The History of Low German Negation (Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics) 9780199687282, 0199687285

Citation preview

The History of Low German Negation

OX F O R D S T U D I E S I N D IAC H R O N IC A N D H I S T O R I C A L L I N G U I S T I C S general editors Adam Ledgeway and Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge advisory editors Cynthia Allen, Australian National University; Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, University of Manchester; Theresa Biberauer, University of Cambridge; Charlotte Galves, University of Campinas; Geoff Horrocks, University of Cambridge; Paul Kiparsky, Stanford University; Anthony Kroch, University of Pennsylvania; David Lightfoot, Georgetown University; Giuseppe Longobardi, University of York; David Willis, University of Cambridge recently published in the series 7 Word Order in Old Italian Cecilia Poletto 8 Diachrony and Dialects Grammatical Change in the Dialects of Italy Edited by Paola Benincà, Adam Ledgeway, and Nigel Vincent 9 Discourse and Pragmatic Markers from Latin to the Romance Languages Edited by Chiara Ghezzi and Piera Molinelli 10 Vowel Length from Latin to Romance Michele Loporcaro 11 The Evolution of Functional Left Peripheries in Hungarian Syntax Edited by Katalin É. Kiss 12 Syntactic Reconstruction and Proto-Germanic George Walkden 13 The History of Low German Negation Anne Breitbarth

The History of Low German Negation A N N E B R E I T BA RT H

1

3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Anne Breitbarth 2014 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930997 ISBN 978–0–19–968728–2 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, cr0 4yy Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Contents Series preface Preface List of tables List of figures

vii viii ix xii

 Introduction . Aim and scope of this book . A brief history of Low German . The corpus . Overview

    

 The expression of standard negation . Old Low German .. The preverbal clitic negation particle .. Negation strengtheners .. Summary . Middle Low German .. The preverbal clitic particle .. The bipartite expression of negation and the verb-independent negation particle .. Factors influencing the use of ne/en with nicht in Middle Low German .. Summary . Conclusion

      

 Indefinites in the scope of negation . Common developments and interactions .. Indefinite systems .. Negative concord . Old Low German .. The indefinite system of Old Low German .. Patterns of interaction .. Factors influencing the choice between n-free and n-marked indefinite .. Summary

      

   

 

vi

Contents . Middle Low German .. The indefinite system of Middle Low German .. Patterns of interaction .. Factors influencing the occurrence of en with negative indefinites .. Summary . Conclusion

     

 Theoretical background . Syntactic theory . Language change . The syntactic representation of negation .. NegP-approaches to the syntax of negation .. Earlier NegP-free approaches . Jespersen’s Cycle .. NegP-accounts of Jespersen’s Cycle .. A NegP-free account of Jespersen’s Cycle . Negative concord . Summary

          

 The development of negation in Low German . The interaction of indefinites and negation in historical Low German .. Negative concord in Old Low German .. Negative concord in Middle Low German . Incipient Jespersen’s Cycle in Old Low German .. Preverbal ni/ne .. The grammaticalization of nicht . Jespersen’s Cycle in Middle Low German .. The transition from stage II to stage III .. The fate of the original preverbal particle .. Grammar competition? . Conclusion

           

 Conclusion



References Index

 

Series preface Modern diachronic linguistics has important contacts with other subdisciplines, notably first-language acquisition, learnability theory, computational linguistics, sociolinguistics, and the traditional philological study of texts. It is now recognized in the wider field that diachronic linguistics can make a novel contribution to linguistic theory, to historical linguistics, and arguably to cognitive science more widely. This series provides a forum for work in both diachronic and historical linguistics, including work on change in grammar, sound, and meaning within and across languages; synchronic studies of languages in the past; and descriptive histories of one or more languages. It is intended to reflect and encourage the links between these subjects and fields such as those mentioned above. The goal of the series is to publish high-quality monographs and collections of papers in diachronic linguistics generally, i.e. studies focussing on change in linguistic structure, and/or change in grammars, which are also intended to make a contribution to linguistic theory, by developing and adopting a current theoretical model, by raising wider questions concerning the nature of language change or by developing theoretical connections with other areas of linguistics and cognitive science as listed above. There is no bias towards a particular language or language family, or towards a particular theoretical framework; work in all theoretical frameworks, and work based on the descriptive tradition of language typology, as well as quantitatively based work using theoretical ideas, also feature in the series. Adam Ledgeway and Ian Roberts University of Cambridge

Preface This book summarizes research I carried out as part of my work for the projects The Development of Negation in the Languages of Europe at Cambridge University between 2006 and 2009 and Layers of Structure at Ghent University between 2010 and 2012. This research would not have been possible without the funding those projects received, from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (grant AR119272) and the Flemish Funds for Scientific Research (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, grant G091409), respectively, which is herewith gratefully acknowledged. Likewise, I wish to thank the principal investigators for both projects, David Willis and Liliane Haegeman, respectively, for allowing me the space within these projects to carry out this research. I would furthermore like to thank those colleagues and friends whose help, input, and criticism have greatly improved the analysis and arguments presented here. First and foremost I have to thank David Willis and Christopher Lucas, the Cambridge project team, who have greatly shaped my ideas about the development of negation through our frequent discussions. Agnes Jäger has always been an inspiration for me, linguistically and personally, and this book is no exception—I hope it is able to provide a Low German ‘answer’ to her work on the development of negation in High German. I herewith gratefully acknowledge her input and discussions over the years. I am furthermore indebted to Johan van der Auwera, Theresa Biberauer, Karen De Clerq, Luc De Grauwe, Elly van Gelderen, Cecilia Poletto, George Walkden, Sheila Watts, Helmut Weiß, and Hedde Zeijlstra for discussing specific aspects of this work with me and thereby helping to improve it. Special thanks are due to Liliane Haegeman and the GIST-team (Lobke Aelbrecht, Karen De Clerq, William Harwood, Rachel Nye, Amélie Rocquet, and Reiko Vermeulen) for always being willing to listen to work in progress and giving me feedback on it and making me see things from a new perspective. I am grateful to Ian Roberts and Adam Ledgeway for including this volume in the series ‘Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics’, as well as to the linguistics editors John Davies and Julia Steer for their assistance during the preparation of the final manuscript. Finally, but no less importantly, I wish to thank the two reviewers for OUP, whose detailed comments have helped to considerably improve the analysis presented here. I might have finished this work much earlier if I hadn’t had Tiago and Maira while writing it, and I might never have finished it at all if it weren’t for Jorge’s, and in particular my parents’, support in dealing with them and everything else. I dedicate this work to them.

List of tables 1.1

Jespersen’s Cycle in a number of European languages

2

1.2

Sample database entry, Old Low German

11

1.3

The scribal dialects of Middle Low German

12

1.4

The composition of the Middle Low German corpus

14

1.5

Sample database entry, Middle Low German

14

2.1

Percentage of preverbal ni in Old Low German

18

2.2

Types of negation strengtheners in Old Low German

22

2.3

Negative markers in Williram’s paraphrase of the Song of Songs

30

2.4

Preverbal ne/en in Middle Low German

31

2.5

Expressions of negation in conditional clauses, compared to exceptive clauses

33

2.6 The loss of ne/en from negative verb-first conditionals

34

2.7

The development of the expression of sentential negation in Middle Low German

37

2.8

The use of the preverbal particle in clauses without negative indefinites, by date of composition

42

Effect of the date of composition on the expression of negation with ne/en . . . nicht

43

2.9

2.10 Effect of the scribal dialect on the expression of negation with ne/en . . . nicht

44

2.11 The use of the preverbal particle with nicht, per scribal dialect

44

2.12 The periods tested against each other per scribal dialect

45

2.13 The scribal dialects individually tested against each other

45

2.14 Effect of the position of the finite verb on the expression of negation with ne/en . . . nicht

48

2.15 Verb-second and verb-later/final tested against each other

48

2.16 Effect of the position of the finite verb after recoding verb-second and verb-later/final as one factor

49

2.17 The use of the preverbal particle with nicht depending on the position of the finite verb

49

2.18 Effect of the type of verb on the expression of negation with ne/en . . . nicht

52

2.19 The use of the preverbal particle with nicht with different types of verb

52

2.20 The periods tested against each other per verb type

53

3.1

Jäger’s typology of indefinite systems

61

3.2

The system of indefinites in Old Low German

68

x

List of tables

3.3

Indefinites in the scope of negation in Old Low German

72

3.4

The evolution of the interaction of the sentential negator and indefinites in Old Low German

74

Adjacency to ni+V and n-marking in indefinites

78

3.5 3.6

Left-/right-adjacency to ni+V and n-marking in indefinites

79

3.7

Relative order of indefinite and ni+V

83

3.8

Syntactic function of indefinite and relative order of indefinite and ni+V

84

3.9

Position of the finite verb in different clause types in the Heliand

85

3.10 The topological model, with German examples

85

3.11 Verbal placement and available positions for indefinites in negative clauses in Old Low German

86

3.12 The topological position of indefinites and n-marking

89

3.13 Effect of the topological position on the realization of n-marking on indefinites

91

3.14 The system of indefinites in Middle Low German

92

3.15 Negation particles and indefinites in the scope of negation in MLG

95

3.16 The loss of the preverbal particle with n-marked indefinites

96

3.17 Effect of the date of composition on the expression of negation with n-marked indefinites

100

3.18 The use of the preverbal particle with n-marked indefinites, per scribal dialect

101

3.19 Effect of the scribal dialect on the expression of negation with n-marked indefinites 101 3.20 The use of the preverbal particle with n-marked indefinites depending on the position of the finite verb

102

3.21 Effect of the position of the finite verb on the expression of negation with n-marked indefinites

102

3.22 Effect of an infinitive in -en preceding the finite (modal) verb on the realization of preverbal en in verb-final contexts

103

3.23 Comparing clauses with indefinites and clauses with nicht

104

3.24 Comparing verb orders

105

3.25 The use of the preverbal particle with n-marked indefinites with different types of verb

106

3.26 Effect of the type of verb on the expression of negation with n-marked indefinites

106

4.1

The four classes of negative markers and their properties

136

5.1

Negative concord and the features of negative elements in historical Low German

154

5.2

Rates of ne/en with nicht and n-marked indefinites in Middle Low German

171

5.3

Slope (in logit units) and intercept parameters of the logistic regressions on Table 5.2

171

List of tables

xi

5.4

Rates of ne/en with nicht and n-marked indefinites in Middle Low German

173

5.5

Slope (in logit units) and intercept parameters of the logistic regressions on Table 5.4

173

5.6

Summary of the proposed analysis

174

6.1

Summary of the proposed analysis

180

List of figures 1.1 The scribal dialects of Middle Low German

13

3.1 The implicational map for functions of indefinites

57

3.2 The English indefinite system

60

3.3 The Old Low German indefinite system

69

3.4 The Middle Low German indefinite system

93

4.1 Andersen’s (1973) model of language change

113

 Introduction . Aim and scope of this book All natural languages have means of expressing negation, be it by means of particles, adverbs, verbs, or (typologically rarely) tones (Payne 1985, Miestamo 2005). The expression of negation is often subject to typical patterns of diachronic change, which lead to a cyclic renewal of negative markers. Many languages of north-western Europe, for instance, underwent a development by which an original preverbal particle (‘stage I’) is first reinforced by an adverbial element (‘stage II’), and later replaced by it (‘stage III’). This development has been called Jespersen’s Cycle1 (Dahl 1979).2 Table 1.1

1 According to van der Auwera (), this development is more aptly called ‘Gardiner’s Cycle’. I will stick to the more common term here. 2 Another cyclic development affecting the expression of negation, dubbed Croft’s Cycle after Croft (), by which negative existentials (‘there isn’t’) grammaticalize as markers of negation, is more commonly found in languages outside of Europe. Another type is represented by languages which have a negative marker that derives from a verbal form. Finnish, Estonian, and North Sámi (Dahl ) are examples of European languages with such verbal negators, (a,b), but also dialects of languages that otherwise do not have them may have developed such existential negators. Sicilian neca ‘not (at all)’ < un jè ca (Standard Italian non è che) ‘NEG is that’ (Cruschina ) for instance may be such a case, (c).

() a. Finnish He e-ivät lähte-neet koti-in. they NEG.3PL leave-PAST.PL home-ILL ‘They did not go home.’

(Brattico and Huhmarniemi :)

b. North Sámi Ii gávdno makkárge oktasaš riikaidgaskasaš dohkkehuvvon definišuvdna NEG.3SG exist of.any.kind shared international accepted definition álgoálbmogiin. indigenous-people.LOC.PL ‘There isn’t any commonly accepted international definition of indigenous people.’ (Marit Julien, p.c.) c. Sta lezioni neca si capisci. this lesson NEG-is-that REFL understand ‘This lesson cannot be understood (at all). / This lesson is impossible to understand.’



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Jespersen’s Cycle in a number of European languages

French Old Norse German Dutch English

stage I

stage II

stage III

stage I

non V > ne V (ne V) ni/ne V ne V ne V

ne V . . . pas (ne)-V-a(t) en V . . . niouueht > niht en V . . . niuueht > niet ne V . . . noht

V . . . pas V-a(t) > V eigi V . . . nicht V . . . niet V . . . not

don’t . . . V

schematically shows the development of the expression of sentential negation in a selection of European languages.3 This book investigates the historical development of the expression of negation in Low German, a Continental West Germanic language spoken in northern Germany. Like all other West Germanic languages, Low German underwent Jespersen’s Cycle. In Old Low German (Old Saxon), negation is expressed by means of a preverbal particle ni or ne, see (1). In Middle Low German, a bipartite expression ne/en. . . nicht such as seen in (2) is common. During the Middle Low German period, the original preverbal particle declines in use and is ultimately lost. Already at the end of the Middle Low German period, it is hardly used any more, cf. (3), and Modern Low German does not use it any more at all, (4). (1) stage I ‘ni bium ic’, quað he, ‘that barn godes . . . ’ NEG am I spoke he the child God.GEN ‘I am not the child of God, he said’

(Heliand 915)

(2) stage II . . . dat wi nygt enwillen vorbeden Bremer ber . . . that we NEG NEG=want forbid Bremen beer ‘that we do not want to prohibit beer from Bremen’ (Oldenburg 01/11/1355) (3) stage III Eyne fruwe de schwanger iß mag men nicht dringen tho dem eyde a woman who pregnant is may one NEG force to the oath ‘A pregnant woman must not be forced to take an oath’ (Braunschweig 24/02/1553) 3 For English, cf. Jespersen (), Haeberli and Haegeman (), Jack (a;b), Frisch (), Tieken-Boon van Ostade et al. (), van Kemenade (), Ingham (; ), Iyeiri (), Mazzon (), and Wallage (). For French, cf. e.g. Jespersen () and Rowlett (; ; ). For German, cf. Abraham (; ), Donhauser (; ), and Jäger (). For Dutch, cf. van der Horst and van der Wal (), Meersman (), de Haan and Weerman (), Burridge (), Beheydt (), Postma (), van der Auwera and Neuckermans (), Postma and Bennis (), and Neuckermans (). For Old Norse and the development towards the modern Scandinavian languages, cf. Jespersen (), Eythórsson (; ), and Christensen (b).

1 Introduction



(4) stage III Man pass op, suust mi dor nich daal! but watch out shoot me there NEG down ‘But watch out, don’t you shoot down there (on me)!’ () Given the diachronic change in the expression of negation, the question arises which element is the ‘main’ or ‘primary’ negation marker at a given time. The term standard negation used in this book to denote such a marker originates from Payne, for whom it is ‘that type of negation that can apply to the most minimal and basic sentences’ (Payne 1985:198). In the present book, Miestamo’s definition of the term will be adopted, who takes a standard negation construction to be . . . a construction whose function is to modify a verbal declarative main clause expressing a proposition p in such a way that the modified clause expresses the proposition with the opposite truth value ∼p or the proposition used as the closest equivalent to ∼p in case the clause expressing ∼p cannot be formed in the language, and that is (one of) the productive and general means the language has for performing this function. (Miestamo 2005:42)

Miestamo restricts his definition to ‘obligatory (fully grammaticalized)’ elements (Miestamo 2005:42), which has important implications for the analysis of the development of negation in historical Low German, for Jespersen’s Cycle (Chapter 2) as well as for negative concord (Chapter 3). The development of negation in Low German interacted with changes affecting indefinite quantification in the scope of negation. While negative doubling, the expression of negation by the sentential negator as well as on indefinites in the scope of negation (5a), was infrequent or even absent (5b) in the earlier Old Low German texts. (5) Old Low German a. Ni scal neoman lioht the it habad liudiun dernean NEG shall no one light who it have people.DAT.PL hide ‘No one who has light should hide it from people.’ (Heliand 1405) b. Ni uuas thes giuuand enig. NEG was this.GEN doubt any ‘There wasn’t any doubt about it.’

(Heliand 4548)

Morphologically negative indefinites became more frequent towards the end of the period, and are near-obligatory in negative clauses in Middle Low German. (6) Middle Low German . . . dat se de watere mit nenerleye garne vischen schollen that they the waters with no.kind.of yarn fish shall ‘. . . that they shall fish the waters with no kind of yarn’ (Scharnebeck 11/01/1384)



The History of Low German Negation

Such morphologically negative indefinites did not co-occur with each other in Old Low German; where there is more than one indefinite in the scope of negation, at most one is morphologically negative. That is, Old Low German did not have negative spread. In Middle Low German, on the other hand, negative spread was the norm; in almost all cases of multiple indefinites, all or more than one are morphologically negative. (7)

a. Nis thes tueho enig gumono nigienumu NEG=is the.GEN.SG.N. doubt any men.GEN.PL none.DAT.PL ‘None of the men have any doubt about it’ (lit. ‘there is not any doubt about it to none of the men’) (Heliand 3190–3191) b. Et en scal nemet nen vromet beer tappen sunder de rad it NEG shall no one no foreign beer tap without the council dar to ghesat heft there to permitted has ‘No one shall tap any foreign beer unless the council has given its permission’ (Braunschweig 1380)

In Middle Low German, morphologically negative indefinites could furthermore co-occur with the inherited negation particle en, but not with nicht, the new particle that arose through Jespersen’s Cycle. While there has been much recent interest in the diachronic development of negation, also in the West Germanic languages, this has for a large part concentrated on English, and to a lesser extent on High German and Dutch.4 Low German and its history on the other hand are rather under-researched, in particular its syntax. Peters (1973:105) wrote, famously: ‘Die Syntax des Mittelniederdeutschen ist weitgehend unerforscht. [. . .] Untersuchungen zur mnd. Syntax sind ein dringendes Desiderat.’5 While interest in the historical syntax of Middle Low German is now finally beginning to emerge, as witnessed by recent publications such as Bieberstedt (2005) and Petrova (2011; 2012) as well as projects such as the one outlined in Tophinke and Wallmeier (2011), there is still hardly any published research into the expression of negation, its diachronic development (Jespersen’s Cycle), or the interaction of indefinites in the scope of negation with the expression of negation. What is lacking in particular is a description and account of these developments in the history of Low German from the beginning of textual transmission onwards. Behaghel (1897) for instance does not mention negation at all in his description of the syntax of the Old Low German Heliand, and Lasch’s (1914) grammar of Middle Low German follows the tradition of many older Germanic grammars of only considering 4

For references, cf. footnote . ‘The syntax of Middle Low German is largely unexplored [. . .] Research into Middle Low German syntax is an urgent desideratum.’ 5

1 Introduction



phonology and inflectional morphology, and neglecting syntax altogether. In her short and rather abstract (it mainly lists rewrite rules for the grammar of Old Low German, illustrating each rule with a short example) contribution to the HSK Handbuch Sprachgeschichte (Besch et al. 2000) about the syntax of Old Low German, Rauch (2000) briefly touches upon negation (‘Polarität’), only stating that it is expressed preverbally by a particle ni or ne (which can also attach to indefinites like wiht), (8a), or as a conjunction in negative declaratives, (8b). (8)

a. Neg V → [α {ni,ne}] [α wiht] [{ni,ne} V] imu nis beholan neowiht ne [w]ordo ne werko ‘Ihm is durchaus nichts verborgen, weder von Worten noch von Werken’ (‘Nothing is concealed from him, neither words nor deeds.’) b. Neg S → [. . .] [ni] {x Präs, y Prät} {ni,nebu} {x Konj., y Ind.} nis thes tweho enig, ni sie ina fargelden ‘Es gibt keinen Zweifel dass sie ihn (den Zins) nicht entgelten.’ [. . .] (‘There is no doubt that they will pay it (the interest).’) (Rauch 2000:1266)

The syntax of Old Low German (=Old Saxon) negation received an early (transformational) generative treatment by Coombs (1976), who in her Chapter 5 discusses 47 negative sentences from the Heliand, which contain ‘a selection of representative types of grammatical negation’ (Coombs 1976:118). Also for Middle Low German, there are very few publications addressing any aspect of negation. Pensel (1976) discusses the expression of negation in Middle Low German in comparison to several High German dialects, or rather, dialect groups (West/East Central/Upper German). He compares the use of different combinations of negative markers (preverbal en, postverbal nicht, and negative indefinites) in different text types and dialects in two sub-periods, 1470–1530 and 1670–1730. For the diachronic study of the expression of negation in Low German, this comparison is of little use. First, the textual base used is rather small and unlikely to be representative of the period. It only consists of six texts, one from each of the text types considered for the period 1470–1530—travelogue, chronicle, pamphlet, technical prose, and chapbook—apart from the chapbooks, of which there are two. The text portions are of varying length, between 12 and 194 pages in the editions they are taken from (Kettmann and Schildt 1976:526). Second, Low German ceases to be used as a written language between 1550 and 1600. Therefore, the 1470–1530 sub-period is already rather late for written Middle Low German, and Pensel’s study does not allow conclusions about the diachronic development, as Low German was no longer written by the time of his second sub-period, 1670–1730. Third, there is no consideration of dialectal variation within Middle Low German; it is compared as a whole to other larger dialect groups (East and West Central German and East and West Upper German). The expression of negation in Middle Low German is furthermore very briefly addressed by Härd (2000), who merely states (a) that negative expressions are univerbations of older indefinite pronouns and adverbs with the inherited particle ne (nicht ‘not, nothing’, nenich ‘none’, nergen



The History of Low German Negation

‘nowhere’, etc.), (b) that Middle Low German is in the transition from stage II to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle, and (c) that exceptive conditional clauses contain a pleonastic ne. The only recent work on the development of negation in Middle Low German to my knowledge is Sundquist (2007), who seeks to establish the factors that influence the, historically variable, expression of negation in the Middle Low German period. While Sundquist’s study is indeed diachronic in that it covers the period from 1320 to 1500 in sub-periods of thirty years, it is based on material from a single city only, Lübeck. As will be seen, for example, in section 2.2.3.2, Lübeck is not representative of the developments in other Middle Low German scribal dialects (‘Schreibsprachen’). Against the background of these enormous gaps in the research, the present investigation aims to provide in-depth research into the diachronic development of the expression of sentential negation and the interaction between this expression and indefinites in the scope of negation in historical Low German. In contrast to Sundquist (2007), the treatment of Middle Low German is based on a large corpus of public records from the archives of ten different places from all over the Middle Low German area, allowing us to map out the details of the development in much more detail than previously achieved. Additionally, Old Low German (Old Saxon) is considered. In contrast to Coombs (1976), not only the Heliand epos, but also the Genesis fragments and the minor texts are included, that is, the entire body of extant Old Low German texts. In particular with respect to the interaction of indefinites with sentential negation (Chapter 3), this allows deeper insights into the diachronic developments within the Old Low German period. An important caveat to be made is that there is a larger gap in textual attestation between the Old and Middle Low German periods. The present study will not make any claims regarding historical continuity between the two periods, but present them separately and point to potential unattested developments between them, in line with common methods of syntactic reconstruction (cf. e.g. the contributions in Ferraresi and Goldbach 2008). The present study presents a detailed description of the development of negation in Low German based on a thorough quantitative corpus study, offering a contribution on a little-studied historical variety to the growing body of work on Jespersen’s Cycle within the West Germanic and, more widely, European languages. This research grew out of work carried out within the AHRC-funded project ‘The development of negation in the languages of Europe’ (award number AR119272) which ran from June 2006 to December 2009 at the Department of Linguistics at Cambridge University, with David Willis as its Principal Investigator. The main empirical findings of this book are as follows. 1. Jespersen’s Cycle started in the late Old Low German period or in the transition to Middle Low German, by a reanalysis of the indefinite niouuiht ‘nothing’ as the new expression of negation. The bridging context facilitating this reanalysis was

1 Introduction



pseudo-argumental ‘extent’ uses of niouuiht such as they are attested throughout the history of (Low) German. 2. After this reanalysis, following from the definition of standard negation applied in the present study, the former preverbal marker ni > ne/en no longer participates in the expression of sentential negation, in contrast to standard assumptions in the literature. Hence, it also no longer participates in negative concord (Breitbarth 2013a), leading to the claim that 3. historical Low German developed from a language without (overt) negative concord first (during the Old Low German period) into a language with strict negative doubling and later (in Middle Low German) into a language without negative doubling, but with negative spread; cf. also Breitbarth (2013a;b). These findings will be given a formal analysis in Chapters 4 and 5. The book intends to complement Agnes Jäger’s (2008) comprehensive study on the development of negation in High German by offering an equally detailed insight into the geographically adjacent, but in its development rather different, Low German.

. A brief history of Low German Low German refers to the ensemble of Saxon dialects spoken in northern Germany which lack the affrication or spirantization of West Germanic ∗ p, ∗ t, ∗ k (Klein 2000a, Schwerdt 2000, König 2007). The history of Low German is commonly divided into five phases (Sanders 1982, Stellmacher 1990, Peters 1998; 2000a, Klein 2000b): (1) a pre-historical phase before the beginning of textual attestation around 800, (2) the phase of predominantly Latin writing in the Low German area (c.800–1300), (3) the rise and spread of vernacular writing (c.1300–1550), (4) the transition to (Early New) High German as the written language of the area, and the concomitant remittance of Low German to the spoken domain, and finally (5) the transition from Low German to High German in the spoken domain (c.1850–today). (1) According to Peters (1998) and Klein (2000b), the Saxon tribes started out in Holstein, in the northern part of the later Low German area, from where they spread south into the later areas of Westphalia, Angria, and Eastphalia in the 6th and 7th centuries after the exodus of parts of the Saxons and Angles to Britain in the 5th century. Originally an Ingwæonic (North Sea Germanic) language like pre-historical stages of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Dutch, it is assumed that the southern expansion led to mixing with other West Germanic varieties from the 7th century onwards. Certainly after the ‘Saxon wars’ and the ensuing conquest of the Saxon areas by Charlemagne, there was a strong Franconian influence in Old Saxon. (2) During the period of Christianization by the Franks, Latin was the almost exclusive written language. The first vernacular texts were written from 800 onwards.



The History of Low German Negation

The Old Low German (Old Saxon) textual transmission ceases in the 11th century. Due to the scarcity of comparable material, the exact geographic localization of the Old Low German texts is difficult. While the south-western border of the area could be determined based on the names attested in the localisable minor texts (Tiefenbach 1984), the localization of the Heliand epos, for instance, has been much more disputed. Although its features are in the majority Old Saxon (Klein 1990), Franconian and Frisian influences have led, for example, Gysseling (1980) to claim a more western provenance for it. Three types of interpretation have been proposed for the Franconian influences in particular (Peters 1998:114): (i) orthographic influence, (ii) language of a franconized upper class, or (iii) provenance from the border area between Old Saxon and Old Dutch. (3) In the 12th century, Old Saxon developed into Middle Low German. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the hitherto Slavonic areas east of the river Elbe were colonized by speakers of Middle Low German and Middle Dutch. In particular in the newly founded commercial/trading towns around the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, multidialectism and initially multilingualism (with Slavonic) led to the rise of city-internal Koinés (Peters 1998:116). The rise of the Hanseatic league of trade led to the transition of administratitive, legal, and commercial writing from Latin to Middle Low German and to a wide spread of Middle Low German (writing) all around the Baltic and North Seas, making it an international lingua franca. During the 14th to 16th centuries, regional scribal dialects (‘Schreibsprachen’) emerged. In the north of the area, the written language of the city chancery of Lübeck enjoyed a high prestige and spread; in the south, Westphalian, Eastphalian, and Southmarkish writing traditions were established (Peters 1995, 1997, 1998:117–118, 2003). (4) From the middle of the 16th century onwards, (Early New) High German began to replace Middle Low German as the written language in the Low German area. Low German continued to be spoken in different dialects, while the higher social classes became increasingly bilingual with High German. (5) This bilingualism spread downwards through the social classes during the 19th and 20th centuries. At the same time, popular literature in Low German began to (re-)appear. After a period of bilingualism and diglossia, Low German is today subject to strong attrition due to the influence of High German, as well as loss of speakers and situations in which it can be used (Peters 1998:124–127).

. The corpus The problem with making statements about the grammar of older stages of languages is that it is naturally impossible to consult native speakers whose judgements could shed light on this grammar. Instead, one is bound to rely on transmitted texts, which may or may not be a faithful representation of the grammar of the language stage in question.

