The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean: Volume I Case Studies (Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics)

This is the first book in a two-volume comparative history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. The work integrates typological, general, and theoretical research, documents patterns and directions of change in negation across languages, and examines the linguistic and social factors that lie behind such changes. The first volume presents linked case studies of particular languages and language groups, including French, Italian, English, Dutch, German, Celtic, Slavonic, Greek, Uralic, and Afro-Asiatic. Each outlines and analyses the development of sentential negation and of negative indefinites and quantifiers, including negative concord and, where appropriate, language-specific topics such as the negation of infinitives, negative imperatives, and constituent negation. The second volume (to be pubished in 2014) will offer comparative analyses of changes in negation systems of European and north African languages and set out an integrated framework for understanding them. The aim of both is a universal understanding of the syntax of negation and how it changes. Their authors develop formal models in the light of data drawn from historical linguistics, especially on processes of grammaticalization, and consider related effects on language acquisition and language contact. At the same time the books seek to advance models of historical syntax more generally and to show the value of uniting perspectives from different theoretical frameworks. Contents Series preface Preface List of tables List of figures List of grammatical glosses and abbreviations List of contributors 1. Comparing diachronies of negation 1.1 Sentential negation 1.2 Jespersen’s cycle 1.3 The cross-linguistic distribution of Jespersen’s cycle 1.4 Reanalysis, bridging contexts, and incipient markers of negation 1.5 Progression through Jespersen’s cycle: how many stages and how fast? 1.6 Croft’s cycle 1.7 Other pathways 1.8 Indefinites: basic concepts 1.9 Cyclic developments in indefinites 1.10 Shifts in strict and non-strict negative concord 1.11 Interactions between negative concord and Jespersen’s cycle 1.12 Negative imperatives and prohibitives 1.13 Contact-induced change in negation 1.14 Summary 2. Negation in the history of French 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Standard negation in the history of French 2.3 The quantifier cycle in French 2.4 Negation in infinitival clauses 2.5 Conclusion 3. Negation in the history of Italo-Romance 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Jespersen’s cycle in Italo-Romance 3.3 Structural analyses 3.4 Functional analyses of the development 3.5 Interrogatives and exclamatives 3.6 Prohibition and negated infinitives 3.7 Negative pronouns and adverbs 3.8 Negative concord 3.9 Constituent negation 3.10 Conclusion 4. Negation in the history of English 4.1 Preliminaries 4.2 The development of clause negation 4.3 Changes in the syntax of negative clauses 4.4 The development of indefinites in the scope of negation 4.5 Summary and conclusions 5. Negation in the history of (High) German 5.1 Development of the negative particle 5.2 Indefinites in the scope of negation and negative concord 5.3 Further ways of marking negation 5.4 Summary 6. Negation in the history of Low German and Dutch 6.1 Introduction: Low German and Dutch 6.2 The development of sentential negation in Low German and Dutch 6.3 Indefinites in the scope of negation 6.4 The development of negation 6.5 Conclusion 7. Negation in the history of the Brythonic Celtic languages 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Textual and linguistic background 7.3 The Welsh Jespersen cycle 7.4 The Breton Jespersen cycle 7.5 Sentential negation in Cornish 7.6 Welsh indefinites 7.7 Breton indefinites 7.8 Cornish indefinites 7.9 Issues in the reconstruction of Brythonic indefinites 7.10 Negative objects and negative infinitives 7.11 Constituent and focus negation 7.12 Negative imperatives 7.13 Conclusion 8. Negation in the history of Greek 8.1 Introduction 8.2 The development of ou to δen: Jespersen’s cycle at work? 8.3 The development of min from mē: a constellational approach? 8.4 The difference between the two negators 8.5 Negative concord 8.6 Negative imperatives 8.7 Conclusions 9. Negation in the history of the Slavonic languages 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Textual and linguistic background 9.3 Sentential negation 9.4 Genitive of negation 9.5 Negative concord and negative indefinites 9.6 Conclusion 10. Negation in the history of Arabic and Afro-Asiatic 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Developments in the expression of negation 10.3 Developments in indefinite systems 10.4 Conclusion 11. Negation in the history of the Mordvin languages 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Negation in Proto-Uralic vs negation in modern Mordvin languages 11.3 The preserved negative auxiliaries 11.4 From negative auxiliaries to negative particles 11.5 The fusion of a negative particle and a verb meaning ‘be’ 11.6 Negative nouns 11.7 The negative suffix of Moksha 11.8 The indefinites 11.9 Conclusions References Index of languages A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y Z Index of subjects A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T U V W This is the first volume of a two-volume comparative history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. It integrates typological, general, and theoretical research documents patterns and directions of change in negation across languages, and examines the linguistic and social factors that lie behind such changes. This is the first of a two-volume comparative history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. It examines the development of sentential negation and negative indefinites and quantifiers in languages and language groups such as Italian, English, Dutch, German, Celtic, Slavonic, Greek, Uralic, and Afro-Asiatic.