German, both empirically and theoretically. On the theoretical level, a novel proposal was made to treat the development of negative markers in terms of third-factor principles. The grammaticalization stages of negative markers are characterized by different internal structure affecting their external syntax, combined with a Minimalist feature system.Less

Negation in the history of French

Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen

in The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies

This chapter focuses on Jespersen’s cycle and the emergence of pas ‘not’ 〈 ‘step’ as a new marker of negation, considering especially pragmatic constraints on its earlier use (cancellation of ... More

This chapter focuses on Jespersen’s cycle and the emergence of pas ‘not’ 〈 ‘step’ as a new marker of negation, considering especially pragmatic constraints on its earlier use (cancellation of presupposition) and the sociolinguistics of the ongoing replacement of bipartite negation (ne…pas) with single negation (pas) in colloquial French. It also looks at the development of French indefinites, which have become restricted to more negative environments (e.g. rien ‘thing’ 〉 ‘anything’ 〉 ‘nothing’).Less