1 Introduction



The present investigation of Old Low German (c.800–1200) is based on the entirety of the Heliand epos, the Genesis fragments, and the minor Old Saxon texts (Kleinere altsächsische Sprachdenkmäler) for Old Low German. With its c.6,000 lines, the Heliand (c.830) is by far the largest body of transmitted Old Low German; it makes up about 80 of the extant material (Sanders 2000:1277). The Genesis fragments (c.840) comprise c.335 lines. Both texts are composed in alliterative verse. Each long line comprises two halflines separated by a caesura into an on-verse and an off-verse, each containing two stressed syllables, or lifts. The number of unstressed syllables varies, but each line commonly contains at least four syllables. The first lift of the off-verse alliterates with one or both lifts of the on-verse, and is called the main lift, cf. (9). The Heliand diverges somewhat from the Germanic tradition in that the end of a sentence does not usually coincide with the end of a line, but characteristically with the caesurae of the long lines, (10). A further difference from the Germanic tradition is the number of unstressed syllables per line—often unstressed words such as pronouns, prepositions, short verbs, or adverbs appear before the main lift in the off-verse (cf. tho het ine in (10))—and the length of the sentences. The Heliand uses a prolific, epic style with often complex sentences. The Genesis follows the Heliand in style, but is less ‘baroque’ than the former.6 (9) U u e la that thu u u i f habes u u i llean goden! m i kil is thin hail that you wife have joy.ACC God.ACC great is your gilobo an thea m a h t godes . . . belief in the power god.GEN ‘Hail, may you have a wife that pleases God! Great is your belief in the power of God.’ (Heliand 3024–3025) (10)

Tho het ine mahtig crist then told him powerful Christ g a n gan imu teg e g nes. He uuard g a ru sano, s t o p af go him towards he was ready soon stepped from themu s t a m ne endi s t r i diun geng f o r d te is the stem and dispute.DAT.PL went forth to his f r o iaen . . . lord ‘Then the powerful Christ told him to walk towards him. He was ready soon, stepped off the stem and went into the disputes, forth to his Lord . . . ’ (Heliand 2938–2941)

The Heliand is transmitted in two largely complete manuscripts, the Monacensis (‘M’, c.850) and Cottonianus (‘C’, 10th century) manuscripts presented in Sievers’ 6 For more detailed descriptions of the style and alliterative verse of Heliand and Genesis, cf. e.g. Lehmann () and Hofmann ().



The History of Low German Negation

(1878) edition, besides smaller fragments. In the present study, examples from the Heliand will be based on M unless there happens to be a gap or unless indicated otherwise, e.g. in case of relevant differences between the manuscripts, i.e. in the expression of negation. Of the minor texts—a collection of sacral and secular prose and glosses from the 10th and 11th centuries—only full finite negative clauses were considered for this study, amounting to 38 negative clauses in total. That means that many glosses, even if containing negative markers, were not considered due to their non-sentential character. This choice was made because the aim of the present investigation is to study the syntax of sentential negation and its interaction with indefinite pronouns and adverbs in historical Low German. A sample database entry from the Old Low German corpus looks as in Table 1.2. ‘Neg 1’ refers to the preverbal negation particle, ‘Neg 2’ to a postverbal negation particle, ‘NI/NA’ to ‘morphologically negative indefinite/adverb’, ‘NNI/NNA’ to ‘morphologically non-negative indefinite/adverb’, and ‘emph’ to a negation emphasizer or strengthener. In cases where there is an indefinite (morphologically negative or not) in the clause, its syntactic function and position relative to the verb (preceding it or not, adjacent to it or not) is also recorded, as it has been claimed for Old High German that these factors influence the choice between morphologically negative and morphologically non-negative indefinites in negative clauses (Donhauser 1998; cf. section 3.2.3.1). In the sample entry in Table 1.2, the sentence so siu nia thana uuih ni forlet (Heliand VI, 514) is thus analysed as containing the preverbal negation particle ni, but no postverbal negator and no emphasizer. It is furthermore signalled to contain a morphologically negative indefinite adverb (nia ‘never’), which precedes the negated verb, but is not adjacent to it. The Middle Low German corpus on which this study is based is composed according to two criteria. First, concerning the text type, it is restricted to chancery texts. This restriction has a long tradition in research on Middle Low German grammar, cf. already Lasch (1914), and has more recently been applied in other corpora of Middle Low German such as the corpus on which the Atlas spätmittelalterlicher Schreibsprachen des niederdeutschen Altlandes und angrenzender Gebiete (ASnA, Peters et al. To appear) is based (Peters 1997, Peters and Fischer 2007), as well as recent corpora of Middle and Early Modern Dutch.7 The main argument for using this text type is that material is available in continuous transmission from early on and from a large number of different places. Legal texts (Stadtbücher, Stadtrechte), charters (Urkunden), and official letters and contracts typically contain exact information regarding place and date of composition. That allows for a fine-grained study of linguistic change 7 Cf. van Reenen and Mulder  for Middle Dutch, and Postma and Bennis  and Coupé and van Kemenade  on the Dutch in Transition corpus (th to th centuries). Cf. also Boonen for recent syntactic research based on a corpus of Middle Dutch charters (van Reenen and Mulder ).

1 Introduction



Table .. Sample database entry, Old Low German text REF Neg1 Neg2 clause type position of verb type of verb NI/NA NNI/NNA emph function indef indef precedes neg/V adjac neg/indef quote transl

Hel. Monac. VI, 514 1 0 main final lexical 1 0 0 adv 1 0 so siu nia thana uuih ni forlet so she never then shrine NEG leave so she never went away from the shrine

through time and space. The main drawback for syntactic research is of course the formulaic character of this type of texts. But recent research in particular on Middle and Early Modern Dutch has made fruitful use of corpora of chancery texts (cf. footnote 7), and also for Middle Low German, there are first results (cf. e.g. Bieberstedt 2005 and Tophinke and Wallmeier 2011). The present Middle Low German corpus is based on printed editions of the collections of such documents from a number of places from all over the Middle Low German writing area, see Table 1.3. As the main focus of this study is syntactic change, and editing errors mainly concern spelling and punctuation, a certain loss of fidelity with respect to originals was accepted. Nevertheless, care was taken not to include, for example, undated documents, documents in High German (e.g. accommodating to the addressee) and Latin, which are equally contained in the selections. No further difference was made with respect to the source, that is, whether they are documents from baronial archives (Steinfurt), city archives (Braunschweig, Oldenburg, Stralsund), or the archives of convents (Barsinghausen, Börstel, Mariengarten, Scharnebeck, Uelzen) or dioceses (Lübeck), although this might for instance affect the time of transition from Latin to the vernacular (Peters 2000b:1412f) as well as the place where a text was actually written (in particular with archives of convents; Robert Peters and Norbert Nagel, p.c.). Second, with respect to the geographic provenance of the texts within the area of the Low German scribal dialects, a balanced distribution was aimed for. Lasch (1914) distinguishes Westphalian, Eastphalian, North Low Saxon, and Brandenburgish, see Table 1.3. Peters (2000b:1413f ) additionally mentions the Low German written and partially spoken in Prussia and the Baltic provinces, and counts the north-eastern Saxon dialects of the Netherlands among the western North Low Saxon dialects.



The History of Low German Negation

An important distinction to be made is the one between Altland (‘old land’) dialects and the Neuland (‘new land’) dialects. The former are the dialects spoken and written in the area where Old Saxon/Old Low German was spoken earlier, that is, Westphalian and the dialects of Eastphalian and North Low Saxon west of the River Elbe. The latter were spoken and written in the areas colonized after the Old Saxon period (from the middle of the 12th century onwards), that is, East Elbian, Elb-Eastphalian, and the Low German spoken or written in Brandenburg, in Prussia, and the Baltic provinces. For the corpus used for the present study, two or three subcorpora of documents per scribal dialect were chosen, two for Westphalian, three each for Eastphalian and the ‘Altland’ part of North Low Saxon, and two for East Elbian in the ‘Neuland’, see Table 1.4 and Figure 1.1. A database entry from the Middle Low German corpus looks as in Table 1.5. For each charter or other text, the date and place of composition were recorded,8 in this case, Oldenburg, 2 February 1350. This particular text is charter number 56 in the Urkundenbuch der Stadt Oldenburg, the scribal dialect is identified as North Low Saxon (NLS). As before, ‘Neg 1’ refers to the preverbal negation particle (now en or ne), ‘Neg 2’ to the postverbal negation particle nicht ‘not’, ‘NI/NA’ to ‘morphologically negative indefinite/adverb’, and ‘NNI/NNA’ to ‘morphologically non-negative indefinite/adverb’. The clause type (main, complement, conditional, causal, concessive, conditional, consecutive, final, modal, relative, and temporal), type of verb (lexical, auxiliary, modal, and ‘special’), and position of the finite verb (V1, V2, final) were also recorded.9 In the case of an indefinite (morphologically negative or not) occurring in

Table .. The scribal dialects of Middle Low German dialect

sub-dialect

Westphalian Eastphalian North Low Saxon

Brandenburgish

Elb-Eastphalian East Frisian-Oldenburgish North Albingian East Elbian

centres of scribal activities e.g. Münster e.g. Braunschweig e.g. Magdeburg e.g. Oldenburg e.g. Bremen, Lüneburg e.g. Lübeck, Stralsund e.g. Berlin

8 In some cases, no full date is available, but only for instance the year. No completely undated texts were used. 9 Verbs were coded as ‘special’ if they belonged to a certain group of ‘common usage’ verbs (Burridge ) which have been alleged in the literature on the development of negation in other West Germanic languages to have an influence on the speed of the transition from stage II to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle. Cf. section ... Verb placement was counted as ‘final’ whenever the finite verb was found either in absolute clause-final position, but also in case of verb-raising, when the auxiliary or modal precedes the non-finite parts of the verb cluster, and also in case of extraposition, as long as sufficient material able to occur in the middle field was found in the middle field, between the complementizer and the verb cluster/finite verb.

1 Introduction



Stralsund

Lübeck

Frisian

Eastelbian

N o r t h L o w G e r m a n Scharnebeck Oldenburg Uelzen Börstel Westphalian

Eastphalian Barsinghausen

Low F r a n c onian

Braunschweig

Steinfurt Mariengarten

Figure .. The scribal dialects of Middle Low German

the clause, its position relative to the verb (preceding or following it) was recorded. In the sample entry in Table 1.5, the sentence Unde nyn becker schal des markts lenger bruken dan ver dage (Oldenburg 02/02/1350) is thus analysed as containing neither the preverbal negation particle ne/en nor the postverbal negator nicht, but a morphologically negative indefinite nyn becker ‘no baker’, which precedes the finite verb. The latter is a modal verb (schal ‘shall’) in second position, as this is a main clause. Finally, three texts by the 19th-century writer Fritz Reuter were consulted in a nonsystematic way where it seemed necessary to look at the further development into Modern Low German, viz. Chapter 5. The reason why no Modern Low German corpus was evaluated systematically is that Jespersen’s Cycle runs to completion already within the Middle Low German period. In Chapters 2 and 3, in which the empirical results of the corpus study are discussed, the factors influencing the variation encountered in the material with respect to the expression of negation will be analysed by means of multivariate binomial regression analysis using the GoldVarb X package (Cedergren and Sankoff 1974, Sankoff and Labov 1979, Sankoff 1988, Sankoff et al. 2005, Tagliamonte 2006). Occasionally in this study, the results of statistical tests for independence (χ 2 and Fisher’s exact tests) will be reported. These tests were carried out using R (), as GoldVarb X is really only useful for the study of variation.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. The composition of the Middle Low German corpus Westphalian

Eastphalian

North Low Saxon

East Elbian/ Hansa cities

Börstel Steinfurt

Barsinghausen Braunschweig Mariengarten

Oldenburg Scharnebeck Uelzen

Lübeck Stralsund

Table .. Sample database entry, Middle Low German year date place dialect REF Neg1 Neg2 clause type position of verb type of verb NI/NA NNI/NNA position indef./verb quote

translation

1350 02/02 Oldenburg NLS OL56 0 0 main V2 modal 1 0 indef. > verb Unde nyn becker schal des markts lenger bruken dan ver dage. and no baker shall the.GEN market.GEN longer use than four days And no baker shall use the market longer than four days.

. Overview The structure of this book will roughly follow the structure of Jäger’s (2008) History of German Negation, with the intention to complement her treatment of the development of negation in High German from a Low German perspective. Like all West Germanic languages, Low German underwent Jespersen’s Cycle, the development of the expression of negation by which an original preverbal particle is first reinforced and ultimately replaced by an adverbial negator. The West Germanic languages differ greatly in the speed at which they completed this development. High German for instance already reached stage III by 1300 (cf. Jäger 2008:149f and literature quoted there) and also English completed Jespersen’s Cycle between 1350 and 1420 (cf. Wallage 2005:195). Dutch on the other hand reached stage III only around 1600 (Burridge 1993:190f), the southern Dutch dialects even only in the 19th

1 Introduction



century (Beheydt 1998). Low German, geographically situated between High German and Dutch, evidently forms the missing link here. The details of the changes in the expression of standard negation in the history of Low German are the topic of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 turns to the interaction between indefinite pronouns, determiners, and adverbs in the scope of negation and the expression of sentential negation in Old and Middle Low German. While the expression of negation in Low German underwent Jespersen’s Cycle, the use of indefinite pronouns, determiners, and adverbs in the scope of negation changed as well. Old Low German strongly preferred morphologically non-negative indefinites also licensed in weak NPI-contexts, but developed strict negative doubling (the co-occurrence of sentential negator and morphologically negative indefinite), but no negative spread (the co-occurrence of morphologically negative indefinites). In Middle Low German, on the other hand, morphologically negative indefinites are near-obligatory in the scope of negation. Unlike Old Low German, Middle Low German has extensive negative spread, but arguably no negative doubling. Chapter 4 outlines the background of the analysis presented in Chapter 5, which then ties together the empirical observations made in Chapters 2 and 3 and proposes a formal analysis of the previously described developments. Chapter 6 sums up the findings of this study.

 The expression of standard negation This chapter describes the developments affecting the expression of standard negation (as defined in Chapter 1) in the history of Low German.

. Old Low German As already indicated in Chapter 1, the expression of negation in Old Low German can essentially be described as stage I of Jespersen’s Cycle. This section describes the distribution of the preverbal negation particle, but looks also at emerging means of strengthening the expression of negation found in Old Low German, with an eye on any signs of incipient Jespersen’s Cycle. .. The preverbal clitic negation particle Sentential negation in Old Low German is standardly expressed by means of an invariant element, ni or ne, inherited from Proto-Germanic. This particle appears strictly left-adjacent to the finite verb, irrespective of the position of the latter. In (11), for instance, it precedes the finite verb in sentence-inital position, in (12), in second position, and in (13) in sentence-final position. (11) Verb-first ‘ni bium ic’, quað he, ‘that barn godes . . . ’ NEG am I spoke he the child God.GEN ‘I am not the child of God, he said’

(Heliand 915)

(12) Verb-second Thuo ni dorste Abraham leng drohtin sînan furður frâgon then NEG dared Abraham longer Lord his further ask ‘Then Abraham did not dare any longer ask his Lord more.’ (Genesis 243–244) (13) Verb-final Ik gilofda thes ik gilouian ne scolda. I believed what I believe NEG should ‘I believed what I should not believe’

(Beichtspiegel 17, 5–6)

2 The expression of standard negation



Ni precedes the entire verb form, including potentially separable prefixes, (14). It procliticizes to the form is(t) ‘is’ to form nis ‘is not’. (14) ne hie thuo mid uuordon strid ni afhuo3 uuid that folc nor he then with words dispute NEG raised against that people furthor further ‘nor did he then raise a dispute with words against that people any more’ (Heliand 2893–2894) (15) that nist thi alloro frumono negen that NEG=is you all benefits none ‘that is no accomplishment to your credit’

(Heliand 1095)

Virtually all negative clauses in Old Low German contain this preverbal negator. The only regular exceptions are negative conjuncts to negative clauses introduced by the disjunction ni, ne ‘and not, nor’. But even in this type of clause, similar to the situation in Early English (Ingham 2010), the preverbal negator is still used in the majority of cases (16a): only in five out of seventeen ni/ne-conjuncts is there no additional preverbal negator ni/ne (16b). (16)

a. the thar an themu aldon euua gebiudid. that thu man ni slah. who there in the old law rules that you man NEG hit, [ni thu menes ni sueri]. and.not you false.oath NEG swear ‘. . . who rules there in the old law that you do not hit any man, and that you do not swear false oath.’ (Heliand 3268–3269) b. Nis thes tueho enig gumono nigienumu, NEG=is the.GEN.SG.N. doubt any men.GEN.PL none.DAT.PL [ne sie ina [_] fargelden san medmo and.not they them [NEG] repay soon jewel.GEN.PL kusteon]. glory.DAT.PL ‘There is no doubt about it to any of the men, and they do not repay them soon the glory of the jewels.’ (Heliand 3190–3192)

Old Low German patterns here with Old High German, where the finite verb in nohconjuncts is generally preceded by the sentential negation particle ni.1 The only other exception to the general use of ni/ne in negative clauses is the following example from one of the minor texts, where negation is expressed by an adverbially or pseudo1 Cf. Jäger (), p. , note  and p. : ‘It appears to be a general rule that if a finite verb is contained within the noh-conjunct, it is neg-marked by ni.’



The History of Low German Negation

argumentally used morphologically negative indefinite niauuiht ‘nothing’. Such cases will be discussed in detail in section 2.1.2. (17) thia the thar niauuiht gimanigfaldoda sindun an thero those who there nothing multiplied are on the genuftsamidu thero geuono abundance the.GEN.PL gifts.GEN ‘those who are not/to no extent multiplied in the abundance of the gifts’ (Psalmenauslegung 12,7–8) In the Heliand, there are six cases where ni/ne negates a present (four occurrences) or past subjunctive form (two occurrences) of uuesan ‘to be’2 , taking a complement clause introduced by that expressing an exception, (18). These cases are treated as regular negative clauses here, as they differ in important ways from the Middle Low German exceptive clauses to be discussed in 2.2.1 and 5.3.2. (18) ni uuari that it gibod godes selbes uuari NEG were that it order God.GEN self were ‘unless (lit. it were not that) it were something ordained by God himself ’ (Heliand 205–206) Table 2.1 shows the ratio of clauses containing this neg-particle among all negated Old Low German clauses in the corpus, and the number of negative clauses negated by ni/ne alone. A clause is taken to be negated by ni/ne alone if negation is not also expressed on an indefinite, for instance. That is, ni/ne . . . iouuiht ‘NEG . . . anything’ is counted as ‘ni/ne alone’, while ni/ne . . . niouuiht ‘NEG . . . nothing’ is not. Table 2.1 shows that, as indicated above, virtually all negative clauses in the Old Low German corpus contain the preverbal negator, and it is the only expression of negation in nearly all of them. This picture is therefore even more striking than in Old High German, where only between 88 and maximally 94 of all negative clauses contain ni (Jäger 2008:59). The difference between Old Low German and Old High German is even greater in the ratio of the clauses negated by the preverbal particle alone. As will

Table .. Percentage of preverbal ni in Old Low German Heliand

preverbal ni/ne ni/ne alone total neg. clauses 2

Genesis

minor texts



#



#



#

99.5 94.3

617 582 620

100 100

37 37 37

97.4 84.2

37 32 38

These are four occurrences of present subjunctive si and two of past subjunctive uuari.

2 The expression of standard negation



become clear in section 3.3, the major difference between the two languages is the fact that Old Low German hardly uses morphologically negative indefinites in the scope of negation (like English nothing), but non-negative ones (like English anything) instead. This accounts for the higher number of clauses in which negation is expressed by ni/ne alone. Summing up, Old Low German can safely be classed as a stage I language in terms of Jespersen’s Cycle. .. Negation strengtheners ... General remarks As indicated above, Low German eventually underwent Jespersen’s Cycle. Given that, the question arises when this process started, that is, at what point the supplementation of the original preverbal negator that initiated Jespersen’s Cycle commenced. Cross-linguistically, potential candidates for new negators are commonly drawn from a number of typical elements that can emphasize the polarity of negation (Jäger 2008, Breitbarth et al. 2013): (i) (negative) indefinite pronouns (e.g. nothing, anything) (ii) nominal minimizers (e.g. a drop, a crumb) and generalizers (e.g. a thing) (iii) (negative) adverbs, including certain PPs (e.g. never, in this world, for shit). The reason why such elements are commonly used to emphasize the polarity of negation is that they share an important semantic property: scalarity. This is most evident in case of nominal minimizers and generalizers. Denoting low points on pragmatic scales, in terms of dimension or specificity, respectively, such expressions are particularly informative in so-called scale-reversing contexts (Ladusaw 1979:ch. 6) such as negation. In such contexts, they give rise to a universal scalar implicature (Haspelmath 1997:226), namely that since the given situation does not hold for the most minimal or least specific element out of the implicated set of alternatives, it does not hold for any larger or more specific elements either. Exploiting this implicature helps to emphasize that the situation does not hold at all. The same holds for adverbial generalizers like in this world and negative polarity items such as items denoting anything. Negative indefinite pronouns and adverbs can serve as emphatic expressions of negation because they express the absence of any (scalar) alternatives. While many languages have such emphatic reinforcers, those only rarely go on to become new expressions of standard negation and thus initiate Jespersen’s Cycle (Breitbarth et al. 2013). This is because such items need to undergo a series of reanalyses before they can be used as negation markers. Minimizers for instance typically start out as objects of particular verbs, and first need to overcome possible semantic restrictions. For instance, while it is possible in English to say I did not drink a drop, I did not see/say a drop is infelicitous. What is needed is first a generalization of the meaning (this affects minimizers more than generalizers), and second a generalization of the syntactic distribution. Typically, nominal minimizers as well as generalizers start



The History of Low German Negation

out as arguments of transitive verbs (I did not drink a drop, I did not see a thing). Only when they are reanalysed as negative polarity adverbs and become available with intransitive verbs as well can they be considered candidates for the renewal of the expression of negation under Jespersen’s Cycle. In the Old High German Gospel Book by Otfrid of Weißenburg, for instance, drof ‘drop’ is commonly used as such a generalized emphatic reinforcer clearly already having overcome the restriction to predicates involving fluids like drink, pour, spill, . . . , (19). (19) Old High German Ni fórihti thir, bíscof, | ih ni térru thir drof NEG fear you.DAT bishop I NEG harm you.DAT drop ‘Do not be afraid, Bishop, I will not harm you in the least’ (Otfrid, Evangelienbuch 3 23, 37) However, drof did not become the new expression of standard negation in High German as Jespersen’s Cycle progressed, as a final step was not completed. In a third step, any remaining pragmatic restrictions have to be lost. For instance, Italian mica, the entirely conventionalized emphasizer deriving from an original minimizer meaning ‘crumb’, is still restricted to contexts where the proposition to be negated is ‘activated’ in the discourse (Cinque 1976, Schwenter 2006, Visconti 2009). (20)

a. A. Chi viene a prenderti? ‘Who’s coming to pick you up?’ B. Non so. Ma Gianni non ha (∗ mica) la macchina. ‘I don’t know. But Gianni doesn’t have the car.’ b. Questa non è mica una festa data in nostro onore, ma in onore di Ada e Guido! Parla di loro! ‘This is not mica a party given in our honour, but in honour of Ada and Guido! Talk about them!’ (I. Svevo, La coscienza di Zeno, 6 [LIZ XX]; from Visconti 2009:944)

The Germanic languages have all undergone Jespersen’s Cycle and have all followed strategy (i), that is, they have grammaticalized their new negators from a former (negative) indefinite pronoun. That is true for English not < nowiht/nawiht ‘nothing’ (cf. nought) as much as for the Scandinavian negators ikke (Danish, Norwegian), icke, inte (Swedish), ekki (Icelandic) < Old Norse (ni) eitt-gi ‘(NEG) one=FOC’ > eittki > ekki ‘not’. Historically, the Germanic languages also experimented with other strategies. A non-negative indefinite pronoun, (io)uuiht ‘anything’ (io ‘ever’ + uuiht ‘a thing’) formed the input to Upper German it/et ‘not’ (Jäger 2008:106). This strategy partly overlaps with the one with an indefinite noun with little or no semantic restrictions like ‘thing’ or ‘being’, that is, a generalizer (ii), as the indefinite noun may grammaticalize as a negator via the intermediate step of becoming an indefinite pronoun. Those

2 The expression of standard negation



Arabic dialects that have undergone or are in the process of undergoing Jespersen’s Cycle have grammaticalized such a generalizer, -š < šay ‘anything’ (< šayP ‘thing’) (Lucas 2007; 2009). Minimizers (ii) are the strategy chosen by those Romance languages that have undergone or at least started Jespersen’s Cycle, cf. French pas ‘not < step’ or Italian mica ‘not/at all < crumb’. While presumably all languages feature such more or less conventionalized emphasizers, it has been shown that any such elements have to overcome a number of typical restrictions before they can become new expressions of sentential negation (Breitbarth et al. 2013). This development has two separate stages, first, the grammaticalization as a negative polarity adverb and second, the reanalysis as a new marker of sentential negation. This development can stop at any moment in a given language. The first step typically involves semantic bleaching and thus generalization to contexts independent of the literal meaning of the element involved, followed by a reanalysis as an adverb. English a drop for instance is restricted to verbs compatible with arguments referring to fluids (I didn’t touch/drink/waste/spill/sweat a drop; The container didn’t leak a drop; ∗ I didn’t eat/remember/know a drop). Once a minimizer overcomes its restriction to a semantic class of verbs, it may still remain restricted to transitive verbs for some time. Only once an element loses its restriction to transitive verbs can one say that it has been reanalysed as an adverbial negation strengthener. (British) English a sausage for instance is not restricted to verbs of eating, but cannot be used with intransitive verbs: while I couldn’t give a sausage (=‘I don’t care.’), I didn’t see/sell/find a sausage are fine, ∗ I didn’t sleep a sausage is not. Once an element has become an adverbial strengthener, the road is open in principle to it becoming a new negator; usually, there are several pragmatic restrictions on its use to be overcome still (Schwenter 2005; 2006, Hansen 2009, Visconti 2009). Elements recruited for Jespersen’s Cycle via strategy (i) often show an inverse transitivity restriction, and initially only occur with intransitive predicates where the adverbial meaning is unambiguous, in order to avoid confusion with an argumental use of the indefinite (Breitbarth et al. 2013).3 Of course, languages also possess negative polarity adverbs that do not have a nominal source, but derive for instance from PPs, which can be used as adverbial emphasizers without the first step. Very common in this class are phrases such as for my/your etc. life or in this world, cf. Middle Welsh yn y byt (21). (21) . . . ny adwn ni drwc arnam ny hunein yr dyn yn y NEG allow.PRES.1P we harm on.1P us REFL for person in the byt. world ‘. . . we shall not allow ourselves to be harmed for anyone’s sake (in the world).’ (Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi 21.4–6, from Willis 2011b) 3

I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for OUP for reminding me of this fact.



The History of Low German Negation

Another adverbial emphasizer that is frequently used cross-linguistically is never and its equivalents. Old English used n¯a/n¯o as a reinforcer of negation (Horn 1989, van Kemenade 2000, Wallage 2005), but eventually settled for not. In some English dialects, never has come to function as the expression of sentential negation in past tense clauses (Cheshire et al. 1995, Cheshire 1999, Beal and Corrigan 2005, Lucas and Willis 2012). A number of Portuguese-based creoles use a sentential negator derived from Portuguese nunca ‘never’, for instance Capeverdean Creole ka ‘not’ (Naro 1978:330–303, Teyssier 1986). All adverbial strengtheners are also subject to overcoming any pragmatic restrictions they may originally have had, or indeed grammatical restrictions, such as the tense of the verb in case of ‘never’-based strengtheners, before they can actually become sentential negators (Breitbarth et al. 2013). ... Negation strengtheners in Old Low German Old Low German uses four types of elements or constructions emphasizing the polarity of negation: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

adverbially used PP-strengtheners of the ‘in the world’ type adverbially used mid uuihti ‘at all’, lit. ‘with a(ny) thing’, i.e. ‘to any degree’ (io)uuiht + genitive attribute adverbially used ((n)io)uuiht.

Their distribution can be seen from Table 2.2. Over the whole Old Low German corpus, emphasizers are only used in 8.9 of all negative clauses. Presumably due to the brevity of these texts, they are hardly attested in the Genesis fragments and the minor texts. The most frequent type overall are emphasizers of the ‘in this world’ type, followed by the (pseudo-)argumental (io)uuiht + genitive attribute construction.4 Adverbial mid uuihti and adverbially used (n)iouuiht are the least frequent types (12.9 and 11.3, respectively, of negative clauses with emphasizers, around 1 each of all negative clauses) are of these types.

Table .. Types of negation strengtheners in Old Low German Heliand

Genesis

minor texts

an thesaru uueroldi mid uuihti (io)uuiht + GEN adverbial (nio)uuiht

24 8 20 7

2 0 2 0

0 0 0 1

totals

59

4

1

4 As will be discussed in more detail below, only cases have been counted where (io)uuiht is not clearly the internal argument of the verb. There are an additional fifteen cases where it is.

2 The expression of standard negation



A. An thesaru uueroldi The majority of the negation strengtheners in Old Low German are adverbial generalizers of the ‘in this world’ or ‘in my/his/ . . . life’ type. There are 23 occurrences of different such strengtheners, exemplified in (22). (22)

a. That ni scal an is liua gio lides anbitan uuines an is that NEG shall to his life ever cider enjoy wine at his uueroldi. world ‘Never in his life will he drink hard cider or wine in this world.’ (Heliand 126–127) b. nis thes bodon gimaco enig obar erdu. NEG=is the.GEN messenger equal any above earth ‘there is not a single emissary on earth who is his equal’ (Heliand 941–942) c. so nis an thesaru uueroldi enig an thesaru middilgard so NEG=is at this world any at this midgard manno so spahi liudio barno nigen that thero lerono mugi man so wise people.GEN child none that these teachings can endi gitellien the he thar an themu alahe gisprak. temple spoke end tell that he there in the ‘In this world, in this midgard indeed, no one, no child of people, is so wise that he could tell these teachings to the end, which he spoke to them in the temple.’ (Heliand 4243–4245) d. nu ic giuuinnan mag that he obar thesaro erdu ald ni now I achieve can that he above this earth old NEG uuirdit her undar thesum heriscepi becomes here under this realm ‘therefore I can see to it that He never grows old on this earth, here in this realm’ (Heliand 725–727) e. Ne mugun gi iu betaran rad geuuinnan an thesoro uueroldi NEG can you you better advice win at this world ‘you cannot obtain better advice in this world’ (Heliand 1462–1463)

They do not seem to be conventionalized in Old Low German as they occur in a large variety of forms, and, as seen in (22a,c,d), can co-occur with other such phrases. They are furthermore not restricted to occurring with indefinite quantifiers (pronouns or adverbs). While in (22a) there is gio ‘ever’ and in (22b) there is enig ‘any’, the PP appears on its own in (22e). The quantification here appears to come from the comparative, not an indefinite quantifier. In (22d), there appears to be no quantificational element at all. This is different for instance in Middle Welsh, which was referred to above, where yn y byt ‘in the world’-type PPs, by combining with indefinite pronouns, form emphatic



The History of Low German Negation

negative indefinite pronouns, which are ultimately reanalysed as non-emphatic NPI indefinites: dim yn y byd > dim byd ‘anything, nothing’. B. Mid uuihti a(ny)thing’.

Another type of adverbially used PP is mid uuihti ‘at all’, lit. ‘with

(23) Ni bium ic mid uuihti gilih drohtine minumu. neg am I with anything like Lord mine ‘I am not at all like my Lord.’

(Heliand 935–936)

Although this type is not very frequent—it is attested seven times in the Heliand—it lends itself perfectly to its role as a negation strengthener given that it is a generalizer (and therefore not restricted by the semantics of the verb), adverbial (independent of the argument structure of the verb), and based on uuiht ‘(any)thing’, which is also used in the two types of strengtheners described below. Parallel cases are attested in Old High German, though very rarely as well.5 (24) Thar nist míotono wiht | ouh wéhsales níawiht, there NEG=is penalties.GEN anything also exchange.GEN nothing thaz íaman thes giwíse, | mit wíhtu sih irlóse that anyone the.GEN lead with anything REFL redeem ‘There are no penalties, and nothing in exchange either, such that anyone could try to redeem it with anything.’ (Otfrid, Evangelienbuch 5, 19, 58) C. (Io)uuiht + genitive The next type of strengthener is perhaps slightly more controversial, because grammatically, the indefinite (pro)noun (io)uuiht ‘(any)thing’ behaves like the internal argument of the verb, not like an adverbial element. We shall call this use of (io)uuiht ‘pseudo-argumental’ here because although it is by its syntactic behaviour the argument of the verb, it takes a genitive attribute which, taking the interpretation of the whole clause into account, is more likely to be the conceptual argument of the verb, while (io)uuiht quantifies it. As a (pseudo-)argument, (io)uuiht + genitive is only found with transitive verbs, including optionally transitive ones. There are fifteen examples which could be interpreted either way. In these examples, (io)uuiht could be the conceptual argument of the verb itself, or an element quantifying its genitive complement.6 (25) gives two examples: (25)

a. So thia uuardos thes uuiht ni afsuobun so the guards the.GEN anything NEG noticed ‘Thus the guards did not notice any(thing) of it’

(Heliand 636)

5 Cf. Jäger (:), where she also mentions the parallel with Present-day German mitnichten ‘in no way, not at all’, lit. ‘with nothing’. 6 See also footnote .

2 The expression of standard negation b. He ni uuelda thes tho gehan eouuiht. he NEG wanted this.GEN then confess anything ‘He did not want to confess any(thing) of this’



(Heliand 4975)

Next, there are sixteen examples where (io)uuiht is less likely to be the conceptual argument of the verb, despite its syntactic behaviour. While the verbs used in (25) naturally allow for a partitive interpretation (‘any(thing) of it’)—one can also ‘notice’ and ‘confess’ only parts of a whole (depending also on the divisibility of that whole)— such an interpretation is less plausible in (26). In (26a), for instance, the verb is ‘recognize’, a telic verb. As soon as one recognizes any part of a whole, the whole is recognized, too. The literal translation ‘they did not recognize anything of him’ therefore only makes sense if all of him was not recognized, that is, if he was not recognized at all. In (26b), there is a light verb (‘do’) and a noun (‘harm’) forming a compound predicate.7 Therefore, the use of uuiht with the genitive of ‘harm’ can only be understood as uuiht strengthening the expression of the negation of this compound predicate. (26)

a. so is thea ni mahtun antkenn(i)an uuiht the so he.GEN those NEG could recognize anything/NEG who thes uuih[e]s thar uuardon scoldun the.GEN shrine.GEN there guard should ‘they did not recognize him at all who were supposed to guard the shrine’ (lit. ‘they did not recognize anything of him . . . ’) (Heliand 813) b. Ne sie thi hiudu uuiht harmes ne gidedun . . . and.not they you today anything harm.GEN NEG did ‘And they did not do you any harm (at all) today.’ (lit. ‘anything of harm’) (Heliand 3886–3887)

Finally, there is one clearer case of an emerging adverbial use of uuiht with a genitive, (27). Tregan ‘be sick of, distress, annoy’ is an experiencer verb taking a dative experiencer argument, here iu ‘you’, and—normally—a nominative argument, which expresses the annoying or distressing fact. In (27), this argument is uuiht . . . minero hinferdio, literally ‘a thing/anything of my passing’. Someone’s death is, of course, not divisible; it either occurs or it does not. ‘Anything of my passing’ is only distressing to Jesus’ disciples because the whole fact that he should die at all is distressing to them. The fact that uuiht and minero hinferdio are discontinuous adds to the impression that uuiht is an incipient adverbial strengthener here.

7 In German, such a compound of a light verb and noun is called a Funktionsverbkomplex ‘function-verb complex’.



The History of Low German Negation

(27) Ni tharf iu uuiht tregan quat hie minero hinferdio NEG may you.DAT thing distress said he my.GEN passing.GEN ‘My passing should not distress you at all, he said.’ (lit. ‘Not should anything of my passing distress you, he said’) (Heliand 5520–5521) A similar strengthening construction to this Old Low German (io)uuiht + GEN construction is found in Old High German, more precisely, in Otfrid of Weissenburg’s Gospel Book. Besides the (generalizing) indefinite wiht ‘anything’, Otfrid uses the minimizer drof ‘drop’ with a genitive attribute, (28c) (cf. also Jäger 2008:113). Jäger discusses whether wiht can be taken as an adverbial strengthener in these cases, as the construction is particularly frequent with verbs of variable case-assignment (ACC/GEN) in that language (Jäger 2008:113). While in some cases, it is plausible that wiht is the conceptual argument of the verb, such as in (28a) (it is possible to have only partial knowledge about a man), this is unlikely in (28b), where an interpretation ‘any husband (at all)’ is much more natural than ‘anything of a husband’. (28)

a. lóugnit es álles, quad ni wésti wiht thes denied it.GEN all said NEG knew.SJCT anything this.GEN mánnes. man.GEN ‘He (Peter) denied everything, he said he didn’t know anything about this man.’ (Otfrid, Evangelienbuch 4 18, 10) b. Ih ni háben, quad siu, in wár wiht gommánnes sár I NEG have said she in truth thing husband.GEN at.all ‘In truth, she said, I do not have any husband at all’ (not: ‘(any)thing of a husband’) (Otfrid, Evangelienbuch 2 14, 49) c. Drof ni zuívolot ir thés drop NEG doubt you this.GEN ‘Do not doubt this in the least.’

(Otfrid, Evangelienbuch 3 23, 37)

As an interpretation ‘anything of the man’ is possible in (28a), such cases can be taken to be the bridging context for a reanalysis as an adnominal quantifier. Likewise, the minimizer drof ‘a drop’ is not the conceptual argument of the verb zuivol¯on ‘to doubt’ in (28c) (one cannot doubt (literal) drops), rather, drof expresses the extent of the doubt, namely an extremely small extent, and as such strengthens the expression of negation, while conceptual argument of doubt is thés ‘this.GEN’. The role of drof and wiht with a genitive attribute in Old High German, and of uuiht with a genitive attribute in Old Low German, is therefore clearly to express the fact that the respective state of affairs does not hold for even the minimal (drof ) or maximal (wiht/uuiht) extent of the genitive attribute. They therefore work as negation

2 The expression of standard negation



strengtheners. Transitive verbs are clearly the bridging context, and it is necessary to look at the semantics of the verbs and the arguments involved (telicity/divisibility) to determine whether a strengthener or neutral use may have been intended. The reason that suggests itself for transitive contexts forming the bridging context here is the tendency mentioned above (2.1.2.1) for ‘nothing’-type strengtheners to be originally restricted to intransitive verbs in their adverbial use, in order to avoid an argumental interpretation. The use as a pseudo-argument with a genitive attribute containing the conceptual argument circumvents this problem. Note also that even a long time after ni(c)ht ‘not’ was fully established as the new expression of standard negation in Middle High German and Middle Low German, the complement in transitive clauses tended to occur in the genitive/partitive (Dal 1952:22). D. Adverbial ((n)io)uuiht With an eye on Jespersen’s Cycle in Low German, knowing that a new negative particle nicht < niouuiht ‘nothing’ first supplements and later replaces ni/ne (cf. section 2.2.2), the question is of course whether there are any adverbially or at least pseudo-argumentally used indefinites attested already in Old Low German, in particular morphologically negative ones. In the previous subsection, we have seen that (io)uuiht with a genitive attribute shows an emergent use as an adverbial strengthener of negation. Without a genitive attribute, adverbially or pseudo-argumentally used (io)uuiht is already rare, and adverbially used niouuiht is even rarer. Adverbial ((n)io)uuiht is found with (a) adjective predicates and passive participles and (b) a number of (optionally) transitive/reflexive verbs which have already all internal argument slots filled: (a) uuerd ‘worth, suitable’ (Heliand 3802), gimanigfaldoda ‘multiplied’ (Psalmenauslegung 12,7–8) (b) belgan ‘be angry’ (Heliand 4895 and 5120), derien ‘harm’ (Heliand 3892), andr¯adan ‘fear’ (Heliand 2252), fargumon ‘neglect’ (Heliand 3219), hetan ‘be called’ (Heliand 222), and geuualdan ‘command’ (Heliand 2302) An example of option (a) was already given in (17) above; option (b) is exemplified in (29)8 : (29)

a. ni sculun us belgan uuiht NEG shall.PL us be.angry anything ‘We shall not be angry at all’

(Heliand 4895)

8 There is another occurrence of derian ‘harm’ in the Heliand, which also occurs with an indefinite, eouuiht. However, it is not possible to determine whether it is adverbially used here, with a pro-dropped subject, or whether eouuiht is in fact the subject. The example was therefore not counted as an instance of adverbially used ((n)io)uuiht.

() Ni scal iu her derien eouuiht. NEG shall you here harm anything ‘He/it shall not harm you here in the least’ or ‘Nothing shall harm you here’ (Heliand )



The History of Low German Negation b. Ne ik thi geth ni deriu (neo)uuiht quad he. and.not I you also NEG damage nothing said he ‘I will also not harm you at all, he said.’ (Heliand 3892) c. Ni scal ine fargumon eouuiht, ni farmuni ine an is mode. NEG shall him neglect anything, nor deny him in his mind ‘He shall not neglect him at all, nor deny him in his mind’ (Heliand 3219–3220) d. hiet that sia im uuedares giuuin uuiht ni andrædin ordered that they him weather.GEN fight (any)thing NEG feared ‘[he] ordered that they not fear (at all) the fight of the weather’ (Heliand 2252)

Examples like (29), where all argument positions of a transitive verb are already filled, represent a rather advanced stage in the development of a new negative marker (Breitbarth et al. 2013). The use of ((n)io)ouuiht is unambiguously adverbial in these cases.9 With respect to (29b), note the similarity to the use of nichts ‘nothing’ in Modern Standard German with the equivalent verb schaden ‘damage, harm’: (30) Das wird dir nichts schaden. that will you nothing harm ‘That won’t harm you (at all).’ lit. ‘That will not harm you anything.’ In all cases, ((n)io)ouuiht seems to express that the negated state of affairs does not hold to the widest or narrowest possible extent. That is, strengthening with adverbial (io)ouuiht and nioouuiht exploits the scalar properties of these items. Given the low frequency of this type of strengthening in Old Low German, compared to the other types discussed above, especially of strengthening with adverbial nioouuiht, it can safely be assumed that it still had an emphatic function in Old Low German, as such an emphatic use of scalar indefinite nouns and pronouns is the first step in their development into new expressions of negation (Eckardt 2012). The next step should be the bleaching into a neutral way of reinforcing the expression of negation. There are no indications for such a bleaching and neutralization yet in the Old Low German data— other types of strengthener, discussed above, are more frequent, but there is no one type appearing to be more conventionalized than others. Nevertheless, the fact that the neutral expression of negation in later Middle Low German is nicht < niouuiht (see section 2.2.2), we can reconstruct a development starting with adverbially used niouuiht with predicates permitting an optional extent argument as a bridging context (Breitbarth et al. 2013), even though niouuiht is much less frequently used adverbially than (io)uuiht in this context in the data available. 9

For more discussion of the importance of these examples, cf. section ...

2 The expression of standard negation



Comparing Old Low German to Old High German regarding the degree of grammaticalization of the emerging new negator, we find a similar development in both languages, but the textual transmission affords a slightly better grip on the timing of the changes. Jäger (2008) finds in her Old High German corpus that adverbial nieht < niouuiht only becomes used regularly towards the end of that period, but that it is already hard to tell whether it is an emphatic element or already the expression of sentential negation; she reports four cases in the first 100 negative clauses in Notker’s Psalter, (31). (31) Ih nehébo niêht in geméitun sô uîlo geuuêinot. I NEG=have at all/NEG in vain so much cried ‘I did not cry that much in vain.’ (N Ps 6,11; from Jäger 2008:103f ) However, according to Jäger (2008), Old High German is still firmly in stage I of Jespersen’s cycle. However, in Williram’s paraphrase of the Song of Songs (c.1060), to which Jäger only refers cursorily, nîeth < niowiht is already used in the vast majority of negative clauses without indefinites in the oldest manuscript (cf. also Behaghel 1918:230)10 , mostly together with the old preverbal particle, (32). (32) Er íst mír so hóld, daz ér nîeth dólan neuuil, daz he is me.DAT so well.disposed that he NEG tolerate NEG=will that míh îeman sîner mínnon írre me.ACC anyone his.GEN love.GEN detract ‘He is so fond of me, he will not tolerate that anyone detract me from his love’ (Williram HL 16v, 27–28) That is, in a text from the transitional period between Old and Middle High German, which Jäger did not study systematically, the adverbial negation strengthener appears to have lost its former emphatic value and has bleached into a neutral element participating in the expression of negation in negative clauses. Table 2.3 summarizes the distribution of negative markers in Williram’s paraphrase of the Song of Songs, and shows that there was a point when stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle was well established, with nearly 70 of the negative clauses showing a bipartite expression of negation (with nîeth or negative indefinites). Williram’s paraphrase of the Song of Songs therefore represents the transitional stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle between Old High German and Middle High German, and shows how the change from ne/en to nicht as the marker of negation spread. This contrasts with Jäger’s (2008:121) finding that none of the Middle High German texts she studied ‘is [the bipartite] pattern the one dominant way to express sentential negation’. While it may still be true that ‘in the diachronic data there is a missing link of a stable stage-II period’ (Jäger 2008:121), certainly compared to languages like French, where the bipartite pattern ‘has been the 10

If there are indefinites, nîeth only appears to occur with morphologically non-negative indefinites.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Negative markers in Williram’s paraphrase of the Song of Songs count ne only ne . . . nîeth ne . . . negative indefinite nîeth only negative indefinite only totals

22 44 25 5 4 100

norm over centuries’ (ibid.), there is at least evidence that stage II was more strongly expressed in texts outside Jäger’s corpus. Unfortunately, there are no such textual witnesses for the transition between Old and Middle Low German. .. Summary The expression of negation in Old Low German is standardly achieved by the preverbal head ni/ne. In 9.1 of all negative clauses, it is joined by an expression strengthening or emphasizing the negative polarity of the clause. These elements are of a varied nature, essentially based on adverbially used generalizers, either ‘in this world’-type PPs or the (pro)noun (io)uuiht ‘(any)thing’ in various collocations, e.g. in a PP mid uuihti ‘at all’, lit. ‘with anything’ or with a genitive attribute in contexts where that attribute appears to be the actual argument of the verb. The type that probably formed the input to Jespersen’s Cycle in Low German, although the actual transition to stage II is undocumented in attested texts, is the adverbial use of (io)uuiht ‘(any)thing’, rarely niouuiht ‘nothing’, presumably using predicates permitting an optional extent argument as the bridging context, cf. the list in section 2.1.2.2.

. Middle Low German .. The preverbal clitic particle In stark contrast to its near ubiquity in Old Low German, preverbal ne/en has become very rare on its own by Middle Low German times and decreases further over the course of the Middle Low German period, as shown in Table 2.4. The total number of negative clauses (rightmost column) is greater than the number of negative clauses containing (ne/en), because there are also negative clauses containing nicht or negative indefinites alone. This figure does not include exceptive clauses (i.e. ‘unless’-clauses), for reasons to be discussed presently. The set of exceptive clauses is a proper subset of the clauses containing ne/en alone.

2 The expression of standard negation



Table .. Preverbal ne/en in Middle Low German

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

ne/en

ne/en alone

exceptive clauses

290 375 264 183 41

48 64 43 15 3

48 62 41 14 3

total neg. clauses 362 628 638 742 447

Some clarifications are in order about ne/en used on its own. In the entire Middle Low German corpus used, that is, 2817 negative clauses, there is only one instance of sentential negation expressed by the preverbal particle alone. (33) der ik unde myne erven enscholed recht warende wesen of.that I and my heirs NEG=shall right keeping be ‘ . . . of which I and my heirs shall not keep priority of claim’ (Scharnebeck 26/05/1420) In four additional cases, there is a morphologically non-negative indefinite in the scope of negation, e.g. (34a), in one of them there is additionally the old strengthener mit ichte < mid uuihti ‘at all’, (34b).11 It could be argued that it is the use of the NPIs jenighe and mit ichte that expresses the negation here.12 (34)

a. Ock enschullen wy efte unse nakomelinge also NEG=shall we or our heirs jenighe andere memorien theyn any other endowments tithe ‘Neither shall we nor our heirs tithe those endowments’

sodane memorien in such endowments into

endowments in any other (Barsinghausen 20/04/1500)

b. so enewolde se eder jement van orer weghene enescholde thus NEG=wanted they or anyone of their behalf EN.should uppe datsulve gut mit ichte jenighewis saken. upon the=same good at all in.any.way file.suit ‘thus neither do they want nor shall anyone on their behalf file suit about the good mentioned in any way’ (Barsinghausen 29/03/1380) All the remaining 168 instances of ne/en used on its own are what we shall call exceptive clauses, (35).

11 12

Cf. section ....B. For a similar argument for constructions with ne/en + NPI in Middle Dutch, cf. Postma ().



The History of Low German Negation

(35) vnde dar moste numment yn, he ne gheue V mark vp and there must no.one in he NEG give.SUBJN five marks on dat minste the least ‘and no one shall enter there, unless he give/pay at least five marks’ (Stralsund 1392) Formally, these clauses are subjunctive verb-second clauses with an exceptive interpretation (‘unless’, ‘except’). Härd (2000:1460) calls them ‘exzipierende Bedingungssätze’ (‘exceptive conditionals’) in which ne is ‘pleonastic’. Ebert et al. (1993:426) (for Early New High German) call these ‘konjunktivische Sätze mit exzipierender Bedeutung’ (‘subjunctive clauses with exceptive meaning’). It is crucial to note a number of properties that distinguish them from clauses containing sentential negation, be it marked by the old preverbal particle or another expression. First of all, they differ formally from (negative) conditionals in Middle Low German. These come in two forms, either asyndetically connected with clause-initial verb placement (36a) or syndetically connected with clause-final verb placement (36b). Conditional complementizers attested in our corpus are so(verne), na mal(en), oft(e), wen(n)(t)/wann(e), and wor. (36)

a. Dedense des night, so sculde men dat [ . . . ] vorclaghen did=they this=GEN NEG so should one that charge ‘If they do not comply with it, one should take this to court.’ (Oldenburg 36/1/1345) b. zo se to der tiid nyne kindere mer tosamende enhadden if they at that time no children any.more together EN=had ‘Should they not have any more children together at that point . . . ’ (Börstel 16/03/1492)

By contrast, exceptive clauses have the finite verb in second position, and it is required to be preceded by a constituent. Furthermore, the verb is in the subjunctive, which is not necessarily the case with standard (negative) conditionals; (37) for instance is indicative. in deme levende nicht en do . . . (37) ßoverne ik des I of.that in the life NEG EN do if ‘If (as long as) I don’t do that in my life . . . ’ (Lübeck 07/09/1528) A second difference becomes apparent when the examples in (36) and (37) are compared to exceptive clauses such as (35). While in negative conditionals, the new adverbial negator nicht ‘not’ or negative indefinites such as nyne kindere ‘no children’ in (36b) can co-occur with the preverbal particle ne/en, no other expressions of negation are found in any of the 168 exceptive clauses in our corpus. In fact, as Table 2.5

2 The expression of standard negation



Table .. Expressions of negation in conditional clauses, compared to exceptive clauses

ne/en alone ne/en . . . nicht nicht alone ne/en . . . NI NI alone

V1

V-final

except.

total

0 17 87 2 9

0 56 137 12 29

168 0 0 0 0

168 73 224 14 38

shows, there is absolutely no overlap between exceptives and conditionals in the use of negative markers. Negation in regular negative conditionals is expressed by nicht alone in 64.2 of the cases (75.7 in asyndetic verb-first conditionals and 58.4 in verb-final conditionals) and by a ne/en + nicht in 20.9 of the cases (14.8 in asyndetic verbfirst conditionals and 23.9 in verb-final conditionals), but never by ne/en alone.13 That is, not only is the number of negative conditionals using ne/en at all (with another expression of negation) much lower than the number of those using single nicht, ne/en alone is not attested at all. If exceptive clauses were simply negative conditionals, we would expect them to show a similar ratio in the expression of negation in them. On the contrary though, we find that 100 of the exceptive clauses contain the preverbal particle alone, while 0 of the negative conditionals do. A third difference is the fact that the preverbal particle is used in all exceptive clauses until the construction as such is replaced by a construction with a dummy matrix clause without ne/en, employing the original comparative particle dan ‘than’; it si dan (cf. Present-day (High) German es sei denn ‘unless’; lit. ‘it be than’)14 , while 13 As signalled above, () is the only example of a negative clause in the corpus containing ne/en alone, and this is not a conditional. 14 There are transitional forms with ne/en; compare (a) with (b).

() a. original exceptive construction: dat en sy mit willen der zessen that NE be.SUBJN with declared.intention of.the six ‘unless it be with the permission of the six’

(Steinfurt //)

b. augmented with dan: id ensy dan myt willen [ . . . ] des edelen unsers leven it NE=be.SUBJN then with declared.intention [ . . . ] of.the noble our dear juncheren squire ‘unless it be with the permission of our dear noble squire’ (Steinfurt //) c. frozen expression with denn (Present-day German): es sei denn . . . it be.SUBJN then . . . ‘unless . . . ’



The History of Low German Negation Table .. The loss of ne/en from negative verb-first conditionals

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

#



11 3 2 0 0

47.8 12.5 8.0 0.0 0.0

total 23 24 25 23 20

negative verb-first conditionals are one of the earliest environments to occur without the preverbal particle, using the postverbal nicht or negative indefinites on their own. As shown in Table 2.6, already in the middle of the 14th century, fewer than half of them still use the preverbal particle in a bipartite construction. The share of negative verb-first conditionals using ne/en at all is furthermore rapidly decreasing over the following century, while the total number of negative verb-first conditionals is relatively constant across time. The preverbal particle is lost much earlier from this context than from negative clauses overall, as will be discussed in section 2.2.2. Fourth, regular negative conditionals tend to precede their apodosis (asyndetic ones exclusively so, syndetic ones may occasionally follow), while exceptive clauses are exclusively found following the clause to which they express an exception. Finally, there is a strong tendency in our Middle Low German corpus for the matrix clause to contain negation itself. The exceptive clause therefore contrasts this negation and formulates a positive exception to it. Thus, (35) essentially means, ‘If they pay, they can join’. Given that, as seen above, exceptive clauses in Middle Low German do not use what appears to be the standard expression of negation at that stage, compared to ordinary negative clauses, that is, nicht or negative indefinites (possibly coupled with the old preverbal particle, but far from necessarily), we are led to conclude that the inherited preverbal particle ne/en is not the expression of negation in these clauses. Rather, it appears to be a purely formal use of an element that has ceased to express negation itself. Furthermore, Middle Low German exceptive clauses differ in a number of formal respects from the six cases found in the Old Low German Heliand epos (see section 2.1.1), which were counted as negative clauses embedding a CP expressing an exception. These Old Low German cases invariably have the form ne sî/ne uuari that . . . ‘it be/were not (the case) that . . . ’, that is, the preverbal marker is found in a very rudimentary matrix clause consisting only of the negated subjunctive form of uuesan ‘to be’ taking a that-complement clause. This is different in Middle Low German, where the exceptive clause is one single verb-second clause, in which the verb and

2 The expression of standard negation



first constituent are not restricted to ‘be’ and expletive ‘it’. The first constituent can be a referential pronoun and even a noun, not necessarily a subject; and the verb can be of any type, lexical, modal, or auxiliary. This will be discussed in more detail in section 5.3.2. The conclusion that negation is essentially no longer expressed by the preverbal particle alone in Middle Low German seems to contradict Sundquist’s (2007) findings. He reports finding a total of 90 cases of single preverbal ‘negation’ in his own corpus of Middle Low German diplomatic letters and a religious text from Lübeck between 1320 and 1500. He quotes four examples (his (10), (12), (13), and (25)). However, two of these (his (10) and (25)) turn out to be exceptive clauses once the preceding context, given in square brackets here, is taken into account. Sundquist’s (25) is taken from an official text stating immediately before the passage in question that the three men Meyncke Bernsteyde, Hans Floer, and Eyckel van Luben have sworn in court to pay Alhard van Hoirde or his representatives three hundred guilders between the date of the charter (25 August 1446) and St. Michael’s day of that year, and are threatened with sanctions in case they do not pay. (38) [ zo solden zehe vp zunt Michaelis to Biluede inkomen vnd dar so should they on St. Michael’s to Biluede in=come and there nicht vth, ] se en hebn de drehundert gulden betalt NEG out they EN have the three hundred guilders paid ‘then they shall go into Biluede on St. Michael’s day and not (be allowed to) leave, unless they have paid the three hundred guilders’ (LB 8:CCCLIX: 1446; Sundquist’s (25)) Cases like this abound in the corpus used for the present investigation as well (cf. example (35)), and they are all exceptive clauses. As Sundquist’s binomial regression analysis of factor groups additionally shows a strong favouring effect of the clause type ‘main clause’ for single preverbal expression of negation (Sundquist 2007:59), one is led to suspect that the criterion for ‘main clause’ was ‘verb second’, one of the defining formal properties of exceptive clauses. Therefore, it cannot be excluded that many of the 90 clauses that Sundquist classes as main clauses are actually not instances of sentential negation, but of exceptive clauses.15 Looking out to other West Germanic languages which underwent similar developments, it is interesting to note that Burridge (1993:181–182) mentions that what she calls paratactic negation (her term for exceptive clauses) in Middle Dutch ‘only ever uses the ne negative’ and that ‘single ne does not carry full negative force’ in these; she even calls it ‘semantically redundant’ later on.

15

Sundquist (p.c.) admits to this possibility (email exchange from  April ).



The History of Low German Negation

This rise of the exceptive use or function of the former preverbal negation marker ne/en is to be seen as a case of reanalysis and exaptation (Lass 1990; 1997, Vincent 1995), defined by Traugott (2004) as ‘the use of relatively marginal grammatical material as more productive morphology with a different function’. As the present chapter shows, ne/en was ousted as the standard expression of negation by the grammaticalization of nicht. As will be argued in Chapter 5, it underwent a lexical split and assumed a more constructional role in exceptive clauses, as part of their specialized formal properties, while it becomes a redundant element in negative clauses. Summing up, it can be concluded that the preverbal particle ne/en no longer expresses sentential negation on its own in our Middle Low German corpus. Five exceptions out of 2817 negative clauses amounts to less than 0.2; if we split the data into clauses expressing just sentential negation (1/1548) and clauses with (negative) indefinites in the scope of negation (4/1263), this amounts to 0.06 and 0.3, respectively, all well within the commonly accepted rate of grammatically insignificant deviation.16 The next section will turn to its gradual disappearance from negative clauses, that is, the transition from stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle to stage III. .. The bipartite expression of negation and the verb-independent negation particle While it was found only in the initial stages of grammaticalization in Old Low German, the verb-independent adverbial neg-particle nicht is firmly established as the standard sentential negator in our Middle Low German corpus of charters, official letters, and legal texts from c.1325–1575. It is used in virtually all negative clauses without indefinites in the scope of negation. See section 3.4 on this matter. As discussed in section 2.2.1, there is only one real exception to this in our corpus, (33), against 1548 clauses which express negation using nicht, of which 1045 with nicht alone, cf. Table 2.7.17 Especially initially, nicht frequently co-occurs with the preverbal neg-particle. (39)

a. We des nicht en wete de latis sik berichten. who this.GEN NEG EN knows REL let.it REFL report ‘(Everyone) who does not (yet) know this, should endeavour to learn about it’ (Braunschweig 1349)

16 Santorini () for instance takes a . (/) rate of postposition of particles, pronouns, etc. in structurally INFL-final clauses in Yiddish to be grammatically insignificant; similarly, Pintzuk () takes up to . (/) of postverbal particles in structurally verb-final clauses in Old English to be grammatically insignificant. Building on that, Bies () concludes that the . (/) rate of postposition of particles and the . (/) rate of postposition of pronominal objects in structurally verb-final clauses in Early New High German are grammatically insignificant. 17 As already remarked in the beginning of section .., the total number of negative clauses (rightmost column) is of course greater than the number of negative clauses containing (ne/en) . . . nicht, because there are also negative clauses containing negative indefinites. As before, the total number of negative clauses does not include the exceptive clauses, which for reasons discussed above are not taken to express sentential negation.

2 The expression of standard negation



Table .. The development of the expression of sentential negation in Middle Low German ne/en . . . nicht

nicht alone

 ne/en

total neg. clauses

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

118 131 123 101 31

59 164 229 368 225

66.7 44.4 34.9 21.5 12.1

362 628 638 742 447

total

503

1045

2817

b. dar en sculle wii se nicht ane hinderen there NEG shall we them NEG from bar ‘we shall not bar them from it’ (Lübeck 06/01/1450) This bipartite pattern, characteristic of Jespersen stage II, is fairly common in Middle Low German and, in contrast to Middle High German (Jäger 2008), actually occurs as the majority pattern in the 14th century texts in our corpus. With the loss of preverbal ne/en, the bipartite neg-particle en . . . nicht naturally becomes rarer in Middle Low German, too, and the language slowly changes from a Jespersen stage II to a stage III language with simple nicht as the usual neg-particle. Nicht already occurs relatively frequently as the only marker of negation in the clause in the early Middle Low German texts in our corpus dating from the beginning of the 14th century. Syntactically, nicht is unaffected by verb movement and generally occurs in a fixed position in the middle field. It follows the finite verb and other elements of the middle field and precedes the non-finite parts of the verbal complex in V1 and V2 clauses, (40a,b), but occurs before the finite verb and the rest of the verbal complex if the verb occurs in its clause-final base position, (40c). (40)

a. wil de kleger ohne deß nicht vorlaten wants the plaintiff him this NEG yield ‘If the plaintiff does not want to yield this to him’ (Braunschweig 02/24/1553) b. Ok scole wy dit vorscrevene gud nicht tweyen . . . also shall we this aforementioned property NEG halve ‘We shall not divide this aforementioned property in half, either’ (Scharnebeck 26/01/1410)



The History of Low German Negation c. Duchte uns aver, dat uns nicht recht weddervuere, . . . thought us however that us NEG right befall ‘Should we have the impression that we might not be treated fairly, . . . ’ (Uelzen 18/07/1407)

The original indefinite pronoun icht ‘something/anything’, adverbially ‘in anything’/‘at all’, is also occasionally used as a verb-independent negation particle besides nicht in Middle Low German (41a,b). (41)

a. eft he dat water van des landes weghen icht vischen schulde. if he the water of the land.GEN because NEG fish should ‘if he was not allowed to fish the water because of the land’s (authority’s) orders’ (Scharnebeck 02/05/1366) b. De brutscho scolen ok icht betere wesen wan v sol. the wooings shall also NEG better be than five shillings ‘The wooings shall also not be better than five shillings.’ (Braunschweig 1349)

That (41b) does not have a non-negative indefinite meaning (e.g. ‘the wooings shall be something better than five shillings’) is clear from the immediate context of the example in the same legal text from Braunschweig, which restricts excessive luxury at weddings, cf. the following examples: (42)

a. Nen man en scal ok nemene spelemanne mer gheuen sunder no man NE shall also no musician more give than ghewilkoret heft toden brutlachten den achten de de rad the eighth that the council sanctioned has to=the weddings ‘No one shall pay a(ny) musician more than the eighth that the council has sanctioned in connection to weddings.’ (Braunschweig 1349) b. Nene man eder vrowen scolen draghen golt, siluer noch parlen no man or woman shall wear gold silver, nor pearls vppe eren clederen on their clothes ‘No man nor woman shall wear gold, silver or pearls on their clothes.’ (Braunschweig 1349)

.. Factors influencing the use of ne/en with nicht in Middle Low German As has been shown in sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2, the main development with respect to the expression of sentential negation is the transition from stage II to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle; stage I is virtually not attested any more in this period. In the present section,

2 The expression of standard negation



we will see how this transition, that is, the loss of the inherited preverbal particle ne/en < ni/ne, proceeded in detail. To this end, we will look at the factors that condition the expression of negation with or without the preverbal particle. Taking language use to be the output of an underlying generating grammar, as is common in the generative tradition (the distinction between competence and performance goes back to Chomsky 1965), differences in language use—for instance written records such as studied here—may point to different underlying grammars. If these differences are statistically significant, it is more likely that also the underlying generating grammars are different, in this case with respect to the expression of negation. In the literature, a number of factors have been tested for their influence on the expression of negation in historical West Germanic. Pensel (1976) for instance controls for four factors influencing the expression of negation in his corpus of High and Low German texts as (1) nicht, with or without other expressions of negation (e.g. negative indefinites), (2) ne/en, with or without other expressions of negation (2.1) and with or without nicht (2.2): (i) the period of composition (two periods, 1470–1530 and 1670–1730) (ii) the text type (1470–1530: travelogue, chronicle, pamphlet, technical prose, and chapbook; 1670–1730: letter, novel, educated writings (Bildungsschrifttum), technical prose) (iii) the dialect (East Central German, West Central German, East Upper German, West Upper German, and (for the first period only, 1470–1530) Low German) (iv) the type of verb (lexical verb, auxiliary, modal verb + infinitival complement, modal verb without complement). Burridge (1993), examining the transition of Middle (and Early Modern) Dutch from Jespersen stage II bipartite negation with en . . . niet to stage III negation with niet on its own, controls for three factors:18 (i) the period of composition (segments of 50 years between 1300–1650) (ii) the position of the verb (first, second, and (near) final), which she links to three types of clauses (verb-second corresponding to main clauses, verb-final corresponding to most subordinate clauses and verb-initial to imperative, yes/no questions, and asyndetic conditionals) (iii) the dialect ((northern) Hollandish and (southern) Brabantish).

18 Burridge does consider different text types for certain sub-periods, but text type is not considered as an independent variable over the whole period –.



The History of Low German Negation

The only recent study of the development of the expression of negation in Middle Low German is Sundquist (2007). He tests the influence of the following five factors on three types of expressing negation (ne/en only, bipartite, and nicht only):19 (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v)

the date of composition (segments of 30 years between 1320 and 1500) the type of clause (main/embedded) the type of verb (aux/mod vs. lex) the position of verb (OV/VO in embedded clauses) the type of subject (full DP/pronoun).

Sundquist does not clarify which criteria hold for his second factor, that is, whether ‘main clause’ is equivalent to second-position verb placement and ‘embedded clause’ to clause-final verb placement, and whether verb-first conditionals, for instance, were counted as embedded clauses.20 He shows his fourth and fifth factors to be statistically insignificant for the distribution of the three types of expression of negation. As noted in Chapter 1, Sundquist’s data are from a single place only, namely Lübeck. Therefore, the possible influence of the factor ‘dialect’, which was considered in Pensel’s and Burridge’s studies, could not be tested. Pensel, of course, only contrasts ‘Low German’ as one regiolect with Upper and Central German regiolects, and does not consider dialectal variation within Middle Low German. The present investigation tested the influence of four factors, two linguistic and two extra-linguistic ones: (i) the date of composition (five segments of 50 years between 1325 and 1575) (ii) the scribal dialect (Westphalian, Eastphalian, North Low Saxon, and East Elbian) (iii) the position of verb (clause-initial, verb-second, and clause-later/final verb placement) (iv) the type of verb (auxiliary, modal, lexical, and ‘special’). This is roughly based on Sundquist’s factor groups, although the individual factors are slightly different: the time segments are 50 instead of 30 years, but extend until the transition to High German in chancery use (around 1575); the position of the verb was taken to be its topological position, therefore replacing Sundquist’s ‘type of clause’ by a more accurate characterization21 ; and as a new factor group, the influence of 19 Sundquist focuses solely on the expression of negation by (en) . . . (nicht), and deliberately disregards negative indefinite pronouns and adverbs. In section .., the influence of the four factors discussed in the present chapter will be discussed for negative indefinites. 20 Cf. also the discussion of exceptive clauses in section ... 21 As verb-later/final were counted any clauses in which the verb is displaced to the second position in the clause, indicated by the presence of a complementizer (e.g. Bierwisch ) and/or in which the adverbial negator nicht precedes the finite verb. The latter criterion has to do with the fact that nicht arguably marks the VP boundary, as the adverbial negators do more generally in the Germanic verb-second languages (cf. e.g. Holmberg , Sells , Bobaljik ). Cases like the following, involving verb raising and object

2 The expression of standard negation



the scribal dialect was considered. As Sundquist’s factor groups ‘the position of verb’ (object-verb vs. verb-object order in embedded clauses) and ‘the type of subject’ (full DP vs. pronoun) were found to be not statistically significant in Sundquist’s study, they were not tested for their influence here. The type of verb was included as a new factor group given the frequent mention of this influencing the expression of negation in traditional historical grammars of the West Germanic languages. ‘Special’ in this factor group refers to those verbs which Burridge calls ‘common usage verbs’, more precisely weten ‘know’, laten ‘let, allow’, don ‘do’, hebben ‘have’, and sin ‘be’ as a copula). These have been argued to display a different behaviour with respect to the transition between stages of Jespersen’s Cycle in closely related languages such as Dutch and High German, and were therefore treated separately.22 In order to determine the relative influence of the different factors on the expression of sentential negation in Middle Low German, a binomial regression analysis using GoldVarb X (VarbRul) was carried out. The total χ 2 -value of the model is 257.8056. There are twelve degrees of freedom, given that there are four factor groups with in total sixteen individual factors (16 − 4 = 12). The critical value of the χ 2 -statistic for twelve degrees of freedom at the .05 probability level is 21.03, and 32.91 at the 0.001 probability level. Clearly, 257.8056 is much greater than that, indicating that interaction between the individual factors from different factor groups is essentially improbable. All four factor groups (period, dialect, position of the verb, and type of the verb) were found to be statistically significant. Their precise effect on the expression of sentential negation will be discussed in the following subsections. Given that stage I negation is virtually unattested in the corpus (cf. section 2.2.1), the influence

extraposition (OV-leakages), have therefore been counted as verb-later/final. Such OV-leakages have been argued to be conditioned by discourse factors (focus) (Bies , Hinterhölzl ; , Cloutier ), and were still relatively common in Middle Low German, as they were in Early New High German (cf. Bies ). () a. Verb raising Wat he denne aldar nicht kan erlangen . . . what he then there NEG kan accomplish ‘what he cannot accomplish there . . . ’ (Braunschweig //) b. PP-extraposition We ok vte der stad nicht wesen en wolde vmme dobbelspel . . . who also out the city NEG be EN wanted because.of dice.game ‘also, who does not want to leave the city because of playing dice . . . ’ (Braunschweig ) c. Argument (and PP) extraposition (and verb raising) Weret, [ . . . ] dat he nicht enwolde gheven mit willen den tins, ... be.it that he NEG EN.wanted give with will the interest ‘Be it, that he does not want to pay the interest voluntarily . . . ’ (Uelzen //) 22

Cf. also section ....



The History of Low German Negation

of these four factors was only measured on the expression of negation as bipartite vs. nicht on its own. ... The influence of the date of composition Tables 2.4 and 2.7 have already shown the data of the corpus used for this study separated into sub-periods of fifty years, during which the bipartite expression of negation becomes less and less frequent. Taking these together, the development of the expression of standard negation proceeds as seen in Table 2.8.23 As can be seen, the innovative expression of negation by nicht alone is already present in one third of all negative clauses without negative indefinites in the corpus in the first time segment, 1325–1374. In the next fifty years, this becomes the case in the majority of the negative clauses. Fifty years later, almost two thirds, and another fifty years on, more than three quarters of negative clauses without negative indefinites express negation by nicht alone. By the time Low German ceases to be the written language in northern Germany, this figure has reached almost 90. Given the negligibility of stage I style negation, discussed in section 2.2.1, the effect of the factor ‘period’ on the expression of sentential negation was only measured for stage II and stage III style negation (cf. Table 2.9).24 The effect of the period of composition on the expression of negation is statistically highly significant, and was selected in GoldVarb’s step-up/step-down function as one of the most significant factor groups. The expected frequency of ne/en occurring with nicht over the whole corpus is 32.5. A higher value in a given sub-period will indicate a favouring effect of that sub-period on the expression of ne/en with nicht. The probabilistic weights in Table 2.9 show how much the expression of sentential negation with ne/en is ‘preferred’. Thus, stage-II style bipartite negation is strongly favoured in the first two sub-periods, 1325–1374 and 1375–1424, where the frequency of ne/en is first over two thirds of all

Table .. The use of the preverbal particle in clauses without negative indefinites, by date of composition

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574 total 23

ne/en alone

ne/en . . . nicht

nicht alone

total

0 (0) 2 (0.7) 2 (0.6) 1 (0.2) 0 (0)

117 (66.5) 131 (44.3) 123 (34.9) 101 (22.3) 31 (12.8)

59 (33.5) 164 (55) 229 (64.5) 368 (77.5) 225 (87.2)

176 297 354 470 256

5

503

1045

1553

In the first column, only those cases where ne/en expresses sentential negation are listed. Note that by not considering preverbal negation, the percentages change slightly in the sub-periods between  and  compared to Table .. 24

2 The expression of standard negation



Table .. Effect of the date of composition on the expression of negation with ne/en . . . nicht ne/en . . . nicht

nicht alone

factor weight

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

117 (66.5) 131 (44.4) 123 (34.9) 101 (21.5) 31 (12.1)

59 (33.5) 164 (55.6) 229 (65.1) 368 (78.5) 225 (87.9)

.822 .673 .595 .394 .165

total p < 0.000

503 (32.5)

1045 (67.5)

period

occurrences of nicht, and still significantly higher than expected (44.4) in the next sub-period. It is still favoured, albeit less so, in the third sub-period, 1425–1474, and disfavoured in the the last 100 years of our corpus, 1475–1574, particularly strongly so in the last sub-period, 1525–1574. These numbers confirm Sundquist’s (2007) findings for his Lübeck corpus and show that not only in Lübeck but more widely in Middle Low German, the date of composition significantly influences the expression of negation. More generally, they show that the time span covered by our as well as Sundquist’s corpora (the latter from 1320–1500) is indeed the period during which the transition from the bipartite expression of negation by ne/en . . . nicht to the one by nicht alone took place. The numbers also correspond to Pensel’s (1976) findings in the sense that in the one of Pensel’s two sub-periods for which he considers Low German texts, 1470–1530, bipartite negation is still found vestigially, 14 on average.25 ... The influence of the dialect The effect of the factor ‘scribal dialect’ on the expression of negation in Middle Low German is statistically significant, as Table 2.10 shows. Westphalian strongly favours the older bipartite expression, while the East Elbian Hanseatic cities strongly favour the new expression of negation with nicht alone. Eastphalian and North Low Saxon are on average over time very close to the expected value, and therefore have factor weights hovering around .5, with Eastphalian being slightly more conservative. Table 2.11 shows the numbers and percentages of the bipartite, or stage II expression of negation for each scribal dialect, as they develop through the Middle Low German period covered by our corpus. These numbers show vast differences between the dialects regarding the use and loss of the preverbal particle: the Hanseatic cities Lübeck and Stralsund, and North Low Saxon already use the old preverbal particle much 25

Travelogues ., chronicles ., flyers ., technical prose ., and chapbook ..



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Effect of the scribal dialect on the expression of negation with ne/en . . . nicht ne/en . . . nicht

nicht alone

factor weight

Westphalian Eastphalian North Low Saxon Hansa cities

72 (50.3) 165 (34.6) 219 (34) 47 (16.5)

71 (49.7) 312 (65.4) 425 (66) 237(83.5)

.769 .585 .475 .278

total p < 0.000

503 (32.5)

1045 (67.5)

dialect

Table .. The use of the preverbal particle with nicht, per scribal dialect Westphalian

Eastphalian

North Low Saxon

Hansa cities

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

22 (78.6) 25 (83.3) 3 (37.5) 14 (35.8) 8 (21.1)

55 (72.4) 52 (71.2) 25 (52.1) 15 (14.6) 18 (10.2)

37 (56.1) 42 (33.1) 75 (33) 62 (31.2) 3 (12)

3 (50) 12 (18.5) 20 (29) 10 (7.8 ) 2 (12.5)

total

72 (50.3)

165 (34.7)

219 (34)

47 (16.5)

less frequently at the beginning of the period, and in particular the Hanseatic cities lose it much more quickly than the dialects of the Altland. North Low Saxon seems to stagnate around one third of the negative clauses without indefinites using stage II negation between 1375 and 1524 and is eventually overtaken by Eastphalian. The slowest dialect to make the transition is certainly Westphalian. Table 2.11 shows that the transition from stage II to stage III completes at a different speed in the different scribal dialects. Essentially, Westphalian is the most conservative scribal dialect with respect to the expression of negation, followed by Eastphalian and North Low Saxon, while the East Elbian Hansa cities are the most innovative places. The different periods were then tested against each other for each individual scribal dialect. Using Pearson’s χ -squared test for independence, Table 2.12 shows that in all scribal dialects, the five periods (hence, four degrees of freedom) differ statistically highly significantly from each other in the expression of negation. The effect of time seems to be particularly strong in West- and Eastphalian, which in their first period had a much higher percentage of bipartite negation than North

2 The expression of standard negation



Table .. The periods tested against each other per scribal dialect

χ2 df p-value

Westphalian

Eastphalian

North Low Saxon

38.8105 4 7.623e−8

163.9147 4 < 2.2e−16

20.5637 4 0.0004

Hansa cities 20.0251 4 0.0005

Table .. The scribal dialects individually tested against each other

χ2 df p-value

χ2 df p-value

WP vs. EP

WP vs. NLS

10.9121 1 0.001

12.7203 1 0.0004

EP vs. NLS

EP vs. HC

0.0197 1 0.8883

27.9415 1 1.25e−7

WP vs. HC 52.3856 1 4.561e−13 NLS vs. HC 28.5254 1 9.248e−8

Low Saxon and the East Elbian Hansa cities.26 The change is thus somewhat less dramatic in these latter two. In order to see whether the differences between the individual dialects are significant, each individual dialect was tested against each of the other dialects. As can be seen from Table 2.13, the most conservative scribal dialect, Westphalian, and the most progressive one, the East Elbian Hansa cities, are (highly) significantly different from all other individual scribal dialects, as is witnessed by extremely low p-values in Pearson’s χ -squared test for independence. On the other hand, the grammars of Eastphalian and North Low Saxon are not significantly different at all with respect to the expression of negation, the p-value of .89 in fact points at a nearly identical distribution of the expression of negation in the two dialects. The distance between Westphalian and the scribal dialect of the Hansa cities is the greatest, and the latter is the most distant dialect from all individual dialects. Although highly significantly different from its neighbouring dialects North Low Saxon and Eastphalian, Westphalian is less distant from them than the dialect of the Hansa cities is from any other dialect. 26 For both, the χ -squared approximation may be incorrect due to lower token numbers. However, Fisher’s exact test confirms the statistically high significance of the influence of the period of composition on the expression of negation in both Westphalian (p = .e−8 ) and the Hansa cities (p = .).



The History of Low German Negation

The differences observed between the Middle Low German scribal dialects can be accounted for in socio-linguistic terms. However, a spread of stage III from High German into the Low German area is not likely, even though High German is known to have completed Jespersen’s Cycle earlier (Jäger 2008). It was seen that the preverbal particle is lost first in the north-eastern East Elbian area, and last in the south(-west)ern West- and Eastphalian areas, which border Central (i.e. High) German dialects. Rather, the reason for the accelerated loss of the preverbal particle in the Hanseatic cities in the North-East is likely to be dialect levelling because of dialect contact within Low German. Peters (2000b:1414) writes (emphasis mine, AB): In der Frühzeit Lübecks ist mit einem Nebeneinander verschiedener altländischer Mundarten zu rechnen. Das Zusammenleben in der Stadt führt im Verlauf des 13. Jhs. zu einem innerstädtischen Ausgleich, es entsteht eine städtische Umgangssprache. Es ist anzunehmen, dass sich relativ früh innerhalb der hansischen Gemeinschaft, unter den Fernhandelskaufleuten im Ostseeraum eine lübisch geprägte mündliche Handels- und Verkehrssprache entwickelt hat [ . . . ].27 (Peters 2000b:1414)

The East Elbian cities of Lübeck and Stralsund were centres of the Hanseatic trade at the time, and in a formerly Slavonic area that was only colonized in the 11th century by settlers from North Low Saxon and Westphalian areas. We thus find a typical urbanization scenario here, with dialect levelling and koinéization. Initially, there would have been a situation of ‘receptive multilingualism’ (Braunmüller 2007a;b), or ‘bidialectism’ (Trudgill 1994:19), between adults (hanseatic trade, settlers), whose levelled output became the input to new generations of language acquirers. Short-term adult language contact, as found in such a colonization and urbanization situation, is known to lead to simplification (Trudgill 2011). As the old preverbal particle can no longer be used to express negation on its own, its use in negative clauses becomes non-transparent to language learners and thus falls prey to simplification. Being nontransparent or redundant in negative clauses, the preverbal particle is doomed to be lost anyway, but this loss will proceed even faster in a situation of urban dialect mixture. In Middle Low German, ne/en is only independently used in the exceptive construction. As it does not express negation in this construction, but rather seems to be part of its specialized formal properties, it does not support ne/en in negative clauses. Under this urbanization scenario, it is possible that the presence of speakers of Central and High German dialects in the Hansa cities had a catalysing effect on the loss, but this does not disqualify the urbanization and ‘receptive multilingualism’ (multidialectalism) scenario. The main point is that the loss of ne/en was inevitable

27 ‘In the early days of Lübeck, we have to assume a co-existence of different dialects of the “Altland”. The collective life in the city leads to a city-internal levelling during the th century, to the rise of an urban vernacular. We can assume that already early on, an oral trade language and lingua franca based on the dialect of Lübeck developed within the Hanseatic community, among the traders around the Baltic Sea.’

2 The expression of standard negation



due to its unstable position within the language, not brought upon through contact with or spread from High German. The reasons for the linguistic continuity or rather the delayed transition to stage III in the ‘Altland’ dialect areas Westphalia and, to a lesser extent, Eastphalia are to be sought in the fact that they were socially more stable: in areas with less population movement, there is less dialect contact, and as a probable consequence of that, closer social networks. Such a connection has been argued to delay change in the sociolinguistic literature: Linguistic change is slow to the extent that the relevant populations are well established and bound by strong ties whereas it is rapid to the extent that weak ties exist in populations. (Milroy and Milroy 1985:363) The second implication that society size, network structure and stability may have for linguistic structure is that dense, multiplex networks may lead to greater conformity in linguistic behaviours and to the stricter maintenance of group norms, since tightly-knit communities are more able to enforce continued adherence to such norms. (Trudgill 2004:442)

The stagnation of the transition in North Low Saxon between 1375 and 1524 is remarkable (cf. Table 2.11). A possible, also socio-linguistic, cause might be the influence of the emerging Westphalian regional standard, which developed besides the northern (Peters 1995; 1997; 2003), that is, an accommodation in the written language used in the North Low Saxon chanceries. The next two subsections will turn to the influence of language-internal factors on the expression of negation in Middle Low German. ... The influence of the position of the finite verb For Middle Low German, there are no clear counts available concerning the correlation of the incidence of ne/en with nicht and the position of the finite verb. Sundquist’s factor ‘clause type’ only distinguishes ‘main’ and ‘embedded’ clauses, without indication of whether verb-first conditionals or verb-second dependent clauses such as exceptive clauses are treated as ‘embedded’. For Middle High German, Jäger (2006) shows that the preverbal particle most frequently co-occurs with nicht in verb-second clauses (32.9 on average), followed by verb-first clauses (40 on average, but very low total numbers) and verbfinal clauses (13 on average). This is a rather different picture from Middle Dutch, for which Burridge (1993) has shown that preverbal ne/en is lost first in verb-first clauses such as conditionals or imperatives, then in verb-second clauses and last in verb-final clauses. The question is now whether Middle Low German behaves more like Middle High German or more like Middle Dutch with respect to the use of ne/en with nicht depending on whether the verb is in first, second, or later/final position in the clause.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Effect of the position of the finite verb on the expression of negation with ne/en . . . nicht ne/en . . . nicht

nicht alone

factor weight

initial second later/final

14 (13.5) 148 (33.6) 341 (34)

90 (86.5) 292 (66.4) 663 (66)

.138 .561 .520

total p < 0.000

503 (32.9)

1045 (67.1)

verb position

Table .. Verb-second and verb-later/final tested against each other verb-second vs. verb-later/final χ2 df p-value

0.0037 1 0.9516

A binomial regression analysis in GoldVarb shows that the factor group ‘position of verb’ is significant, and that the probability of nicht occurring without ne/en is highest in verb-initial clauses, where the occurrence of ne/en only has a factor weight of .138. Most of the verb-initial clauses are asyndetic conditionals, one is an imperative, and two are second conjuncts in coordinate structures. It is thus not the case that the reason why ne/en is omitted so frequently in verb-initial clauses is because it is shared with a possible occurrence in a first conjunct (in none of the two cases is there such an occurrence of ne/en in the first conjunct). Clause-initial verb-placement is thus a genuine factor influencing the realization of ne/en. The difference between verb-second and verb-later/final clauses is not very big; they have a factor weight of .561 and .520, respectively, as shown in Table 2.14. They thus have a distribution close to the expected one. The difference between their distributions is not statistically significant either, as shown in Table 2.15 by means of Pearson’s χ -squared test of independence. The extremely high p-value of 0.95 indicates near-identity of the two distributions. As there is no significant difference between verb-second and verb-later/final clauses with respect to the expression of negation, the GoldVarb condition file was recoded so as to group these two factors together in order to get a clearer result. This is shown in Table 2.16. Table 2.17 shows the changing frequency of stage II negation

2 The expression of standard negation



Table .. Effect of the position of the finite verb after recoding verb-second and verb-later/final as one factor verb position

ne/en . . . nicht

nicht alone

factor weight

initial second&final total p < 0.000

14 (19) 489 (33.9) 503 (32.9)

90 (46.7) 955 (66.1) 1045 (67.1)

.139 .533

Table .. The use of the preverbal particle with nicht depending on the position of the finite verb verb-first

verb-second

verb-later/final

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

10 (47.6) 3 (13.6) 1 (4.3) 0 (0) 0 (0)

38 (69.1) 42 (41.2) 35 (37.6) 30 (26.1) 3 (4)

69 (71.1) 86 (50.3) 87 (36.9) 71 (21.3) 28 (17.2)

total

14 (13.5)

148 (33.6)

341 (34)

in Middle Low German in the different syntactic contexts over time. Clearly, it is least frequent in verb-initial contexts already at the beginning of the period under consideration. This is furthermore the first context to lose the preverbal particle in the expression of negation entirely. The differences between verb-second and verblater/final contexts on the other hand are much less sharp, as also indicated in Tables 2.14, 2.15, and 2.16. This is different from Middle Dutch, for which Burridge (1993) has shown that while verb-initial contexts are, as in Middle Low German, the first to lose the preverbal particle, there is also a significant delay between verb-second and verblater/final contexts, the latter being the last context to make the transition to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle. Very clearly, ne/en is lost first in verb-initial clauses in Middle Low German. As seen in Table 2.17, the incidence of ne/en in verb-first clauses is already a good 20 lower in the first 50-year sub-period (1325–1374) than its incidence in verb-second and verb-later/final clauses. Ne/en is lost at a much slower pace in these contexts. Therefore, Middle Low German seems to be positioned between Middle Dutch and Middle High German again: like in Middle Dutch, verb-later/final contexts favour the preservation of ne/en at all times, despite the overall reduction in ne/en’s frequency, while ne/en is lost first in verb-first contexts. Like in Middle High German on the other hand, ne/en is preserved longer in verb-second contexts, too.



The History of Low German Negation

The majority (98.2) of the verb-initial clauses in the present corpus are asyndetic conditionals, 104 tokens out of 107 verb-initial clauses negated by nicht. The remaining three tokens are one imperative and two second conjuncts in coordination structures. A likely reason for the fact that ne/en is lost earlier and faster from verb-initial clauses like asyndetic conditionals is that in many languages, unstressed syllables like ne/en in prosodically difficult positions such as the sentence-initial position are harder to produce for language-acquiring children. This has been demonstrated for determiners (the) and other unstressed syllables (e.g. giraffe) by Gerken (1994a;b; 1996), cf. also Gerken (2005:171), who attributes this to the fact that language acquirers apply a metrical foot production template to intended utterances in which a strong syllable precedes a weak syllable, eliminating weak syllables that do not fit the template, (43). (43)

a. ZEbra nS–-w b. giRAFFE ∗

mS–(w)

c. baNAna ∗

mS–-w (Gerken 1996:687)

Under a generative perspective, first language acquisition plays an important role in language change, as will be discussed in more detail in section 4.2. Given that ne/en is no longer able to express sentential negation on its own in Middle Low German, its role in the expression of negation may not be sufficiently transparent to language acquirers any more to realize it in sentence-initial position even once they become able to realize unstressed syllables in prosodically difficult positions later in life. In other positions in the clause, ne/en is not affected by this (initially temporary) non-realization and may persist longer. ... The influence of the type of verb It has been claimed for High German that certain types of verb, such as modal verbs and the verbs wissen ‘to know’ and tun ‘to do’, tend to preserve the preverbal particle, and thus to occur with stage I or stage II negation longer than other verb types.28 Similarly for Middle Dutch, Burridge (1993:180) finds that single preverbal negation by en/n ‘appears to be limited largely to a class of what may be described as common usage verbs. This group includes modals and verbs like “to say”, “to do”, “to know”, “to speak” etc.’. A similar class of verbs has been 28 Cf. e.g. Behaghel (:) for Middle High German, and Ebert et al. () for Early New High German.

2 The expression of standard negation



reported to favour stage I negation in historical English (Jespersen 1917). Burridge hypothesizes that the reason for ‘common usage verbs’ to be more conservative is likely that they gave rise to formulaic expressions due to their frequency. On the other hand, Jäger (2008:141) shows that, at least in her corpus, modal verbs do not exhibit a special preference for stage I negation. It seems that languages undergoing Jespersen’s Cycle differ with respect to the influence of the type of verb, for as yet unclear reasons. In French, as in historical Dutch, ‘be’ and ‘have’ retain ne for a longer period of time (Ashby 1981:679–680), while the opposite is true for the Welsh auxiliary ‘be’, which favours dropping preverbal ni (Willis 2010b:140–148). However, most literature on the topic is concerned with the types of verb that make a delayed transition to stage II, not stage III. But one may hypothesize that if modal and ‘common usage’ verbs were slow in entering stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle, they may also be more conservative with respect to the transition to stage III, the transition that is relevant in Middle Low German. Pensel (1976), however, aggregating data from Upper, Central, and Low German dialects from 1470–1530, finds that lexical verbs have the strongest tendency to co-occur with a bipartite expression of negation, followed by modal verbs with infinitival complements. Auxiliaries and modal verbs without infinitival complements hardly co-occur with the preverbal particle. The preference of modal verbs with infinitival complements for stage II and of modal verbs without infinitival complements for stage III negation signalled by Pensel is somewhat surprising. One would expect modals without infinitival complement to pattern with lexical verbs, and be more conservative, while modals with infinitival complements might be expected to pattern with auxiliaries. Given that Pensel’s data are aggregated, it is hard to tell how much of this holds in the Middle Low German section of his corpus, and what other factors possibly influenced this effect. Sundquist (2007) shows for his Middle Low German data from Lübeck that while lexical verbs favour stage II bipartite negation, auxiliaries and modal verbs favour stage III negation, thus confirming Pensel’s findings in part (lexical > modal > auxiliary). Sundquist’s findings contradict Burridge’s claim that ‘common usage’ verbs are more conservative. Both modal verbs and auxiliaries are extremely frequent in the type of text, essentially legal prose, used in Sundquist’s study. In the Middle Low German corpus used for the present study, restricted to the same text type, the trends found by Sundquist in his Lübeck corpus are confirmed. The type of verb is a significant factor for the expression of negation. In line with Sundquist’s findings, the loss of ne/en is disfavoured with lexical verbs, as shown by the high weight (.678) of this factor for the bipartite expression of negation in Table 2.18. The verbs witen ‘to know’, don ‘do’, but also copular syn ‘be’, worden ‘become’, and possessive hebben ‘have’ were counted separately (as ‘special’ verbs) in order to see whether they behave differently from other types of verb, based on Burridge’s claim that such high frequency verbs tend to be slower to complete Jespersen’s Cycle. This group of verbs also favours the bipartite expression of negation (factor weight .600).



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Effect of the type of verb on the expression of negation with ne/en . . . nicht ne/en . . . nicht

nicht alone

factor weight

lexical ‘special’ modal auxiliary

189 (43.5) 62 (37.8) 208 (29.8) 44 (17.5)

245 (56.5) 102 (62.2) 490 (70.2) 208 (82.5)

.678 .600 .418 .346

total p < 0.000

503 (32.9)

1045 (67.1)

verb position

Table .. The use of the preverbal particle with nicht with different types of verb auxiliary

modal

‘special’

lexical

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

2 (50) 11 (27.5) 11 (18) 18 (16.7) 2 (5.1)

71 (65.1) 64 (44.4) 43 (29.3) 27 (14.6) 3 (2.7)

14 (70) 12 (48) 17 (45.9) 12 (27.9) 7 (17.9)

30 (69.8) 44 (51.2) 52 (48.6) 44 (33.1) 19 (29.2)

total

44 (17.8)

208 (29.8)

62 (37.8)

189 (43.5)

Negation with nicht alone is preferred with modal and especially auxiliary verbs, where the probabilistic factor weights are .418 and .346, respectively, indicating that these are disfavouring factors for the use of ne/en with nicht. Especially with auxiliaries, the frequency of ne/en with nicht is significantly lower than the overall average. This hierarchy of factors within the factor group ‘verb type’ is also reflected in the speed of the transition to stage II over time. As Table 2.19 shows, ne/en is already used slightly less frequently with modal verbs and auxiliaries than with lexical and ‘special’ verbs in the first sub-period, and is lost from the former contexts more rapidly than from the latter two. The different sub-periods were tested against each other for each type of verb. The results are shown in Table 2.20.29

29 As the χ -squared approximation might be incorrect for the auxiliaries due to the low number of tokens, Fisher’s exact test was carried out and confirmed the significance of the period of composition for the expression of negation as bipartite with auxiliaries at the . level (p = .).

2 The expression of standard negation



Table .. The periods tested against each other per verb type

χ2 df p-value

auxiliary

modal

‘special’

lexical

9.913 4 0.04192

140.0987 4 < 2.2e−16

19.296 4 0.0007

26.508 4 2.499e−5

Especially for the expression of negation with modal verbs, the period of composition is extremely significant, indicating the most radical change over time with this type of verb. While it is true that the five examples of single ne/en (four of which, however, with indefinites) found in our corpus all contain modal verbs, it can therefore not be said that modal verbs are conservative when it comes to the expression of negation. Also, given that the most common expression of negation by far involves nicht (or negative indefinites, see Chapter 3), with or (especially) without ne/en, all the instances of modal verbs in negative clauses have to be considered. Of all verb types, the frequency of ne/en with modal verbs is the closest to the overall average in the corpus. .. Summary The main development in Middle Low German in terms of Jespersen’s Cycle is the transition from stage II (bipartite negation with ne/en . . . nicht) to stage III (nicht alone). Stage I is virtually no longer attested in the Middle Low German corpus used for the present study. The exceptive construction, where the former negation particle appears on its own, was argued not to express sentential negation. The speed of the loss of ne/en is influenced by a number of factors. Languageinternal factors favouring the innovative expression of negation by nicht alone are sentence-initial placement of the finite verb and the finite verb being an auxiliary or modal verb. I argued that verb-first contexts favour the omission of ne/en due to the common omission of unstressed syllables in sentence-initial position in language acquisition (Gerken 1994b;a; 1996). As its role in the standard expression of negation is already no longer transparent to language acquirers due to the fact that it is no longer able to express sentential negation on its own, it is less likely to be acquired in this context at all. Turning to language-external factors, stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle is reached first in the texts written in the Hansa cities, where dialect levelling helped along the demise of the former negation marker, while the transition is delayed in the scribal dialects of the Saxon Altland, in particular Westphalian. Generally, a later date of composition increases the probability for negation to be expressed by nicht alone.



The History of Low German Negation

. Conclusion The expression of standard sentential negation in historical Low German underwent Jespersen’s Cycle. Old Low German (Old Saxon) is indisputably a stage I language—standard negation is expressed by a single preverbal particle that covaries positionally with the finite verb. At this stage, there are only marginal signs of an incipient development in the direction of Jespersen’s Cycle. Besides a number of crosslinguistically common, but—in Old Low German—not grammaticalized emphasizers (‘in this world, in someone’s life, . . . ’), the indefinite pronouns (io)uuiht ‘anything’ and niouuiht ‘nothing’ are used adverbially in various forms, for instance in PPs or as pseudo-arguments with a genitive attribute, but also, rarely, on their own. This latter use, in which the indefinite is used as an optional argument expressing an extent is found with adjectives and (optionally) transitive verbs that have all their argument positions already filled. This incipient adverbial use is arguably the origin of the later postverbal negation particle nicht ‘not’ in Middle Low German, even though the n-marked form niouuiht was even rarer than (io)uuiht in this context. The grammaticalization of the new negation particle nicht can therefore be reconstructed as using predicates permitting an optional extent argument as a bridging context. Such reconstruction is necessary, as there is a large chronological gap in textual attestation between Old Low German and Middle Low German of about 200 years. Middle Low German is clearly a stage II language already, and in transition to stage III. Stage I, with the preverbal particle expressing sentential negation on its own, is virtually unattested—only in one occurrence is it found entirely on its own, and four times together with a morphologically non-negative NPI indefinite (cf. Chapter 3) in a corpus of 2817 negative clauses (1548 of which without indefinites). This is well within the range of insignificant grammatical deviation, cf. footnote 16. As argued in section 2.2.1, the single preverbal particle does not express sentential negation in the 168 exceptive clauses found in the corpus. The loss of the preverbal particle within the Middle Low German period, that is, the transition from stage II to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle, was shown to be significantly influenced by a number of language-internal as well as language-external factors: besides diachronic and diatopic variation, the topological position and the type of finite verb determine to some extent if the old preverbal particle ne/en is still used with nicht or not. The next chapter turns to the behaviour of indefinites in the scope of negation.

 Indefinites in the scope of negation The interaction between indefinite pronouns, determiners, and adverbs in the scope of negation and the expression of standard negation in the history of Low German has two dimensions that can be studied. First, the form and meaning of the indefinites used in the scope of negation and the diachronic changes thereof, and second, the emergence of (different types of) negative concord. Before turning to the developments in Low German in particular, the typologically common developments will be sketched, to provide a background against which to evaluate the findings on Low German.

. Common developments and interactions .. Indefinite systems Languages have a variety of means of expressing indefinite quantification in the scope of negation, subject to much diachronic variation, but there are certain crosslinguistic tendencies. From the perspective of individual lexical items, one can study how indefinites arise through grammaticalization and how they become involved in the expression of negation. From the perspective of the language as a system, one is concerned with indefinites forming groups (or series) licensed in certain grammatical contexts and the systematic or historical relationship between these contexts. Individual lexical items. Indefinites involved in the expression of negation derive from a restricted number of sources, cross-linguistically, and are subject to several typical changes in distribution. Common sources of indefinites in general are interrogative pronouns, the numeral ‘one’, and generic nouns (Haspelmath 1997:26–29). From such indefinites, indefinites restricted to negative polarity contexts or even to negative contexts can be derived by the incorporation of (negative) scalar focus markers, negative particles, maximizing expressions, or by semantic shift over time. What the sources of indefinites involved in the expression of negation and/or the material helping to derive such indefinites have in common is the fact that they denote endpoints on pragmatic scales (Fauconnier 1975, Horn 1989). Therefore, indefinites derived by these means become particularly informative in a scale-reversing context



The History of Low German Negation

like negation and other affective contexts. German niemand ‘no one’ < Old High German nioman < ni io man ‘NEG ever man’ is for instance an indefinite based on a generic noun (man ‘man’), that was first made a negative polarity indefinite by means of a temporal maximizer (io ‘ever’) and then compounded with the Old High German negative particle ni. Italian nessuno ‘no one’ is an example of a negative indefinite derived by compounding a negative particle, a focus particle, and the numeral ‘one’, as it goes back to Latin nec ipsu(m) unu(m) ‘and not itself one’ (Haspelmath 1997:262, Parry 2013:106). Welsh dim byd ‘anything, nothing’ is a case of a negative polarity indefinite formed by the combination of an indefinite based on a generic noun with a maximizing expression; dim yn y byd ‘anything in the world’ (Willis 2013a:261). It has been argued that the contexts licensing indefinite pronouns and adverbs are internally ordered. Haspelmath (1997:4) proposes the following implicational map of functions (context-meaning pairs) of indefinites, based on the distribution of indefinites in a biased sample of 40 languages (which he compares to a more balanced sample of 100 languages). This map graphically renders the cross-linguistic observation that if in a given language an indefinite is used in two non-adjacent functions on the map, it is also used in all the functions in between. It therefore also serves as a diachronic roadmap—no historical development is expected to yield an indefinite (series) that is licensed for instance in conditionals and questions and extends its distribution to the context of direct negation without at the same time extending it to comparatives and indirect negation. Comparative and language-specific studies on the development of indefinites and indefinite systems confirm this prediction (Willis 2011b, Breitbarth et al. To appear, Ingham and Kallel To appear): in the so-called quantifier cycle, originally positive or ‘less negative’ elements become more and more restricted to ‘more negative’ functions, following Haspelmath’s map as they do. Indefinite systems. Haspelmath observes that indefinites tend to form series with members for major ontological categories such as person, thing, property, place, time, manner, etc. English for instance has three main series of indefinites. The anyseries (anyone, anything, anywhere, ever, . . . ) is used in functions that are licensed in negative polarity contexts (functions 4–8 in Figure 3.1, plus free-choice (9)). That is, the members of this series are negative polarity items (NPIs).1 The some-series (someone, something, somewhere, sometime, . . . ) is mostly used outside NPI contexts (functions 1–3 in Figure 3.1), though it can also be used in questions and conditionals. Finally, the no-series (no one, nothing, nowhere, never, . . . ) is used in the direct negation function (7 in Figure 3.1).

1 NPIs can be of different ‘strength’, depending on the kind of affective operator licensing them. This will be discussed in more detail presently; a rough characterization is that NPIs restricted to the scope of direct negation are called strong NPIs, while those licensed in other contexts (indirect negation, questions, conditionals, . . . ) are called weak NPIs.

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation

(1) specific known

(2) specific unknown

(3) irrealis non-specific

(4) question (5) conditional

(6) indirect negation (8) comparative



(7) direct negation (9) free choice

(Haspelmath 1997:4)

Figure .. The implicational map for functions of indefinites

A series of indefinites in a language, Haspelmath argues, may only have two functions which are not directly connected on this map if they are also to have all the functions in between. Haspelmath is deliberately vague as to the nature of the ordering criteria deriving the hierarchy in Figure 3.1; he simply derives the map from the typological comparison of the languages in his sample. Semantic motivation. However, the functions that are most interesting to the present research, those that are found in negative polarity contexts, form a semantic hierarchy based on their licensing laws (van der Wouden 1994; 1997, Zwarts 1996; 1998, Giannakidou 1998). Essentially, contexts licensing NPIs are either negative, downward-entailing, or non-veridical (Zwarts 1995, Giannakidou 1998). Negative contexts can be of different strength, depending on whether the licensing lexical elements create an environment that fulfils both of De Morgan’s laws of negation (44), in which case a negative context is anti-morphic, or only the first and half of the second, in which case it is anti-additive. A negative indefinite pronoun, determiner, or adverb such as no N or nothing for instance creates such an anti-additive context (45a), licensing strong NPIs such as lift a finger (45b), which are excluded in weaker NPI contexts (45c). (44) De Morgan’s laws ¬(p ∨ q) ↔ (¬p) ∧ (¬q) ¬(p ∧ q) ↔ (¬p) ∨ (¬q) (45)

a. i. No man escaped or got killed → No man escaped and no man got killed ii. No man escaped and no man got killed → No man escaped or got killed iii. No man escaped and got killed  No man escaped or no man got killed iv. No man escaped or no man got killed → No man escaped and got killed b. No man lifted a finger c. ∗ Few men lifted a finger. ∗ Did anyone lift a finger?



The History of Low German Negation

On the other hand, no N cannot license so-called superstrong NPIs such as one bit (46a). These can only be licensed by the sentential negator (Zwarts 1998:190) (46b), which creates an anti-morphic context that fulfils both of De Morgan’s laws (46c).2 (46)

a. ∗ No man was a bit happy about these facts b. The men weren’t a bit happy about these facts c. i. It is not the case that a man escaped or got killed → It is not the case that a man escaped and it is not the case that a man got killed ii. It is not the case that a man escaped and it is not the case that a man got killed → It is not the case that a man escaped or got killed iii. It is not the case that a man escaped and got killed → It is not the case that a man escaped or it is not the case that a man got killed iv. It is not the case that a man escaped or it is not the case that a man got killed → It is not the case that a man escaped and got killed

An environment is more generally downward-entailing if a proposition p is true of a set X, it is also true of subsets of X. Downward-entailing contexts are characterized as licensing weak negative polarity items (Ladusaw 1979). Negative contexts are downward-entailing (47a,b), but also the restriction and scope of certain quantifiers, like few (47c). (47)

a. Nothing was said at the meeting → Nothing interesting was said at the meeting; Nothing was whispered at the meeting b. The linguists were not wearing shirts → The linguists were not wearing red shirts c. Few books are long → Few funny books are long; Few books are long and funny

Questions and conditionals are not downward-entailing, but only non-veridical contexts, that is, contexts in which (48) holds:3

2 The following examples are taken from or adapted from Zwarts (). Zwarts uses one bit instead of a bit in (a) and (b). However, according to David Willis (p.c.) many native speakers only accept one bit in sentence-final position, hence the use of a bit here. 3 The definition in () is adapted from the definition of relativized veridicality for propositional operators (Giannakidou :). The full definition reads:

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



(48) A propositional operator Op is non-veridical iff Op does not entail or presuppose that p is true. The negative, downward-entailing, and non-veridical contexts therefore form the following hierarchy based on the strength of their licensing laws (Zwarts 1995, van der Wouden 1997)(49):4 (49) context: licenser: NPI:

antimorphic not a bit

⊆

antiadditive no one yet

⊆

downwardentailing at most three ever

⊆

nonveridical hardly any

It was observed above that in the historical development of indefinites from ‘more positive’ to ‘more negative’, comparatives are one of the last non-negative contexts from which indefinites retract before they become restricted to direct negation. This is remarkable given the debate in the literature as to the semantic properties of comparatives. That comparatives contain an underlying negation operator is implicitly assumed in Jespersen (1917), and explicitly argued for by Seuren (1973).5 Against that, von Stechow (1984) argues for an analysis in terms of degrees. Hoeksema (1983) makes an important distinction between phrasal and clausal comparatives; both license freechoice items, but the latter also license NPIs. In (50), free-choice any is used, with the universal reading forced by the modification with almost, which is impossible with NPI indefinites (cf. #Did you see almost anyone?). (51) illustrates the availability of NPIs in clausal comparatives with an NPI idiom, can stand. (50)

a. One diamond is more valuable than almost any number of bricks. (phrasal comparative) b. John is taller than almost any of his friends think he is. (clausal comparative) (Hoeksema 1983:409–10)

(51) The sound of her voice was more than I could stand. Against Hoeksema’s analysis of clausal comparatives as NPI-licensing contexts, Giannakidou and Yoon (2010) argue that they do not in fact license NPIs, but that they are only able to rescue them, (52).

() (Non)veridicality Let Op be a monadic propositional operator. Then the following statements hold: a. Op is veridical just in case Op p → p is logically valid. Otherwise, Op is nonveridical. b. A nonveridical operator Op is antiveridical just in case Op p → ¬p is logically valid. 4 Cf. also Jäger (:, n., :). 5 An overview of the literature following the ‘A-not-A analysis’ can be found in Schwarzschild ().



The History of Low German Negation

(52) Rescuing by non-veridicality A P[olarity]I[tem] a can be rescued in the scope of a veridical expression β in a sentence S, if (a) the global context C of S makes a proposition S available which contains a non-veridical expression β; and a can be associated with β in S . Giannakidou (1998:152) asserts that clausal comparatives do not contain an underlying syntactic negative operator, but that they merely conventionally implicate a negative (= β in (52)) proposition (= S in (52)), which is able to rescue (certain types of) NPIs in clausal comparatives. Therefore, according to Giannakidou and Yoon, what looks like NPI indefinites in comparatives, like English any in he is taller than anyone, are really free choice items (as in anyone can do this). Giannakidou and Yoon’s (2010) proposal resonates well with the observation that languages can recruit new NPI indefinites from free-choice items using comparatives as a bridging context (Willis 2011b, Breitbarth et al. To appear). While these new NPIs often do not later become available in negative contexts (anti-additive/anti-morphic), they have done so in some languages, e.g. Polish żaden ‘no’ and dialectal Bulgarian boedin ‘some, any, no’ (Willis 2013b), just like other former NPI indefinites that become restricted to the scope of negation. It can therefore be concluded that the NPI-licensing contexts along Haspelmath’s hierarchy of indefinite functions are ordered according to their semantic properties, and that comparatives and free choice contexts are ordered in relation to them based on the ability of clausal comparatives to rescue NPIs because of the conventionally implicated negative proposition. Synchronic and diachronic types of indefinite systems. The actual indefinite system in a language is more or less the result of historical accident. If we look at Figure 3.2, we see that English has a tripartite system, with one series of indefinites, the someseries, licensed in non-affective contexts, (some) questions and (some) conditionals, another, the any-series, licensed in all affective (or non-veridical) contexts (plus comparatives and free-choice), including negative contexts, and finally one, the noseries, which is restricted to the scope of direct negation. Jäger (2007; 2008; 2010) no

specific known

specific unknown some

irrealis non-specific

question

indirect negation

conditional

comparative

direct negation

free choice

any (Haspelmath 1997:65)

Figure .. The English indefinite system

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. Jäger’s typology of indefinite systems I [

II ]

[

III ] [

[+ affec] [+ affec, + neg]

IV

[+ affec]

] [

]

[+ neg]

argues that this tripartition of contexts into ‘positive’, ‘affective’, and ‘negative’ is sufficient to describe most indefinite systems found in different languages. Languages may differ as to how many series of indefinites they have and in which contexts they are licensed, and whether the series are ‘inclusively’ or ‘exclusively’ distributed, that is, whether they, like the English any-series, are licensed in both weak and strong NPI contexts, or whether there are no overlaps in functions/contexts covered by different series (the so-called Bagel-problem, cf. Pereltsvaig 2004). Individual lexical items may always deviate from the subdivision of the larger series, but will diachronically tend to join such a larger series. This derives the four possible systems depicted in Table 3.1 (Jäger 2008:162; 2010:796), abstracting away from exclusively distributed series, which can be accounted for by blocking.6 Present-day English, under this classification, is a type I language, while Old French is a type II language, as are e.g. Present-day Spanish and Italian (Zeijlstra 2004). Until the Early Modern period, English was a type I language with an exclusive distribution, as the any-series, while available in non-negative affective contexts, was excluded from negative contexts, which were restricted to the no-series (Iyeiri 2002a;b, Wallage 2005, Nevalainen 2006). Present-day German for instance is a language of type III, without a designated ‘NPI’-series, but a morphologically negative series to be used in the scope of direct negation. An example of an individual indefinite with an unrestricted distribution (type IV), thus not following the overall series, would be the English determiner a (Jäger 2010:796).7

6 Jäger refers to a Specificity Principle or Elsewhere Condition in the vein of Kiparsky () selecting the most specific form for a context. More specifically, Jäger (:) proposes that there is not one single Elsewhere Condition demanding the use of items with the most specific feature specification for a given context (e.g. [+affect] for weak NPI contexts, but [+affect, +neg] for direct negation), but that there is for instance one such condition for the feature specification [+affect] and another for [+affect, +neg]. This accounts for instance for the availability of both any- and no-indefinites in negative clauses in English, to the exclusion of the some-series. According to Jäger, these Elsewhere Conditions may be ranked differently in different languages in an optimality-theoretic fashion, accounting for the fact that their effect may be less strong or absent in some languages. 7 Cf. Haspelmath () and Weiß (b) for more examples of different types of indefinite systems in different languages.



The History of Low German Negation

.. Negative concord According to much typological work, a cross-linguistically widespread form of interaction between indefinites and negation is the phenomenon of negative concord, or co-occurrence of ‘negative indefinites’ with the standard expression of predicate negation.8 However, much depends on the definition of ‘negative indefinite’. Essentially, three types of indefinites in the scope of negation need to be distinguished: (i) negative polarity indefinites, which may be weak or strong NPIs, and therefore require the presence of an overt expression of sentential negation in order to be licensed (ii) negative quantifiers, which are inherently negative and therefore cannot co-occur with other inherently negative expressions, typically including the (standard) sentential negator (iii) so-called n-words, which are indefinites expressing negation when occurring in isolation, but which typically co-occur with an expression of negation in full clauses. The English any-series represents an example of the first type. As (53) shows, anyindefinites need the presence of an overt expression of sentential negation (53a) and cannot express negation in isolation, in fragment answers (53b). (53)

a. I have∗ (n’t) seen anyone around here. b. A: Who did you see? B: ∗ Anyone.

The second type, negative quantifiers, can be exemplified with another English series of indefinites, the no-series. Being inherently negative, they cannot co-occur with other overt expressions of negation (54a), but they can express negation in isolation (54b). (54)

a. I have(∗ n’t) seen no one around here. b. A: Who did you see? B: No one.

The third type of indefinite is called n-word in the literature, a term going back to Laka (1994a;b), which is defined by Giannakidou (2005) as in (55). (55) N-word ‘An expression α is an n-word iff: (a) α can be used in structures containing sentential negation or another α-expression yielding a reading equivalent to one logical negation; and (b) α can provide a negative fragment answer.’ (Giannakidou 2005:328)

8

Cf. e.g. Haspelmath (; ) and de Swart ().

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



As defined in (55), n-words are expressions that can co-occur with the expression of sentential negation or other n-words (‘α-expression’ in (55)), but they can also express negation in isolation. Despite this ability to express negation in isolation, only one logical negation is expressed in clauses with several n-words, or an n-word and a sentential negator. Portuguese is an example of a language with such indefinites, (56). (56)

ninguém por aquí. a. ∗ (Não) vi NEG saw.1SG no one for here ‘I haven’t seen anyone around here.’ b. Ninguém viu nada no one saw nothing ‘No one saw anything’ (∗ ‘No one saw nothing’) c. A: Quem viste? B: Ninguém. who saw.2SG no one ‘A: Who did you see? B: No one.’

This distinction is necessary to get a grasp of the phenomenon of negative concord. Haspelmath (1997:199) for instance uses the term ‘negative indefinite pronoun’ ‘in the deliberately vague sense “indefinite pronoun that has ‘direct negation’ as an important function”’, and only distinguishes three subtypes, depending on the relation of the indefinite to sentential (‘verbal’) negation, (57). (57)

a. Type NV-NI negative indefinites that always co-occur with verbal negation. b. Type V-NI negative indefinites that never co-occur with verbal negation. c. Type (N)V-NI negative indefinites that sometimes co-occur with verbal negation and sometimes do not. (after Haspelmath 1997:201)

It is easy to mistake NV-NI and (N)V-NI for characterizations of negative concord.9 It has to be borne in mind, however, that Haspelmath also counts NPI indefinites as ‘negative indefinites’, as they have ‘direct negation’ ‘as an important function’. Hence, he counts English any-indefinites as indefinites of type NV-NI (Haspelmath 1997:202; fn. 5), rejecting Zanuttini’s (1991) criterion of whether an indefinite is able to express sentential negation on its own in sentence fragments and similar contexts as ‘not practical for a large-scale cross-linguistic study because of insufficient data’

9 More precisely, for strict and non-strict negative concord (Giannakidou ; , Zeijlstra ), respectively. For detailed discussion of these types, see below.



The History of Low German Negation

(Haspelmath 2011). Intuitively, the co-occurrence of expressions of logical negation and NPI indefinites should not count as negative concord. In the present study, Giannakidou’s (2000) definition will be adopted, (58): (58) Negative concord ‘Generally, we talk about “negative concord” in situations where negation is interpreted just once although it seems to be expressed more than once in the clause.’ (Giannakidou 2000:458) Crucial to this definition is the notion ‘expressing’ negation, which goes back to Ladusaw (1992). An indefinite may ‘express’ negation, that is, ‘indicate the presence of sentential negation’, without itself contributing a negative operator to the logical form of the clause it appears in. It means that it merely points to the presence of such an operator somewhere in the clause (Ladusaw 1992; 1993). Hence, not ‘meaning’ negation themselves, several such elements may co-occur and still only indicate the presence of a single logical negation. This means that the types of indefinites participating in negative concord is restricted. Typically, the type of indefinite found in negative concord will be n-words, given the definitions above. Under such a view, the phenomenon of negative concord may in fact be less common, cross-linguistically, than the maps in Haspelmath (2011) suggest, according to which the majority of the world’s languages have negative concord. Van Alsenoy (2011), differentiating (following de Swart (2010)) between negative indefinites, polarity indefinites, and neutral indefinites, cautions that in a sample of 29 African languages of different genetic affiliations based on Miestamo’s (2005) 179-language sample, only five exhibit negative concord of some form. Only one out of these 29 languages has negative incorporation (i.e. the overt morphological expression of negation on an indefinite in the scope of negation) and observes the ‘Neg-first Principle’ (Jespersen 1917, Horn 1989), while 21 of the languages in the sample use ‘neutral’ indefinites in the scope of negation. (59) Neg-First Principle ‘ . . . place the negative first, or at any rate as soon as possible, very often immediately before the particular word to be negatived (generally the verb [. . .])’ (Jespersen 1917:5) Pending more detailed theoretical discussion of the mechanics of negative concord in sections 4.5 and 5.1, which is immaterial to the description of the historical Low German data in the present chapter, we take note of the fact that there is a need for a real distinction between inherently negative indefinites (negative quantifiers), and indefinites merely ‘expressing’ negation in the sense of Ladusaw (1992; 1993), thus n-words. In addition, indefinites that contain a negative morpheme (etymologically) will be called n-marked. While such morphological marking often indicates an ability

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



to express negation, this is not necessarily so. In French, for instance, the series of indefinites now functioning as n-words evolved historically out of non-negative nouns and adverbs and is thus not morphologically n-marked. One could equally imagine a language in which original n-marked n-words have become NPI indefinites, e.g. by paradigm pressure (Haspelmath 2011). Older stages of several Romance languages had such n-marked NPIs (Martins 1997; 2000, Poole 2009). Likewise, being an n-word does not preclude being able to occur outside the scope of negation as well as inside. While this does form a certain challenge for agreement-based approaches to negative concord (see section 4.5), it is certainly a cross-linguistically common situation. While Zeijlstra (2004:200; 267) suggests that in some of these contexts, there may be a hidden negation operator licensing the n-word which is uncovered by semantic decomposition of lexical material, e.g. adversative predicates licensing n-words in their complement clauses like doubt are decomposed as not + be sure, there are indications that n-words typically arise through the quantifier cycle alluded to above (see also Breitbarth et al. 2013) and may retain their NPI distribution after becoming n-words (Breitbarth et al. To appear). In such a case, they become ambiguous between n-words and NPIs.10 Negative concord can take two forms (den Besten 1983b): negative doubling and negative spread. We speak of negative doubling when negation is expressed by the sentential negator and additionally on an indefinite in the scope of negation, i.e. when that indefinite is an n-word in the sense of (55). Negative spread obtains when negation is expressed on more than one indefinite in the scope of negation, possibly all if more than two are present. Negative doubling is further subdivided into strict and non-strict negative doubling (Giannakidou 1998; 2000, Zeijlstra 2004). In strict negative doubling, the sentential negator is required to always be present in a structure containing an n-marked indefinite. In non-strict negative doubling, the sentential negator only co-occurs with an n-marked indefinite if the latter follows the former. If the negative indefinite precedes the position of the sentential negator, the latter is excluded. Romanian provides an example of strict negative doubling, as well as negative spread: in (60), n-marked indefinites can precede (niciun student) or follow (nicio carte) the sentential negator nu. (60) Romanian Niciun student nu a citit nicio carte no student NEG has read no book ‘No student read any book.’

(after Haspelmath 1997:263)

Portuguese on the other hand is an example of a non-strict negative doubling language (also with additional negative spread as already seen in (56b)): while the sentential negator is obligatory when preceding n-marked indefinites, (56a), it is obligatorily 10

Cf. also Herburger (), Jäger (:), and Penka (:).



The History of Low German Negation

absent with n-marked indefinites preceding its usual position (in front of the finite verb), (61). (61) Ninguém veio no one came ‘No one came’ Negative spread can also occur without negative doubling. In Present-day French, the inherited preverbal particle ne no longer expresses sentential negation on its own (cf. already Clarke 1904).11 This is done with the postverbal particle pas, innovated under Jespersen’s Cycle. French n-words, which are not n-marked, can co-occur with each other without necessarily giving rise to double negation,12 as well as with ne, while they cannot co-occur with pas.13 (62) French à personne. a. Jean (ne) dit (∗ pas) rien Jean NE says NEG nothing to no one ‘Jean doesn’t say anything to anybody.’ b. Il (n)’y a (∗ pas) personne it NE=there has NEG no one ‘There isn’t anybody’ c. Personne (ne) mange (∗ pas) NEG no one NE eats ‘Nobody eats’

(Zeijlstra 2004:137)

Haspelmath (2011: section 4) mentions languages like French as one type of language with ‘mixed behaviour’, besides languages with non-strict negative concord (like Portuguese, see above) and languages with two series of indefinites in the scope of negation, one co-occurring with the sentential negator, the other excluding it (like English and Swedish). The mixed behaviour in case of French (and e.g. Maltese, (63)) consists, according to Haspelmath, in having a bipartite negation particle, of which only one of the parts can co-occur with the ‘negative indefinites’. 11 Therefore, as also done for Middle Low German in Chapter , it is not glossed as NEG here, contra Zeijlstra (), from whom the following examples are taken. 12 Special (contrastive) intonation can of course give rise to double negation (cf. de Swart and Sag ), and replacing the indefinite(s) after the first one by free-choice forms like qui que ce soit ‘anyone (whatsoever)’ may be the preferred option in some registers or individual speakers (Amélie Rocquet, p.c.):

() Jean (ne) dit (∗ pas) rien à qui que ce soit. Jean NE says NEG nothing to anyone (whatsoever) ‘Jean doesn’t say anything to anyone (whatsoever)’ 13 Zeijlstra (:–) on the other hand states that French is both a strict and a non-strict negative concord language, strict with respect to ne and non-strict with respect to pas. But even if ne were in fact still a negative particle, this second statement cannot be true, as pas is simply ungrammatical together with an n-word, regardless of whether the former precedes or follows the latter.

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



(63) Maltese a. Patricia ma rat-x lit-tifel. Patricia NEG 3SG.saw=NEG ACC.the-boy ‘Patricia did not see the boy.’ b. Patricia ma rat(∗ -x) xejn. nothing Patricia NEG saw ‘Patricia did not see anything.’

(Haspelmath 1997:200)

It is, however, conspicuous that the part that can co-occur with the indefinites is in the cases quoted the one that corresponds to the original preverbal negator of stage I of Jespersen’s Cycle, and that, at least in French and Maltese, this element cannot express negation on its own any more. (64)

∗ Jean

ne mange des haricots Jean NE eats of.the beans ‘Jean does not eat beans’

One may wonder whether the definition of n-word in (55) should not be extended to other ‘negative’ material besides indefinites, in particular the second clause: only if an element is capable of expressing (i.e. indicating the presence) of sentential negation in isolation can it be considered an expression of negation. Certainly in the case of French ne, this is not the case, ne can no longer express sentential negation on its own.14 In Maltese as well, the older preverbal negation particle ma can never express sentential negation on its own (Lucas 2009). The indefinites of the series to which xejn ‘nothing’ belongs (Haspelmath and Caruana 1996), certainly xejn itself, are to be classed as n-words, as they are able to express negation in isolation (Lucas 2009:224–226), (65). (65) A: X’rat? what=see.PRF.3FSG ‘What did she see?’ B: Xejn! nothing ‘Nothing!’

(Lucas 2009:224, from Haspelmath and Caruana 1996)

14 With the exception of a few historical remnants such as Je ne peux ‘I can’t’ in literary language. Flemish dialects, which appear to have preserved the old preverbal negation particle en, but do have (optional) negative doubling with the newer negator nie(t) belong to a different class. While the old preverbal particle en has developed into an NPI discourse marker expressing polarity emphasis, triggering a contextual effect of contradicting and eliminating salient assumptions or expectations by discourse participants (Breitbarth and Haegeman ; ). This development also explains en’s apparent optionality: it is restricted to contexts in which its contrastive interpretation is possible. German dialects like Bavarian, which have negative doubling with the newer adverbial negators (Weiß ; ; c), but which no longer have an inherited preverbal particle, do belong to the same class.



The History of Low German Negation

As will be seen below, the same situation obtains in Middle Low German. It is a legitimate question whether a language with such a system should be classed as a negative doubling language. The presence of an element having functioned historically as a negation marker does not warrant its treatment as such at a later historical stage. Zeijlstra (2009) has argued that French ne at stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle is an NPI. In a similar vein, Breitbarth (2009) has argued that the earlier preverbal negator ne/en is the spell-out of a polarity head, not an expression of negation, at stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle in the West Germanic languages. While neither analysis will be pursued in the present work (cf. Chapter 5), it is clear that the former preverbal negation particle is unable to express negation on its own. The next two sections will examine what kinds of development in the expression of indefinites in the scope of negation, and what kinds of interaction between indefinites and the expression of negation, are found in Old and Middle Low German.

. Old Low German .. The indefinite system of Old Low German Table 3.2 summarizes the system of indefinites of Old Low German as far as it can be reconstructed from the texts; Figure 3.3 displays it in terms of Haspelmath’s (1997) semantic map. Old Low German has essentially three series of indefinites, a ‘neutral’ or ‘positive’ series, an ‘inclusively’ distributed series licensed in weak NPI contexts, but also under direct negation, and an n-marked series restricted to the scope of direct negation. The neutral series licensed in non-affective contexts partially uses wh-elements as indefinite pronouns, such as hwat ‘what, something’, hw¯e ‘who, someone, anyone’. Free-choice indefinites and free-relative markers are formed based on these, for instance gihwat, so hwat so ‘whatever’, gihw¯e, so hw¯e so ‘whoever’, where gi is a generalizing or emphasizing particle (‘at all’) inherited from Common Germanic, cf. Jespersen (1917:8).15 Old Low German also had the non-negative indefinite determiner Table .. The system of indefinites in Old Low German

person thing determiner time place

sum-series

io-series

nio-series

sum, hwê, man hwat sum, ên

ioman (io/eo)uuiht ênig (g)io, eo huergin

nioman, neoman niouuiht, neouuiht neg(h)en, nigên, nênig nio, neo

huergin

15 According to Jespersen, gi has the same etymology as Gothic -hun, a generalizing suffix deriving indefinites. This element is also involved in the etymology of the Scandinavian negative particles, e.g. ikke

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



nio

specific known

specific unknown

irrealis non-specific

sum/hwat

question

indirect negation

conditional

comparative io

direct negation

(free choice)

Figure .. The Old Low German indefinite system

ên as well as sum ‘some’ (66), and used man ‘man, someone, anyone’ as an indefinite pronoun (67): (66) sum habad iro hardan strid some have their hard fights ‘some have their hard fights’

(Heliand 2493)

(67) so huat so man themu ubilon manne uuordun geuuisid whatever someone the.DAT evil man words announced ‘whatever words someone announced to the evil man’ (Heliand 2456–2457) The series licensed in NPI contexts in general may combine generic nouns that are used as indefinite pronouns such as uuiht ‘thing, anything’ or man ‘man, someone, anyone’ with the adverb io ‘ever’ to form NPI indefinites, (io)uuiht ‘anything’, (io)man ‘anyone’. The determiner ênig ‘any’ also belongs in this series, as does huergin ‘anywhere’ < Gmc. ∗ hwer ‘where’ + ∗ gen ‘any’16 , and of course temporal io ‘ever’ itself. The following examples show the use of the elements of this series in typical weak NPI contexts, the standard of comparison (68), the restriction of a universal quantifier (69), before-clauses (70), the antecendent of conditionals (71), and questions (72). (68) comparative quad that siu thar geba brahti meron mikilu than elcor said that they there gifts brought more.DAT great.DAT than else enig mannes sunu. any man.GEN son ‘He said that they were bringing gifts for (someone) greater than anyone else’s son.’ (Heliand 3769–3770) (Dan./Norw.), ekki (Icel.) < eigi (Old Icel.) < eitt + gi ‘one (neuter) + at all/any’, cf. Jespersen (:–), Christensen (b). 16

This is etymologically related to the same element gi/-hun mentioned above.



The History of Low German Negation

(69) universal quantifier allaro barno bezta, thero the io giboran uurði all.GEN children.GEN best those.GEN who ever born were ‘the best of all children who were ever born’ (Heliand 835) (70) before-clause ¯ thiu nu bihlidan Er scal bethiu tefaran himil endi erde, before shall both break.apart heaven and earth which now enclosed standad, êr than thero uuordo uuiht bilîba unlêstid stand before then those.GEN words.GEN anything stay unfulfilled an thesumu liohte, in this light ‘Rather shall heaven and earth, which now keep together, both fall apart, before any of those words stay unfulfilled in this light’ (Heliand 1424–1427) (71) conditional ef eo man mid sulicun dadiun mag dodes gesculdien if ever anyone with such deeds may death become.guilty.of ‘if ever anyone with such deeds may become guilty of death’ (Heliand 5244) (72) question huan uuas thi io manno tharf [. . .]? when was you ever man.GEN need ‘When did you ever need a man?’

(Heliand 853)

This NPI-series was notably licensed not just in weak NPI-contexts, but is also extremely common in the scope of direct negation (73), competing here with the nioseries, which only occurred in the scope of direct negation, cf. (74). (73) huand imu ni uuas biholen eouuiht an thesaru middilgard. for him NEG was concealed anything in this world ‘for nothing was concealed from him in this world’ (Heliand 4178–4179) (74) Ni scal neoman lioht the it habad liudiun dernean NEG shall no one light who it have people.DAT.PL hide ‘No one who has light should hide it from people.’ (Heliand 1405) Both n-marked and n-free determiners could occur in postnominal position (75), besides prenominal position (76): (75)

a. Ni uuas thes giuuand enig NEG was the.GEN doubt any ‘there was no doubt whatsoever’

(Heliand 4548)

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



b. that thar man negen thurh iuua dadi bedrogan ne uuerde that there man none by your actions deceived NEG be ‘so that no one (whosoever) come to be deceived by your behaviour’ (Heliand 1886–1887) (76)

a. endi ni uuilliad eniga fehta geuuirken and NEG wants any fights do ‘and who do not want to start any fights’

(Heliand 1317)

b. that thar nenig gumono ni ginas that there no man NEG was.saved ‘that no one was saved there’

(Heliand 4369–4370)

The position with respect to the noun seems to be due to the requirements of the alliterative verse. In the case of (75a), the whole long line containing enig is (77) u u o r d tecan u u a r : ni uuas thes giu u a n d enig word-sign true NEG was this.GEN doubt any ‘[they found all that he said (to be)] a true word-token: there was no doubt whatsoever’. (Heliand 4548) As pronouns and verbs usually do not count as stressed syllables, the lifts are uuordtecan, uuar, giuuand, the latter forming the main lift. In order to be able to act as the main lift, the word had to appear in the first stressed syllable of the off-verse, causing the inversion with the indefinite determiner enig.17 Likewise in (75b), where the full long line reads (78) m i l dean m o d sebon that thar m a n negen kind mind that there anyone/man none ‘ . . . a kind mind, so that no one (whosoever) . . . ’. (Heliand 241–242) The lifts in the on-verse are mildean and modsebon, requiring the main lift to be man, triggering the inversion with negen. Certainly, any poetic reordering will have to be licensed syntactically. In this case, the noun raises to the determiner and adjoins to it, a cross-linguistically common phenomenon, cf. N-to-D movement in Italian (Longobardi 1994b).18

17 There are two more examples with giuuand enig in the Heliand, all similar to this one: Ik thi seggian mag | uuarun uuordun that thes nis giuuand enig (H –) and huand ik thi seggian mag | uuarun uuordun that thes nis giuuand enig (H –). 18 Déprez (), Postma (), and Martins () have argued that N-to-D movement can under certain conditions lead to the creation of NPIs. This cannot, however, be the reason for the inversion of noun and determiner in (), as ‘neutral’ or free-choice determiners are inverted with their nouns just as well, and for clearly the same reasons, viz. fulfilling the requirements of the alliterative verse, cf. erlo gehuene in the line immediately preceding (b):



The History of Low German Negation

The n-marked-series arguably arose by univerbation of members of the io-series with the negative particle ni. That this scenario is historically plausible will be argued in more detail in section 3.2.2. .. Patterns of interaction Given the system of indefinites found in Old Low German, there are essentially three ways they can interact with the expression of negation, one involving negative doubling, one involving n-marking on the verb only, and one involving n-marking on the indefinite only (cf. also Jäger 2007; 2008; 2010 on Old and Middle High German): I: ni on V + n-marked indefinite (negative doubling) II: ni on V + n-free indefinite III: n-marked indefinite only (no ni on V) In cases I and III, there is furthermore the question of whether the language had negative spread. Table 3.3 presents the counts of negative clauses with indefinites in the scope of negation in the Old Low German corpus used for this study.19 Generally, all contain the preverbal marker of sentential negation, ni/ne, in addition to the indefinite.20 Pattern III is thus not attested in Old Low German at all. As Table 3.3 makes clear, there is some variation between the Old Low German texts consulted with respect to the interaction between the expression of sentential negation and indefinites. There is no negative doubling in the Genesis fragments; all indefinites Table .. Indefinites in the scope of negation in Old Low German

Heliand Genesis minor texts

n-marked

n-free

total neg. clauses

35 0 5

143 12 0

620 37 38

40

155

695

() hebbead uuiđ e r l o gehuene e n faldan hugi have.SUBJN against earl whoever simple mind m i l dean m o d sebon that thar m a n negen kind mind that there man none thurh iuua dadi bedrogan ne uuerde by your actions deceived NEG be 19

(Heliand 1885–1887)

Note that there are four negative clauses in the Heliand which contain both an n-marked and an n-free indefinite, and six which contain two or more n-free indefinites. In the following, the instances of indefinites were counted (that is, ), not the number of negative clauses containing indefinites (). 20 There are only two exceptions in the Heliand where an n-free (i.e. not n-marked) NPI indefinite appears in a negative conjunct introduced by the negative conjunction ni ‘and not, nor’, cf. section ...

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



in the scope of negation are of the n-free NPI series (pattern II). (79) is an example of this: the sentential negator ni co-occurs with an n-free indefinite, êniga huîla. (79) nu uuêt ik, that ik hier ni mag êniga huîla libbian now know I that I here NEG can any while live ‘Now I know that I cannot live here for any (amount of) time.’

(Genesis 67)

The Genesis does not contain negative clauses with more than one indefinite, but given that all single indefinites are n-free under negation, the availability of negative spread in this text is unlikely. In the Heliand, the situation is somewhat different. 80.3 of the indefinites in the scope of negation are as in the Genesis, that is, sentential negation is marked by means of preverbal ni/ne, while the indefinite is n-free (pattern II), (80a).21 19.7 on the other hand have (strict) negative doubling, that is, the sentential negator ni is obligatory, whether n-words follow (80b) or precede it (80c). (80)

a. Nis eo so salig man NEG=is ever so fortunate man ‘No man is ever so fortunate that . . . ’

(Heliand 1655)

b. Ni gibu ic that te rade quad he rinco negenun, that he NEG give I that to advice said he nobleman no(ne) that he uuord godes uuendean biginna word god.GEN turn begin ‘I do not advise any nobleman to start altering the word of God’ (Heliand 226) c. Neo endi ni kumid | thes uuidon rikeas never end NEG comes the.GEN broad kingdom ‘The broad kingdom will never end.’ (Heliand 267–268) There is no negative spread in the Heliand either; at most one of two (or more) indefinites is n-marked, (81a), or none, (81b). (81)

a. Nis thes tueho enig gumono nigienumu NEG=is the.GEN.SG.N. doubt any men.GEN.PL none.DAT.PL ‘None of the men have any doubt about it’ (lit. ‘there is not any doubt about it to none of the men’) (Heliand 3190–3191) b. it ni mag iu te enigoro frumu huuergin | uuerdan te it NEG can you to any benefit at.all redound to enigumu uuilleon. any happiness ‘It is not able to do you any good at all, nor bring you any happiness’ (Heliand 1854–1855) 21

Cf. footnote  on how the indefinites were counted in the Heliand corpus.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. The evolution of the interaction of the sentential negator and indefinites in Old Low German Genesis and before

Heliand

later OLG (minor texts)

pattern II

pattern II, minority pattern I

pattern I

Contrary to the Genesis fragments and the Heliand epos, where the vast majority of negative clauses with indefinites used n-free forms of indefinites, all of the (very few) negative clauses with indefinites in the scope of negations in the minor texts have (strict) negative doubling ni-V . . . n-marked indefinite (that is, pattern I), that is, n-marked indefinites co-occur with the sentential negator irrespective of their position relative to it. In one case (82a), the n-marked indefinite occurs in preverbal position, in the other four (like (82b)), it is found in postverbal position. (82)

a. thát iu nian scátha ni uuírthid that you.DAT no damage NEG become ‘that you suffer no damage’ b. Sia ni namon is tho niam (=niaman) they NEG took it then no one ‘They then took it from no one’

(EsG.53,31–1)

(GG.63,10–11)

Taking into account that in Middle Low German, as will be shown in section 3.3.2, virtually all indefinites in the scope of negation are n-marked, it seems fair to assume that n-marking constitutes a chronologically later development and that the three bodies of text in the corpus represent three diachronic stages within Old Low German, seen in Table 3.4. Accordingly, the Genesis fragments, which had no negative concord, represent the most conservative stage, despite being slightly younger than the Heliand under the accepted chronology of the texts, the Heliand being dated to have been written around 830, the Genesis around 840. The fact that the Old High German Isidor, argued to represent an older stage of Old High German by Axel (2005) on the basis of various syntactic properties, also has virtually no negative doubling, as shown by Jäger (2008:208–212), points to this being the original state of affairs in (Continental) West Germanic. The Heliand, where negative doubling is highly dispreferred, represents the transitional stage. The minor texts (10th–12th centuries), where negative doubling was arguably obligatory, represent the latest stage. This subdivision of Old Low German into three stages can at least partially be corroborated quantitatively, despite the low absolute numbers of negative clauses with indefinites in the Genesis (only twelve) and especially in the minor texts (only five). The Heliand with 620 negative clauses, 169 of which containing 177 indefinites,

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



forms a solid body of data on which to base quantificational tests. If the distribution of n-marked and n-free indefinites in the Heliand and the Genesis fragments were generated by the same underlying grammar, the fact that all 12 cases of indefinites in the scope of negation in the Genesis fragments are n-free would mean that these 12 instances belong to the c.80 of n-free indefinites in the Heliand-grammar and that the c.20 n-marked indefinites are accidentally unattested in the Genesis fragment. Likewise, if n-marked and n-free indefinites had the same distribution in the Heliand and the minor texts, all five cases of n-marked indefinites in the minor texts would happen to belong to the c.20 of n-marked indefinites in the Heliand-grammar and the 80 share of n-free indefinites would have to be accidentally unattested. Fisher’s exact test (in R) gives a probability of 0.13 for Heliand and Genesis. Although this is not statistically significant at the 0.05 level, it does show a certain tendency. As will be argued in section 5.1.1, it might indicate that n-marked indefinites were already possible at the stage represented by the grammar of the Genesis, though not attested in the extant fragments, but that it still leans towards an older, to be reconstructed system with only n-free NPI indefinites in the scope of negation. On the other hand, the probability that the Heliand and the minor texts have the same distribution of indefinites is 0.0004, that is, it is highly improbable. This can securely be interpreted as evidence of syntactic change between the earlier Old Low German represented by Heliand and Genesis and the later Old Low German represented by the minor texts. While n-marking on indefinites is only emergent in the earlier texts, it becomes compulsory towards the end of the Old Low German period. That is, this result proves that there was a rise of negative doubling during Old Low German. .. Factors influencing the choice between n-free and n-marked indefinite The present section will look at the factors determining the variation in the n-marking on indefinites in the scope of negation in the Heliand, as this is the only Old Low German text which has any variation in the realization of indefinites in the scope of negation. For Old High German, several factors have been argued to determine the choice of n-free vs. n-marked indefinite in negative clauses: the adjacency between the indefinite and the negative particle ni (plus finite verb) (Donhauser 1998), the position of the indefinite relative to the ni+V complex (Behaghel 1918, Donhauser 1998), or the function of the indefinite (subject, object, or adverbial) (Jäger 2008), among others. In the present section, the question will be addressed whether these factors also play a role in Old Low German. Any factors having to do with the word order face the problem of the Heliand being written in alliterative verse. However, lifts are usually on the nominal elements while verbs are generally unstressed. Also the indefinites in the scope of negation hardly ever seem to be stressed in the Heliand, for instance neoman ‘no one’ (83).



The History of Low German Negation

(83) Ni scal neoman l i o h t the it habad l i u diun dernean NEG shall no one light who it have people.DAT.PL hide ‘No one who has light should hide it from people.’ (Heliand 1405) Out of the 177 indefinites in the scope of negation, only twelve occur in lift position, (84), and those are almost exclusively either man ‘man, anyone’ or uuiht ‘thing, anything’, which are formally ambiguous between non-specific indefinite nouns (‘man, thing’) and indefinite pronouns (‘anyone, anything’). It may be this ambiguity that allows them to occur in lift positions, where typically nouns occur. (84) gi k u rin ine te c u ninge: that K r i s te ni uuas u u i h tes chose him to king that Christ NEG was thing.GEN u u i r ðig, huand he thit u u e roldrîki, [. . .] selbo giuuarhte worthy for he this world.empire self wrought ‘They chose him to be king: that Christ was not worthy of anything for he had created this world himself.’ (Heliand 2884–2887) The only relevant influence the verse seems to have on word order seems to be the above-mentioned order of indefinite determiners and nouns, which brings a stressable alliterating noun into a lift position. Further, the Heliand is relatively liberal in the number of unstressed syllables permitted between lifts, presumably allowing for a relatively natural word order between the lifts. Still, any results of the following sections are to be taken with a grain of salt and some factors that Jäger (2008) looks at for Old High German will not be considered here, such as whether the indefinite is in situ or in a derived position. ... Adjacency of the indefinite and ni+V According to Donhauser (1998), indefinites left- or right-adjacent to ni+V are n-marked in Old High German, in a position separated from ni+V by any constituent(s), n-free NPI indefinites have to be used. The means by which adjacency between the negated verb and the indefinite could lead to the drop of n-marking on the latter need to be made precise, however. It requires a clear definition of adjacency, and a clear proposal as to the way the licensing works. For Bavarian, a German dialect that has negative concord, it has been argued that adjacency of the sentential negator to the indefinite is a prerequisite for the n-marking of the latter. Both Weiß (1998; 1999) and Bayer (2002b) argue that n-marked indefinites or at least their traces have to be left-adjacent to the sentential negator ned ‘not’, (85), linking this to Haegeman’s (1995) ‘neg-movement’ to the specifier(s) of NegP (cf. also section 4.3) with ned as the head of NegP. (85)

a. daß-e neamd ned gseng hob that=I nobody not seen have ‘that I didn’t see anyone’ b. [NegP neamdi [Neg ned ] [VP . . . ti . . . ] (based on Weiß 2002a:143)

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



On the other hand, for the licensing of n-words in those present-day Germanic languages that do not have negative concord, such as the Scandinavian languages and Standard German, Penka (2011:108;178) argues that they have to be (right-)adjacent in surface syntax to an abstract sentential negation operator OP¬, (86a), assumed to reside where the standard sentential negator in clauses without indefinites would be, (86b).22 As this adjacency requirement only holds within the surface string, it does not require a syntactic operator to bring the operator and the n-word into a local configuration to each other, as under a ‘neg-movement’ or ‘neg-shift’ analysis (Christensen 1986, Haegeman 1995, Christensen 2003a). (86)

a. weil du keine Jacke anziehen brauchst because you no jacket wear need ‘because you need not wear a jacket’ [CP [C weil ] [IP dui [ OP¬ [VP ti [V keine Jacke anziehen tj ]]] [I brauchstj ]]] (nach Penka 2011:110) b. [CP [C weil ] [IP dui die Jackek [ nicht [VP ti [V tk anziehen tj ]]] [I brauchstj ]]]

However, the preverbal negation marker attaches to the finite verb in Old Low German. Therefore, neither Weiß’ nor Penka’s scenarios can be made to bear, as they assume a licensing element left of VP. Donhauser (1998:297) argues that both left- and right-adjacency license n-marking in Old High German, (87a,b), while indefinites non-adjacent to the ni+verb complex tend to be n-free, (87c). While she assumes that the left-adjacent n-marked indefinite moves to the specifier of the negative head as under the ‘neg-movement’ approach (Haegeman 1995), she speculates that right-adjacent n-marked indefinites adjoin to the head of NegP.23 (87)

a. in guates nio ni wángta (O II 10,6) them good.GEN never NEG lacked ‘they never lacked fortune’ (Donhauser 1998:291) b. inti sie ni qu edent niohhíht (T 7,9) and they NEG say nothing ‘and they say nothing’

(Donhauser 1998:290)

22 According to Penka, phrasal material intervening between the position of the negation operator and the indefinite, such as definite or specific DPs, or adverbs, can scramble out of the way in German, cf. (b); in Scandinavian, the adjacency must be strictly observed. It is right-adjacency because of Penka’s c-command requirement on licensing of n-words. 23 Cf. also Jäger (:–).



The History of Low German Negation c. uuanta thie du mir gabi, ni forlos ih fon them as those you me gave NEG lost I from them íouuiht (T 184,5) anything ‘as those you gave me, I haven’t lost anything from them’ (Donhauser 1998:289)

However, as argued by Jäger (2008:223–224), Donhauser’s claims are neither empirically accurate nor theoretically feasible, as under current theoretical assumptions, it is impossible to adjoin a phrase to a head. The question the present section addresses is whether any of these proposals are able to account for the positional distribution of indefinites and the choice between n-marked and n-free forms in the Heliand. Among the indefinites adjacent to the ni+V complex, 10.9 are n-marked, while 89.1 are n-free. If anything, the correlation is thus the inverse of the one predicted by Donhauser, given that the overall frequency of n-marked indefinites in the corpus is 9 higher at c.20, as Table 3.5 shows. In fact, both n-marked and n-free indefinites seem to prefer staying away from the ni+V complex. 82.9 of the n-marked indefinites occur non-adjacent to the ni+V complex, while only 17.1 of them are adjacent. But even n-free indefinites prefer to stay away from ni+V, albeit less strongly: only 34.3 are adjacent, while 65.7 are not. On average, only about 31 of all indefinites appear adjacent to ni+V. Under an approach assuming that n-words are licensed in a left-adjacent (specifier) position to the negative head (Haegeman 1995, Weiß 1998; 1999, Bayer 2002b) it is predicted that n-marked indefinites should be particularly frequent to the left of ni+V in Old Low German as well. Looking at the data, however, we find that more n-indefinites appear right-adjacent than left-adjacent to ni+V, cf. the percentages in Table 3.6. However, they do not differ significantly from n-free indefinites in this behaviour; roughly the same percentage of n-free indefinites adjacent to ni+V occurs right-adjacent, too, on average 34.5 of those indefinites that occur adjacent to ni+V at all occur to the left, and 65.5 to the right. That is, in terms of their preference to occur left- or right-adjacent to ni+V, if they occur adjacent to it at all, both n-marked and n-free indefinites pattern alike, about twice as many occurring in right-adjacent position. Table .. Adjacency to ni+V and n-marking in indefinites

adjacent non-adjacent total

n-marked

n-free

total

6 29 35

49 93 142

55 122 177

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. Left-/right-adjacency to ni+V and n-marking in indefinites

left-adjacent right-adjacent total

n-marked

n-free

total

2 4 6

17 32 49

19 36 55

Therefore, Donhauser’s hypothesis, already refuted for Old High German by Jäger (2008), is not confirmed for the Heliand. Indefinites, n-marked or not, preferably occur non-adjacent to the ni+V complex, and the incidence of n-marking in adjacent or non-adjacent position does not differ significantly from the overall distribution of the incidence of n-marking in the corpus. ... Anti-adjacency of the indefinite and ni+V One might of course want to turn around the argument about the relationship between adjacency and n-marking by arguing that n-marking on indefinites is twice as likely in non-adjacent positions exactly because under adjacency, the scope of negation is clear(er), while under nonadjacency it has to be marked explicitly. One approach that might offer an account for this has been advocated by Ackema and Neeleman (2003). However, as will be shown in the following, this account, too, is empirically inadequate to account for the distribution of indefinites in the scope of negation in Old Low German. Ackema and Neeleman argue that a number of phenomena usually attributed to syntactic adjacency, such as agreement weakening under subject verb inversion in Dutch, are best accounted for in terms of the phonology–syntax interface, where hierarchical structure is mapped to linear order. Context-sensitive allomorphy rules, which they hold responsible for the phenomena they describe,24 are taken to apply after an initial prosodic phrasing at that interface, which is based on the syntactic input: in head-initial languages, boundaries of prosodic phrases coincide with right edges of XPs (maximal projections), in head-final languages, with left edges of XPs. Agreement weakening under subject-verb inversion in Dutch for instance is accounted for as follows. There is a post-syntactic feature-deletion rule akin to Bonet’s (1991; 1995) impoverishment rules and Halle and Marantz’s (1993) ‘conditioned allomorphy’, which deletes the features on a given terminal if it is spelled out within the same prosodic phrase as another terminal with identical features, (88). This may, in case the language has spell-out rules referring to the deleted feature, lead to an alternative realization of [A . . . ], (89).

24 They discuss agreement weakening under subject–verb inversion in Dutch and Standard Arabic, object cliticization in Middle Dutch, subject cliticization in Celtic, and pro-drop in Old French and Arabic.



The History of Low German Negation

(88) {. . . [A F1 F2 ] . . . [B Fl F3 ] . . . } → {. . . [A F2 ] . . . [B Fl F3 ] . . . } (Ackema and Neeleman 2003:686) (89)

a. [A F1 F2 ] → /a/ b. [A F2 ] → /a / (Ackema and Neeleman 2003:686)

In a head-initial language, the allomorphy rule does not apply when [A . . .] is a maximal projection, as the right edge of this maximal projection creates a prosodic boundary between [A . . .] and [B . . .]. Similarly, it does not apply if another XP (e.g. an adverb) intervenes between [A . . .] and [B . . .]. Such a feature deletion or suppression is subject to recoverability under agreement (Ackema and Neeleman 2003:688). To illustrate, in (90), there can be an allomorphy rule affecting [B . . .] and [C . . .], but not [A . . .] and [B . . .], due to the prosodic boundary introduced by the right phrasal boundary of YP/[A . . .]. (90)

XP YP

X

X◦ ZP ]] [A ] [B [C { }{ } In Dutch agreement weakening, the second-person marking on the finite verb is omitted if subject–verb inversion has taken place, as seen in (91). The prosodic phrasing, taking Dutch to be a head initial language, which places prosodic boundaries at the right edges of XPs in syntax, is as in (92). The spell-out of loop-t as loop-∅ can happen because Dutch has a spell-out rule which suppresses the spell-out of the feature Add(ressee) on the verb if it occurs within one prosodic domain with a second person DP/pronoun, cf. (93).25 (91)

a. [CP [C dat [ jij dagelijks met een hondje over straat loopt ]] that you daily with a doggy in street walk.2SG ‘that you walk with a doggy in the street every day’ [ tjij dagelijks met een hondje over straat tV ]] b. [CP Jij [C loopt you walk.2SG daily with a doggy in street c. [CP Dagelijks [C loop [ jij tAdvP met een hondje over straat daily walk.∅ you with a doggy in street tV ]]] (after Ackema and Neeleman 2003:691)

25

The features in () are: Prt (participant, in speech act), Add (addressee), and Plr (plural).

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation (92)



a. {Jij} {loopt dagelijks} {met een hondje} {over straat} b. {Dagelijks} {loop jij} {met een hondje} {over straat} (Ackema and Neeleman 2003:692)

(93)

a. [Prt] → ∅ b. [Prt, Add] → /-t/ c. [PIr] → /-en/ d. elsewhere form: /-t/ (Ackema and Neeleman 2003:693)

(94) Dutch Agreement Weakening { [V Prt Add] [D Prt Add] } → { [V Prt] [D Prt Add] } Returning now to the possibility that an adjacency requirement governs the realization of an indefinite as n-marked or n-free in Old Low German depending on its position with respect to the finite verb preceded and negated by the negative clitic ni, let us see whether a context-sensitive allomorphy rule such as the one proposed by Ackema and Neeleman (2003) can account for the distribution of negative morphology on indefinites in Old Low German. Given that Old Low German clause structure and generally headedness is not too different from Present-day Dutch, let us assume that in Old Low German as well, the right boundaries of prosodic domains coincide with the right boundaries of XPs, (96), representing the prosodic parsing of (95).26 (95)

a. [XP [DP nenig gumono ] [X ni ginas ]] no man NEG was.saved ‘no man was saved . . . ’

(Heliand 4369)

uuili [YP [DP enigumu irminmanne ] b. [XP [DP he ] [X ni he NEG wants any man [ZP faruuernien uuillean sines ]] refuse favour his ‘he doesn’t want to deny any man his favour . . . ’ (Heliand 3503–3504) (96) a. {nenig gumono} {ni ginas} b. {he} {ni uuili enigumu irminmanne} {faruuernien uuillean sines} Let us further assume that negative morphology spells out a negation feature on certain, possibly several, elements of the clause in some languages. Assume that besides such a negation feature, spelled out as n-, there is also a polarity feature that is spelled out as allomorphs io, gio, eo, or enig on indefinite D(P)s, (97). If two instances of the negation feature happen to end up in the same prosodic domain, a context26 Generic labels XP, YP, and ZP are used here as it is immaterial to the argument what exact projections (e.g. CP, TP, or vP) are involved.



The History of Low German Negation

sensitive allomorphy rule akin to the one in (94) can apply and suppress the spell-out of one of these instances, cf. (98). Taken together, this predicts that n-marking on indefinites should be more frequent (in fact, compulsory) in positions non-adjacent to ni+verb as well as left-adjacent to it, due to the XP-boundary (of the indefinite) inducing a prosodic boundary (96).27 (97)

a. [PolD ] → /io(-)/ ; /gio(-)/ ; /eo(-)/ ; /enig/ b. [Neg] → /ni(-)/ ; /ne(-)/ c. [Neg, PolD ] → /nio(-)/; /neo(-)/ ; /nenig/

(98) Context-sensitive spell-out rule for indefinites in the scope of negation in OLG (hypothetical) { [V Neg] [D Neg Pol] } → { [V Neg] [D Pol] } As seen in section 3.2.3.1, however, the prediction that n-marking is more frequent in left-adjacent position is not borne out. Furthermore, a rule like (98) would be expected to be exceptionless, and can thus not account for the distribution seen in Table 3.6. Therefore, there is no compelling evidence for the working of a context-sensitive spellout rule like (98) for indefinites in the scope of negation, or any other adjacency rule in the Heliand corpus. ... Relative order of indefinite and ni+V and syntactic function of the n-indefinite As just established, around 66 of the indefinites in the scope of negation, whether n-marked or n-free, occur in a position non-adjacent to ni+V. But while adjacency to the expression of negation has been shown to be unlikely as a licensing factor, other interactions with the expression of negation have been hypothesized in the literature. Jespersen’s (1917) ‘Neg-First Principle’ (59) predicts that n-marking should be more frequent in indefinites preceding ni+V than in those following the negated verb. For Old High German, contemporary to Old Low German, it has variously been claimed that indefinites preceding ni+V at least strongly tend to be n-marked while indefinites following it tend to be n-free (Behaghel 1918, Donhauser 1998). As Jäger (2008:225) shows, this tendency is actually only weak at best in Old High German. She furthermore finds that in Otfrid’s Gospel Book, the opposite tendency holds: n-free indefinites are far more frequent in preverbal position than n-marked ones. This tallies with Behaghel’s (1918:239) claim that Otfrid represents an older system in which n-free forms were licensed in pre- as well as postverbal position, whereas later they would become restricted to postverbal position. Given the finding above that for Old Low German an original stage with only n-free indefinites can be reconstructed, an older

27 The labels in () have been kept neutral (XP, YP, . . . ) as verb and indefinite may be in different positions in the clause, depending on the clause type (see section ...).

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. Relative order of indefinite and ni+V

preceding following total

n-marked

n-free

total

16 19 35

37 105 142

53 124 177

stage in which n-free forms could freely occur left or right of ni+V is likely for Old Low German as well. As discussed in section 3.1.2, the interpretation of the typological impact of the ‘Neg-First Principle’ greatly depends also on the definition of negative elements, in particular, of ‘negative indefinites’. Under the current definitions (n-marking), the principle certainly does not hold in the Heliand corpus. As Table 3.7 shows, 30.2 of the indefinites preceding ni+V are n-marked, as are 15.3 of the indefinites following the negated verb. 45.7 of n-marked indefinites precede ni+V, while 54.3 follow. Conversely, even though about three quarters of the n-free indefinites follow ni+V, there is still a quarter preceding it, unexpectedly under the ‘Neg-First Principle’. It can be concluded that there is simply a general tendency in the Heliand for indefinites in the scope of negation, n-marked, or n-free to follow the expression of sentential negation.28 An important qualification to this picture has to be made, however. The syntactic function of the indefinite seems to play a crucial role in determining which indefinites can precede ni+V and which ones have to follow. Of the 16 n-indefinites preceding ni+V, 13 are instances of the adverb nio ‘never’. Nio only follows ni+V once, that is, in 7.1 of its occurrences. Argumental n-marked indefinites (pronouns, DPs, and PPs) on the other hand strongly prefer to follow ni+V, objects even categorically so, as Table 3.8 shows. It should be noted that although n-free indefinites, as predicted by the ‘NegFirst Principle’, prefer to follow ni+V in general, about 19 of the argumental ones can still precede it, and there is a weak tendency for the n-free adverbs (io ‘ever’, huergin ‘anywhere’) to occur preverbally (51.6). However, in contrast to n-marked nio, which strongly tends to occur in SpecCP (cf. section 3.2.3.4), n-free indefinite adverbs are almost entirely restricted to middle field positions in verb-final or verbmedial embedded clauses. The only exception is the case of embedded verb-second seen in (99), where the subject is extraposed and gio ‘ever’ precedes ni+Vfin.

28 It should be remarked that GoldVarb does not identify the relative order of indefinite and ni+V as a statistically significant factor for n-marking.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Syntactic function of indefinite and relative order of indefinite and ni+V

n-marked

n-free

preceding following

preceding following

subj

obj

adv

total

3 8

0 10

13 1

16 19

subj

obj

adv

total

11 41

10 49

16 15

37 105

(99) quadun that gio ni uurdi an thit lioht cuman uuisaro uuarsago. said that ever NEG would to the light come wise.COMP prophet ‘they said that a wiser prophet would never appear.’ (Heliand 2875–2876) The influence of the topological position of the negated verb on the realization of indefinites in the scope of negation as n-marked or n-free is the topic of the next subsection. ... Topological position of the indefinite Merely considering the ability of an indefinite to precede the negative particle may not be sufficient to determine its licensing conditions, considering the fact that the syntax of the Heliand knows verb movement, and that the marker of sentential negation covaries positionally with the finite verb. That is, a given indefinite may be positionally invariant, but appear pre- or postverbally, depending on the type of clause. In the Heliand, the verb tends to move to initial position in imperatives, to initial or second position in main clauses, and it tends to stay in a lower, sentence-medial or -final position in dependent clauses. In order to get a grip on the topological position of the indefinite, the topological model, also called fields model or sentence frame model, will be applied. This model was first proposed for the word order of German by Drach (1937) (see e.g. Wöllstein 2010). It provides three topological fields separated by two bracing positions, the left and the right sentential bracket. The left sentential bracket position corresponds to the position of the finite verb in verb-first or verb-second clauses or the complementizer and the right sentential bracket position corresponds to the position of the verbal complex, including the finite verb in embedded clauses with a complementizer besides any non-finite parts of a complex verb or particles. Since the work of Bierwisch (1963), Koster (1975), and den Besten (1983a) it has been a standard assumption that the finite verb in German and Dutch moves into the left sentential bracket position from its base position in the right sentential bracket position in clauses without a complementizer, while in clauses with a complementizer, the latter forces the finite verb to stay low.29 29

In Table ., LSB = left sentential bracket position, and RSB = right sentential bracket.

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. Position of the finite verb in different clause types in the Heliand position of finite verb

total

first

second

medial

final

main clause imperative yes/no question wh-question complement relative other embedded neg-conjunct

175 30 1 0 0 0 7 0

120 4 0 1 3 4 6 2

5 0 0 0 31 6 19 5

30 0 1 0 67 19 75 10

330 34 2 1 101 29 107 17

total

213

140

66

202

621

Table .. The topological model, with German examples prefield

LSB

middle field

RSB

postfield

Paul Paul

singt sings

seiner Mutter ein Lied his mother a song

vor PRT

weil sie Geburtstag hat because she birthday has

Paul Paul

hat has

seiner Mutter ein Lied his mother a song

vorgesungen PRT=sung

als sie Geburtstag hatte when she birthday had

... ...

dass that

Paul seiner Mutter ein Lied Paul his mother a song

vorsingt PRT=sings

weil sie Geburtstag hat because she birthday has

Wem Whom

hat has

Paul ein Lied Paul a song

vorgesungen? PRT=sung?

Under the topological model, there are three positions available for arguments and adverbs: the prefield, the middle field, and the postfield. Their neutral position would be in the middle field, with subjects and topics tending to move to the prefield in main clauses. The postfield, unavailable for arguments in Present-day (High) German, was historically available as a position for new information or contrastive foci.30 Table 3.11 indicates the positions for indefinite arguments and adverbs, as well as for the finite verb (plus the preverbal negation clitic ni), that are available in principle in Old Low German. 30 For the development of the rigid right sentential bracket in High German, see e.g. Ebert (). For arguments that older ‘exbraciation’ in the history of High German is determined by the information-structural status of the ‘exbraciated’ material see e.g. Hinterhölzl (; ) for Old High German and Middle High German, and Bies (), Wallenberg () for Early New High German.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Verbal placement and available positions for indefinites in negative clauses in Old Low German

V1 V2 Vm

prefield

LSB

middle field

XP indef. XP indef.

ni+V ni+V ni+V ni+V

(XP) (indef.) (XP) (indef.) (XP) indef. (XP) indef. (XP) (indef.) (XP) (indef.)

Ve

complementizer

RSB

postfield

ni+V ni+V

(indef.) (indef.) (indef.) (indef.) (indef.) (indef.)

The positions in the topological model correspond to the functional head positions and their specifiers in more recent hierarchical models as follows (cf. also Jäger 2008:227).31 (100)

CP C

Spec C◦

TP T

Spec

T◦

vP ZP

vP v

YP VP 



    



prefield

LSB

middle field

XP

V 

v◦ 



RSB

31 I remain agnostic as to the nature of the postfield position(s). Jäger (:) proposes to treat this as right-adjunction to TP. As the postfield in older German varieties (cf. e.g. Hinterhölzl ; ) can be shown to be a focus position, another option is to assume it is a left-peripheral specifier position and that the remainder of the clause (e.g. TP) is fronted around it. The result is essentially indistinguishable from right-adjunction (cf. e.g. Abels and Neeleman ).

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Generally, it is hard to distinguish whether a phrase is in the middle field or in the postfield in clauses in which the finite verb is in C/the left bracket position. In each case, the exact grammatical and information structural status of the phrase in question has to be looked at. In (101a), for instance, the indefinite is arguably in the postfield, as it follows the infinitive verb that forms the right sentential bracket. In (101b), on the other hand, a placement in the middle field is possible despite the absence of a right sentential bracket, because it is parallel to cases like (101c). That said, nmarked indefinites can occur extraposed to the postfield just like n-free ones (101a), presumably because they are focalized, (101d). (101)

a. thes ni mag he farhelan eouuiht it.GEN NEG must he conceal anything ‘He must not conceal any(thing) of it.’

(Heliand 1754)

b. Ni uuas im tueho nigiean NEG was him doubt none ‘He had no doubt’

(Heliand 2904)

c. ni mahte thegan nigiean uuid them uuordquidi NEG could disciple/warrior none with the speech uuidersac finden contradiction find ‘None of the disciples could find contradiction in the speech.’ (Heliand 3872–3873) d. nis thi uuerd eouuiht te bimidanne manno NEG=is you.DAT appropriate anything to envy man nienumu umbi is rikidom none for his wealth ‘It is not appropriate for you at all to envy any man for his wealth.’ (Heliand 3802–3804) Clause-medial verb placement comes in two variants. As Table 3.9 shows, most cases of medial verb placement (116 out of 123) are found in embedded clause types. Given that even more embedded clauses (166) have clause-final verb placement, this points to the verb being positioned in the right bracket position in the medial cases, too. In fact, Jäger (2008:277–232) subsumes these cases under clause-final verb placement (with extraposition). But there are also cases of embedded verb-second such as (102a), which have been counted as verb-medial.32 In such clauses, determining whether the 32 Negative clauses with embedded verb-second are relatively frequent in the Heliand, even without indefinites:

() that he ni mosta er thit lioht ageban that he NEG could before this light leave ‘that he was not able to leave this light before’ (Heliand )

(Cont.)



The History of Low German Negation

indefinite is placed in the middle field or the postfield depends on clear filling of the right sentential bracket, e.g. by an infinitive, participle, particle, or predicate; compare (102b) and (102c) (right sentential bracket element underlined). (102)

a. quadun that gio ni uurdi an thit lioht cuman uuisaro said that ever NEG would to the light come wise.COMP uuarsago. prophet ‘they said that a wiser prophet would never appear.’ (Heliand 2875–2876) b. thoh he is ni mahti giseggean uuiht anything but he it.GEN NEG could say ‘but that he could not say anything about it.’ c. that kriste ni uuas uuihtes uuirdig that Christ NEG was anything.GEN worthy ‘that Christ was not worthy of anything’

(Heliand 189)

(Heliand 2884–2885)

This leaves five negative main clauses in the Heliand with medial verb placement in which the prefield is arguably multiply occupied. Three of these clauses contain indefinites. A more finely articulated structure of the CP as proposed by Rizzi (1997) in cartographic terms or by Neeleman and Vermeulen (2012) in terms of scope can account for the multiply filled prefield in these cases, as well as for the cases of embedded verb-second alluded to above. In none of these three instances does the indefinite occur in the prefield. In (103), uuiht is clearly in the middle field. (103) Uui mid usun dadiun ni sculun uuiht auuerdian we with our deeds NEG shall anything spoil ‘We shall not spoil anything by our deeds.’ (Heliand 4889–4900) The nine clauses with an n-marked indefinite in the prefield are all verb-final main clauses with nio/neo ‘never’ in initial position. As nio/neo always precedes the subject in these cases, it was taken to occupy SpecCP. Besides (104), (80c) is another example of this type of clause. (104)

a. Nio the man so hardo ni uuas giserit mid suhtiun. never the man so hard NEG was oppressed with sickness ‘The man was never oppressed so hard with sickness.’ (Heliand 2272–2273) b. Nio the sterben ni scal lif farliosen the her gilobid te mi. never he die NEG shall life lose who here believe to me ‘He who believes in me here shall never die; lose his life.’ (Heliand 4055–4056)

According to George Walkden’s HeliCoPTER (), there are  subordinate verb-second clauses in the Heliand,  of which are negative.

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. The topological position of indefinites and n-marking

n-marked n-free total

prefield

middle field

postfield

total

9 1 10

19 111 130

7 30 37

35 142 177

As can be seen from Table 3.9, there is a certain tendency for negative main clauses to exhibit verb-first word order (53, vs. 36.4 verb-second and 9.1 verb-final) in the Heliand. This may be a reflex of the older Germanic verb placement, argued to target C in negative clauses.33 The majority (34.1) of all negative clauses in the Heliand being verb-initial may partially explain the preference observed above for indefinites to follow ni+V (see section 3.2.3.2). (105) Ni gaf iru tho noh uualdand crist enig anduuordi. NEG gave her then still ruling Christ any answer ‘The ruling Christ still did not give her any answer then.’ (Heliand 4889–4900) Table 3.12 looks at the relative order of indefinite and ni+V taking the position of the latter into account. An indefinite preceding ni+V in a verb-second clause is analysed as occurring in the prefield. An indefinite preceding ni+V in a verb-final clause is analysed as occurring in the middle field (certainly in the presence of a complementizer), as are indefinites following ni+V in V1 and V2 clauses. In verbmedial main clauses, preceding indefinites are taken to occur in the prefield, in verbmedial embedded clauses the middle field. Indefinites following ni+V in verb-medial main clauses are taken to occupy the middle field, in verb-medial embedded clauses, the postfield. This reveals a strong tendency for indefinites, both n-marked and n-free, to occur in the middle field, with around 20 of both types of indefinite occurring in the postfield. The prefield seems to virtually exclude n-free indefinites, and, given what was said in relation to (104), any argumental n-marked indefinites as well: only adverbial nio/neo ‘never’ can occur here. The single example of an n-free indefinite found in the prefield, (102a), is adverbial, too: it involves gio ‘ever’. Gio/io/eo occurs 24 times in the Heliand. In 23 cases (95.8) it occurs in the middle field, and only once, namely in (102a), in what was analysed as located in the prefield. The latter analysis is based on the

33 Cf. e.g. Kiparsky (; ), Longobardi (a), Eythórsson (), Fuß (; ), Ferraresi ().



The History of Low German Negation

assumption that this is a case of embedded verb-second, presumably due to a lagging grammaticalization of the complementizer that.34 A binomial regression analysis in GoldVarb (Table 3.13) shows that the topological position of the indefinite is in fact the only significant factor in determining the realization of an indefinite in the scope of negation as n-marked or n-free. This shows a strong preference for n-marking in the prefield, due to the fact that virtually the only element licensed there is the n-marked temporal adverb nio; we have seen that there is only one occurrence of n-free io. In the postfield, there is no significant preference for n-marking. In the middle field, at best a very slight preference for n-free forms may be noted. The fact that only the adverbial n-marked indefinite nio/neo ‘never’ forms an exception and is able to occur in SpecCP is in line with the observation that words for ‘never’ cross-linguistically tend to stand apart from other n-indefinites and behave ‘more negatively’, cf. e.g. Poole (2009) for nunca ‘never’ in historical Spanish. ... Other material expressing negation Besides the sentential negator ni, there is also the negative conjunction ni, ne ‘that not, nor, and not’. N-marked indefinites do not occur in negative conjuncts introduced by ni/ne at all, n-free ones are found twice in this context.35 (106)

a. Ne ic gio mannes ni uuard uuis an minera NEGCONJ I ever man.GEN NEG became knowing in my uueroldi. world ‘And I have never known a(ny) man in my life.’ (Heliand 272–273) b. Ne gi eniga era ni uuitun theses godes NEGCONJ you any honour NEG know this.GEN god.GEN huses, Iudeoliudi. house.GEN Jewish.people ‘That you do not know any honour of this house of God, Jewish people.’ (Heliand 3747–3748)

34 For the traditional analysis of the grammaticalization of that/dass ‘that’ in High German out of a demonstrative pronoun, which developed presumably in parallel fashion in Low German, cf. Müller and Frings () and Ebert (:–); or for a new analysis, cf. Axel (); and for a more general perspective, cf. Heine and Kuteva (:) and Roberts and Roussou (:). 35 Additionally, there is one occurrence of an n-free indefinite (man ‘anyone’) in a ni/ne-conjunct not containing sentential negation. This conjunct appears within a before-clause, which is a weak NPI context licensing n-free indefinites, in this case eo ‘ever’ in the first conjunct and man ‘anyone’ in the second, cf. section ... One could classify the use of the negative conjunction ni within this before-clause as expletive negation.

() er than it eo belibe ni man is lof spraka uuido aftar thesaru uuerold before then it ever remain and.not anyone his praise speak wide after this world ‘before it then ever remain and anyone speak their praise, wide in this world’ (Heliand –)

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. Effect of the topological position on the realization of n-marking on indefinites topol. position prefield middle field postfield p < 0.001

factor weight .975 .428 .507

If anything, then, this context favours the n-free realization of indefinites in the scope of negation. In both cases, the indefinite precedes the verb, which is in clausefinal position. Note this is different from Old English, with which Old Low German shared the property of having the preverbal sentential negation particle ni/ne ‘not’ in (the majority of the) negative conjuncts (see section 2.1.1). As observed by Ingham (2010), who refers to Andrew (1940) and Mitchell (1985), also morphologically negative indefinites are found in negative conjuncts in Old (and Early Middle) English, besides the sentential negation marker: hit nu (107) Ealle þas þinc synd fram eagan gewitene, ne these things are from eyes witnessed, NEGCONJ it now all helpeð. nan þinc þære sawle ne no thing to.the soul NEG helps ‘All these things are eyewitnessed, and it will not now help the soul at all.’ (Helsinki Corpus, Homily Epiphany, p. 165; cited after Ingham 2010:190) As will be proposed in section 5.1.1, this difference derives from the fact that the negative particle has an uninterpretable negation feature in Old Low German, while it has an interpretable one in Old English, as Ingham (2010) argues. .. Summary Old Low German had essentially a tripartite system of indefinites. Besides a series partially derived from wh-pronouns licensed in non-affective contexts, it had a series licensed in NPI contexts, including direct negation, and one series restricted to direct negation. The NPI indefinites are thus ‘inclusively’ distributed, cf. Jäger (2007; 2008; 2010), as opposed to an exclusive ‘Bagel’ distribution, Pereltsvaig (2004). The latter two series thus compete for the expression of indefinite quantification in the scope of negation. However, only in one of the three extant bodies of Old Low German text, the Heliand epos, is there actually direct competition. In the Genesis fragments, only n-free NPI indefinites are used, in the minor texts, only the n-marked series restricted to negative clauses is attested.



The History of Low German Negation

Based on the different patterns of interaction between indefinites of these two series with the expression of sentential negation in these three bodies of texts it was concluded that there was a diachronic development within Old Low German. Accordingly, the n-marked series is younger than the n-free one. This development will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5, also taking into account its relation to Jespersen’s Cycle in the history of Low German. The competition between the n-free and n-marked forms in the Heliand reflects the beginning of a transition to a more exclusive system such as the one found in Middle Low German, to be discussed below. Most grammatical factors assumed to be behind the same variation in Old High German were found to have only insignificant influence on the realization of indefinites as n-marked or n-free in Old Low German. Only the topological position of the finite verb prefixed with the sentential negator ni was shown to have a certain influence. This derives from the fact that only the negative temporal adverb nio (and in one case n-free io), can occur in the prefield. All other indefinites, n-marked or not, have to follow C. Further differentiation of those positions cannot be shown to significantly influence the distribution of n-marking.

. Middle Low German .. The indefinite system of Middle Low German Table 3.14 summarizes the system of indefinites of Middle Low German. Essentially, the tripartite character seen in Old Low German is preserved, Figure 3.4. The old neutral indefinite sum ‘some(one)’ is lost in Middle Low German, while the old item wat < hwat ‘something’ remains a neutral indefinite (108).36

Table .. The system of indefinites in Middle Low German person thing determiner

neutral series (eyn man) wat eyn, een

ie-series iemand, jemant icht(es), ichteswat enich, jenich

time place

up een tid ichteswo

je yerg(h)en, iergen

n-series ne(y)man(d), ne(y)n man nicht((e)s) n(e)yn(e), nene, ny(n)erley, nenerley, geen nie, nummer, to nenen tiden nergen(s)

36 Most examples in this section are taken from a literary text, Der große Seelentrost (ed. M. Schmitt, Köln/Graz, ; TITUS version ), which is not part of the core corpus of Middle Low German charters and other legal documents. This was chosen because it shows the uses of the Middle Low German indefinites in a wider range of syntactic contexts than are available in the chancery texts, and because for the core corpus only negative clauses were excerpted.

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



n-series

specific known

specific unknown

irrealis non-specific

neutral series

question

indirect negation

conditional

comparative ie-series

direct negation

(free choice)

Figure .. The Middle Low German indefinite system

(108) suwar de rede to langk is [. . .], dar wil ik wat whenever the speech too long is there will I something affbreken. off.break ‘Whenever the speech is too long, I shall make it a bit shorter.’ (Alexander 0_6: Seel. 0: 4, 10) Icht remains available in weak (109a) and strong NPI contexts (109b).37 (109)

a. Moder, bidde wat du wult; dat ys vnmogelijk, dat ik dij mother ask what you want it is impossible that I you icht vorsegge. anything deny ‘Mother, ask whatever you want: it is impossible that I deny you anything.’ (Alexander 3_33a: Seel. 3: 119, 26) b. dat we nemende, dem we schuldich synt to dessem jare, dar wy that we no one who we owing are to this year that we nuo ane synt, ichtes gheven konnen. now in are anything give can ‘that we cannot give anything to anyone whom we owe in this year that we are in’ (Uelzen, 13/08/1396)

37 Haspelmath () would class both (a) and (b) as ‘indirect negation’. However, while (a) is ‘indirect’ in the sense that the negation is expressed in a superordinate clause, the negation is expressed in the same clause in (b), viz. by the n-marked indefinite nemende ‘no one’. As will be discussed in more detail in section .., there is a strong tendency towards negative spread in Middle Low German, that is, to use n-marked forms on all indefinites in the scope of negation if there is more than one, and (b) is one of the few exceptions. As will be discussed in section .. as well, there is only one potential occurrence of the Middle Low German standard negation marker nicht co-occurring with an n-free indefinite. That means that the standard way to express sentential (hence ‘direct’, clause-mate) negation in Middle Low German in a sentence with one or more indefinites in the scope of negation is by using an n-marked form for at least one of them. (b) is therefore a strong NPI context, as it is a sentential negation context. According to Zwarts’s () criteria, this is an anti-additive context.



The History of Low German Negation

The newly formed indefinite ichteswat ‘anything’, composed of adverbially used icht ‘thing > any, at all’ and wat ‘what’, is also used in (weak) NPI contexts in Middle Low German, especially conditionals. In (110), it additionally has a free-choice meaning. (110) De wile, dat de moder heft ichteswat to geuene, so hebben se the time that the mother has something to give so have her de kindere sere leff. the children very dear ‘While/as long as the mother has something/anything to give, the children are very fond of her.’ (Alexander 4_14: Seel. 4: 137, 33) Middle Low German iemand ‘anyone’ < Old Low German ioman ‘anyone’ remains available in weak NPI contexts (111a) and under negation (111b). (111)

a. Do sprak Sunte Macharius: ‘Is dar jemant deper wen gij?’ there said St. Macharius is there anyone deeper than you ‘Then, St. Macharius asked: “Is there anyone deeper (in hell) than you?”’ (Alexander 2_24: Seel. 2: 53, 2) b. also dat se noch ere nakomelinge edder iemand von erer such that they nor their descendants nor anyone of their wegen enwillen noch enscullen nicht weven, spyynen edder or behalf NE=will neither NE=shall NEG weave spin walken laten . . . mill let ‘such that neither they nor their descendants nor anyone on their behalf shall weave, spin nor mill . . . ’ (Scharnebeck 06/04/1422)

Also Middle Low German yerg(h)en ‘anywhere’ < Old Low German hwergin seems to have maintained its NPI-hood, cf. its use in the antecedent of a conditional in (112). In neutral/free-choice contexts, ichteswo ‘somewhere/anywhere’, formed in parallel to ichteswat, is used, (113). Taken together with the observation above that the contexts licensing ichteswat lie between NPI and free-choice, this suggests that the new ichtesseries may have originated in weak NPI contexts, and spread to neutral contexts via free-choice contexts. (112) vnde kumpt he dij yerghen to, wise ene na my to Paris, dar and come he you anywhere to direct him to me to Paris there mach he my vinden may he me find ‘and should you meet him anywhere, direct him to me in Paris, he may find me there’ (Alexander 8_4: Seel. 8: 229, 33)

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



(113) Hijrumme, dat du dat hilge cruce ichteswo geeret heuest, because.of.this that you the holy cross somewhere venerated have des schaltu geneten of.this shall.you enjoy ‘Because you have venerated the holy cross in some place you shall enjoy this.’ (Alexander 2_33: Seel. 2: 66, 37) Summing up, there do not appear to be any great changes in the licensing conditions of the old weak NPI indefinites and the n-marked indefinites as such. N-marked indefinites continue to be restricted to the scope of negation, while the n-free series are licensed in all NPI contexts, weak and strong. The only changes concern the conditions governing their co-occurrence with the sentential negation marker and with each other as will be discussed presently. .. Patterns of interaction Given the system of indefinites found in Middle Low German is so similar to the one found in Old Low German, there are again three ways in which indefinites can interact with the expression of negation, with the added possibility of negative spread in cases I and III: I: sentential negator + n-marked indefinite (negative doubling) II: sentential negator + n-free indefinite III: n-marked indefinite only Additionally, there is the former preverbal particle. Indefinites in the scope of negation are distributed as seen in Table 3.15 in the Middle Low German corpus of charters, legal texts, and official letters described in section 1.3.38 Table 3.15 shows three things: expressing negation on the indefinites in the scope of negation by means of n-marked forms is standard in negative clauses containing indefinites in the Middle Low German corpus used, while the use of the former Table .. Negation particles and indefinites in the scope of negation in MLG ne/en . . . n-marked ne/en . . . n-marked . . . nicht n-marked . . . nicht n-marked alone ne/en . . . n-free n-free . . . nicht total

476 0 (1) 787 4 1 1269

38 The fact that there is a single occurrence of an n-marked indefinite with nicht between brackets will be elucidated below.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. The loss of the preverbal particle with n-marked indefinites en . . . NMI∗ 1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1575 total ∗ NMI = n-marked

124 180 98 67 7 476

total NMI 185 331 284 272 191 1263

 en 67.0 54.4 34.5 24.6 3.7

indefinite

preverbal particle is dwindling (cf. also Table 3.16), and the use of the new adverbial sentential negator nicht together with either n-marked or n-free indefinites is virtually unattested. As seen in Chapter 2, Middle Low German has an entirely different system of expressing negation from Old Low German. This also holds for the interaction between indefinites in the scope of negation and the expression of sentential negation. Standard sentential negation is expressed by means of an adverbial particle, instead of a preverbal particle. As shown above, Middle Low German is in the transition to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle, that is, it is in the process of losing the old preverbal particle. The same steady loss of ne/en from negative clauses during the Middle Low German period is witnessed in clauses with n-marked indefinites as well, as Table 3.16 shows.39 It was seen in Table 3.15 that indefinites in the scope of negation are standardly n-marked in Middle Low German. (114a) shows one example from the corpus where an n-marked indefinite co-occurs with the inherited preverbal particle en. There are in total 476 of such cases, out of 1,263 negative clauses with n-marked indefinites in total (37.7). (114b) is an instance of an indefinite expressing negation on its own. Such cases are attested 787 times out of 1,263 (62.3). (114)

a. en . . . n-marked indefinite so enscal ek noch unwille nenerleye ansprake edder thus NE=shall I nor NE=will no.at.all entitlement or rechtecheyt beholden an dussem vorscrevenen lande right keep to this aforementioned land ‘Thus I shall not nor will not keep any entitlement or right to this aforementioned land’ (Barsinghausen 22/02/1414)

39 As they constitute such a marginal pattern, the four occurrences of ne/en . . . n-free indefinite and the single occurrence of an n-marked indefinite with nicht are not considered in Table .. Hence, the total number is only ,. This table only considers the diachronic relation between the two major patterns.

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



b. n-marked indefinite alone De prouende to sunte Thomas [. . .] schal dar neyn gelt vor the provost at St. Thomas shall there no money for nemen take ‘The provost of St. Thomas shall not take any money for that.’ (Braunschweig 12/07/1445) N-free indefinites on the other hand are rare in the corpus used; only 0.6 of the clauses with one indefinite in the scope of negation and 4 of the clauses with multiple indefinites use n-free forms in this corpus. (115a) is an example of a negative clause with the old preverbal particle en and the n-free indefinite jement ‘anyone’, plus two n-free adverbial indefinites used for strengthening (mit ichte ‘with anything; at all’ jenighewis ‘in any way’). (115b) is the only occurrence of an n-free indefinite together with the new standard negator, nicht. The pattern en . . . n-free indefinite . . . nicht is not attested in the present corpus. (115)

a. so enewolde se eder jement van orer weghene enescholde so NE=wanted they or anyone of their behalf NE=should uppe datsulve gut mit ichte jenighewis saken. on that.same good with anything anyway claim ‘Therefore, they nor anyone on their behalf do(es) not indend or shall claim that same good in any way.’ (Barsinghausen 29/03/1380) b. . . . wer zake, dat yemant van steden off personen yn desser . . . be case that anyone of cities or persons in this eyndracht vorgenant benompt der selver eyndracht nicht union aforementioned named this same union NEG seghelen worde . . . seal would . . . ‘If it was the case that anyone from cities or people in this aforementioned named union were not to seal this union . . .’ (Steinfurt 07/04/1446)

Middle Low German has (virtually) no negative doubling with the standard sentential negator nicht. The preverbal negator is no longer the standard expression of negation (see section 2.2.1) under the definition of standard negation adopted in this study (see section 1.1), only recognizing fully grammaticalized expressions as standard expressions of negation. Hence, any co-occurrence of ne/en with n-marked indefinites in Middle Low German is not counted as negative doubling, contrary to the commonly accepted view in the literature on languages with similar developments. (116) is the only occurrence of nicht with an n-marked indefinite in 1,269 clauses with indefinites



The History of Low German Negation

in the scope of negation (0.08), and can therefore not count as sufficient evidence for negative doubling in Middle Low German. (116) dat ze sik nycht enscholen vorbynden tjegen nyne heren that they REFL NEG NE=shall unite against no masters ‘that they shall not unite themselves against any masters’ (Oldenburg 01/05/1436) It can furthermore be disputed whether this is actually the sentential negator-use of nicht. It is plausible that this is in fact an ‘extent’ use of nicht with the (older or original) meaning ‘to no extent’ (lit. ‘nothing’), as discussed for Old Low German. The separation of nicht into the sentential negator nicht ‘not’ and the indefinite pronoun nichts ‘nothing’ (derived from the original genitive form of nicht ‘nothing’, nichtes) was not yet complete in Middle Low German, as witnessed by the frequent use of nicht as the indefinite ‘nothing’, (117). (117) also dat wy uns offte unsen nakomelynghen dar nicht ane such that we ourselves or our descendants there nothing of beholden . . . keep ‘such that we keep nothing of that, neither for ourselves nor for our descendants’ (Lübeck 01/11/1403) This strengthening extent use of nicht(s) (‘in no measure, to no degree’) is found all throughout the history of High and Low German, cf. the examples in section 2.1.2.2.D, or the ones given in Bayer (2009), e.g. (118). (118)

nichts erschracke a. dasz er doch hierab that he PRT here=from nothing frightened.became ‘that he did not really get frightened from this’ (Ringwald, Early New High German) fast nichts b. Von Freitag auf Samstag hab ich aber from Friday to Saturday have I however almost nothing geschlafen. slept ‘However, between Friday and Saturday I hardly slept.’ (Present-day colloquial German, Google search) (examples from Bayer 2009)

Under this perspective, (116) should be translated as ‘that they shall not unite themselves against any masters at all’. Therefore, (116) is potentially not in fact an instance of negative doubling with nicht, although of course nicht(s) is adverbial in any case, whether it is the sentential negator or an emphatically used indefinite

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



pronoun. In any event, an incidence of 0.08 over a substantial corpus as the one used here is well below the standardly assumed rate of grammatically insignificant deviation.40 The absence of negative doubling does, however, not imply the absence of negative concord in Middle Low German altogether. Of the 109 clauses with multiple indefinites in the scope of negation in our corpus, 100 (96) have negative spread: (119)

a. Na sunte Micheles daghe 1349 scal nemen nenne rok after St. Michael’s day 1349 shall no one no cloak dragen . . . wear ‘No one shall wear a(ny) cloak after St. Michael’s day 1349 . . .’ (Braunschweig 1380) b. Und we enwillet noch enschullet nummermer neyn slot and we NE=will nor NE=shall never=more no castle darin buwen there=in build ‘And we shall and will never build any castle in it’ (Uelzen 24/10/1397)

It can therefore be concluded that Middle Low German was a language of type III, with negative spread. Negative indefinites are near-obligatory in the scope of negation. They can co-occur with the inherited particle en, decreasingly so over time, but not with the sentential negator nicht. In case of multiple indefinite quantification in the scope of negation, the standard way of realizing this is by using multiple n-marked indefinites. That is, Middle Low German did not have negative doubling (with the standard expression of negation), but had negative spread. .. Factors influencing the occurrence of en with negative indefinites As established in section 3.3.2, indefinites in the scope of negation are almost exclusively n-marked in Middle Low German. It was also established that the old preverbal particle ne/en is being lost during this period. In this section, we will look at the factors that condition the use of the preverbal particle in negative clauses with indefinites in Middle Low German. ... The influence of the date of composition As with the expression of standard sentential negation (section 2.2.3), the period of composition is a statistically significant factor for the occurrence of ne/en, also in negative clauses with indefinites. In fact, the ratio of stage-II-type constructions and stage-III-type constructions is very

40

Cf. footnote  in Chapter .



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Effect of the date of composition on the expression of negation with n-marked indefinites ne/en . . . n-marked indefinite

n-marked indef. alone

factor weight

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

124 (67) 180 (54.4) 98 (34.5) 67 (24.6) 7 (3.7)

61 (33) 151 (45.6) 186 (65.5) 205 (75.4) 184 (96.3)

.769 .732 .611 .408 .045

total p = 0.043

476

787

period

reminiscent of the one found in negative clauses with nicht.41 The innovative type of construction is already present in one third of the cases in the first sub-period covered by the corpus used; a hundred years later, it has reached two thirds; and another fifty years later, three quarters of all negative clauses with indefinites. In the end of the period of Middle Low German attestation, the replacement is nearly total. GoldVarb X identified the date of composition as a significant factor group. Binomial regression analysis in GoldVarb (Table 3.17) shows that the bipartite expression of negation in negative clauses with indefinites is (strongly) preferred in the first three sub-periods, with factor weights well above .5, and dispreferred in the last two, particularly so in the final sub-period, 1525–1574, where the factor weight is approaching 0. ... The influence of the dialect The loss of the preverbal particle from negative clauses with indefinites proceeds in a similar fashion to its loss from negative clauses with nicht. While the turning point, when the incidence of the use of ne/en falls below 50, seems to lie around 1500 for West- and Eastphalian, it is already around 1400 for North Low Saxon, and had been reached in the writings from the Hansa cities already before the starting point of the corpus used in the present research (Table 3.18). As expected, given the data for negation with nicht, the scribal dialect has a statistically significant effect on the use of the old preverbal negator or its omission with n-marked indefinites in Middle Low German as well, as the binomial regression analysis in GoldVarb X shows (Table 3.19). As with nicht, West- and Eastphalian favour the bipartite expression of negation, while the East Elbian Hansa cities favour the innovative ne/en-less expression of negation. North Low Saxon on the other hand is 41 See section . for quantitative discussion of the fact that the rates of change are not only constant across both contexts, but essentially identical. It is argued there that negative clauses with nicht and such with n-marked indefinites in fact form a single context (in the sense of Kroch ) with respect to the loss of en here.

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. The use of the preverbal particle with n-marked indefinites, per scribal dialect Westphalian

Eastphalian

North Low Saxon

Hansa cities

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

19 (82.6) 21 (77.8) 5 (50) 12 (44.4) 4 (10.3)

50 (62.5) 81 (75.7) 24 (58.5) 28 (32.2) 2 (1.8)

54 (68.4) 69 (47.9) 57 (37.7) 23 (25) 1 (3.8)

1 (33.3) 9 (17) 12 (14.6) 4 (6.1) 0 (0)

total

61 (48.4)

185 (43.3)

204 (41.5)

26 (11.9)

Table .. Effect of the scribal dialect on the expression of negation with n-marked indefinites dialect

ne/en . . . n-marked indefinite

n-marked indef. alone

factor weight .767 .624 .486 .174

Westphalian Eastphalian North Low Saxon Hansa cities

61 (48.4) 185 (43.3) 204 (41.5) 26 (11.9)

65 (51.6) 242 (56.7) 288 (58.5) 192 (88.1)

total p = 0.043

476 (37.7)

787 (62.3)

close to the overall average and thus receives a factor weight of close to .5 (.486), that is, it hardly shows a preference for either. These results being so close to the ones observed for the speed of the transition to stage III with nicht in section 2.2.3.2, the same socio-historical explanation suggests itself. ... The influence of the position of the finite verb Among the language-internal factors, the position of the finite verb was identified as one of the factor groups with a significant influence on the expression of negation in clauses with indefinites in the scope of negation. The three factors considered within this group are clause-initial, second-position, and clause-final verb placement. As seen in Table 3.20, there are very few verb-initial clauses with n-marked indefinites to begin with, 14 in total, and the preverbal particle occurs in three of them. As in verb-initial negative clauses with nicht most of them, 12 in total, are conditional clauses, the other two are second conjuncts in coordinations. The account for the high frequency of ne/en-omission proposed for verb-initial clauses with nicht



The History of Low German Negation Table .. The use of the preverbal particle with n-marked indefinites depending on the position of the finite verb verb-first 1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574 total

verb-second

verb-later/final

1/2 (50) 0/2 (0) 2/4 (50) 0/4 (0) 0/2 (0)

75/120 (62.5) 131/194 (67.5) 61/161 (37.9) 41/140 (29.3) 3/108 (2.8)

48/63 (76.2) 49/135 (36.3) 35/119 (29.4) 26/128 (20.3) 4/81 (4.9)

3/14 (21.4)

311/723 (43)

162/526 (30.8)

Table .. Effect of the position of the finite verb on the expression of negation with n-marked indefinites ne/en . . . NMI

NMI alone

factor weight

initial second later/final

3 (21.4) 311 (43) 162 (30.8)

11 (78.6) 412 (57) 364 (69.2)

.325 .579 .398

total p < 0.001

476 (37.7)

787 (62.3)

verb position

can be adopted for verb-initial negative clauses with indefinites as well (section 2.2.3.3): unstressed initial ne/en is initially not realized in language acquisition and later not ‘reinstated’ due to its having become opaque to language acquirers as an expression of negation. Verb-later/final placement appears to be slightly more innovative than verb-second; there is a sharp drop in the use of en already around 1400, while verb-second clauses only reach these levels 50 years later in the corpus used. Clause-later/final verb placement seems to stay about 50 years ahead of verb-second throughout the entire period under consideration. Over the whole period, the preverbal particle is used in 43 of the verb-second clauses, but only in c.31 in verb-final clauses. This creates a somewhat different picture from the one seen for the co-occurrence of en with nicht in section 2.2.3.3, where both verb-second and verb-later/final contexts had an overall frequency of c.34, and thus essentially patterned alike. That means that in case of n-words, unlike with standard negation with nicht, clause-final verb placement also appears to favour stage III negation, though less so than clause-initial verb placement. This is reflected in the factor weights, seen in Table 3.21.

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. Effect of an infinitive in -en preceding the finite (modal) verb on the realization of preverbal en in verb-final contexts

whole corpus clauses with indefinites clauses without indefinites

verb order

all

with en

mod > inf inf > mod mod > inf inf > mod mod > inf inf > mod

135 (26.5) 374 (73.5) 56 (23.2) 185 (76.7) 84 (24.9) 254 (75.1)

19 (15.1) 107 (84.9) 9 (11.1) 72 (88.9) 15 (14.7) 87 (85.3)

without en 116 (30.3) 267 (69.7) 47 (29.4) 113 (70.6) 69 (29.1) 168 (70.9)

The question arises what the reason is for such a favouring effect of sentencelater/final verb placement. One possibility is that there is some factor conditioning an increased drop of en in verb-final contexts with n-marked indefinites, compared to negative clauses with nicht. Another is that there is some factor blocking the drop of en in verb-second contexts with indefinites, again compared to clauses negated with nicht. Burridge (1993) argues that Middle Dutch en is lost due to phonological conditioning in verb-final contexts if the finite verb followed an infinitive (in modal + infinitive constructions) or any other word ending in -en. If this was the reason behind the lower frequency of en in clauses with indefinites than in clauses with the sentential negator nicht, one would expect a higher incidence of the order infinitive > modal in the former than in the latter. Looking only at negative clauses with modal verbs with (potentially complex) infinitival complements, the following picture emerges (Table 3.22).42 The first striking observation that can be made on the basis of Table 3.22 is that there is no statistically significant difference between the frequency of the word orders within the modal/infinitive verb cluster.43 Over the whole corpus, that is, negative clauses with n-marked indefinites and negative clauses with nicht taken together, with or without preverbal en, 26.5 have the order ‘modal > infinitive’ in the verb 42 As the choice of other potentially conditioning lexical material (ending in -en) preceding a finite verb is random, cases such as () will not be considered here as systematic search is more difficult. In (), the word preceding the finite verb, the preposition entuschen ‘in between’, ends in -en, and there is no preverbal en in addition, making it a potential case of en-deletion due to Burridge’s haplology rule.

() Unde uppe dat nen parthye entuschen kame des kores halven . . . and on that no party in-between came the.GEN grain.GEN behalf ‘and in order for no party to intervene because of the grain’ (Oldenburg //) 43 The order ‘mod > inf ’ in Table . subsumes the orders ‘modal > infinitive’, ‘particle > modal > infinitive’, ‘modal > particle > infinitive’ (particle referring to a separable verbal prefix), ‘modal > participle > infinitive of auxiliary’, and ‘participle > modal > infinitive of auxiliary’. The order ‘inf > mod’ refers to the orders ‘infinitive > modal’, ‘participle > infinitive of auxiliary > modal’, and ‘infinitive > modal > laten’.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Comparing clauses with indefinites and clauses with nicht mod > inf

inf > mod

entire corpus

all clauses with indefinites with nicht p = 0.6307

135 (26.5) 56 (23.2) 84 (24.9)

374 (73.5) 185 (76.8) 254 (75.1)

+en

all clauses with indefinites with nicht p = 0.729

19 (15.1) 9 (11.1) 15 (14.7)

107 (84.9) 72 (88.9) 87 (85.3)

−en

all clauses with indefinites with nicht p = 0.9565

116 (30.3) 47 (29.4) 69 (29.1)

267 (69.7) 113 (70.6) 168 (70.9)

cluster and 73.5 have the order ‘infinitive > modal’, which according to Burridge (1993) should condition the loss of en. Similar frequencies are found when negative clauses are separated into clauses containing nicht and clauses containing n-marked indefinites: the former have an incidence of 24.9 ‘modal > infinitive’ order and 75.1 ‘infinitive > modal’ order, the latter have 23.2 ‘modal > infinitive’ order and 76.8 ‘infinitive > modal’ order. A similar picture obtains if only clauses containing en are compared and if only clauses not containing it are considered. Fisher’s exact test (in R) demonstrates this lack of a significant difference, see Table 3.23, all p-values are well above the 0.05-level. In fact, in clauses without en, the distribution of both orders is nearly identical, whether sentential negation is expressed by nicht or an indefinite (p = 0.96). That means that the word order ‘inf > modal’, allegedly conditioning the deletion of preverbal en, is nearly equally distributed in negative clauses with and without indefinites in the scope of negation. This is a good indication that, whether or not the order itself is a factor influencing the realization of en, it cannot account for the differences between clauses with nicht and clauses with n-marked indefinites regarding the loss of en. The next question is which word order favours the realization of preverbal en. As Table 3.24 shows, the incidence of en does not differ significantly between clauses with or without indefinites in the scope of negation, whichever order the finite modal verb and its complement occur in. In case the order is infinitive > modal, the probability is closer to chance (0.59), in case it is modal > infinitive, it is virtually identical

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



Table .. Comparing verb orders all

+en

−en

mod > inf

with indefinites with nicht p = 0.9828

56 82

9 (16.1) 13 (15.9)

47 (83.9) 69 (84.1)

inf > mod

with indefinites with nicht p = 0.5924

185 256

72 (38.9) 89 (34.8)

113 (61.1) 168 (65.2)

(p = 0.98), indicating that the order in the verb cluster cannot be the triggering factor for the omission of en, as it is omitted with nearly the same frequency in both orders. It can be concluded that in the Middle Low German corpus used, there is no phonological conditioning behind the drop of en as was hypothesized for Middle Dutch by Burridge (1993), and that therefore such a rule can also not account for the lower frequency of en in clauses with indefinites. The frequency of the order infinitive > modal is not significantly higher in clauses with indefinites, rather, in clauses with this order without en, supposedly being en-less due to Burridge’s rule, the distribution is nearly identical (c.30 infinitive > modal vs. c.70 modal > infinitive). The second possibility was that there is a factor blocking the drop of en in verbsecond clauses with indefinites. It can be observed that there is a significantly higher overall incidence of en in verb-second clauses than in verb-final contexts with indefinites (c.43 vs. c.34 with nicht, p = 0.002 using Fisher’s exact test in R) and the frequency of en in this context drops more rapidly over time, compared to nicht in this context. But the question arises whether this is not an artefact of the way GoldVarb analyses the data. The average frequency of en in all verb-second clauses in the corpus (i.e. taking clauses with nicht and with indefinites together) is 39.5, in verb-final clauses it is 32.9. The average incidence of en in negative verb-second clauses with indefinites (43.1) is thus closer to this average (39.5) than it is in verb-second clauses with nicht (34.7). On the other hand, the incidence of en is very similar in verbsecond and verb-final contexts in clauses with nicht alone, as seen in Table 2.14. Both these observations account for the factor weights close to .5 in the GoldVarb analysis in each case. ... The influence of the type of verb The type of verb proved to have a significant effect on the expression of standard sentential negation with nicht (section 2.2.3.4), with lexical verbs making the transition from stage II to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle with a certain delay and modal verbs and especially auxiliaries leading the transition.



The History of Low German Negation Table .. The use of the preverbal particle with n-marked indefinites with different types of verb

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574 total

auxiliary

modal

‘special’

lexical

2 (66.6) 9 (64.3) 3 (18.8) 2 (8.3) 2 (6.1)

83 (62.4) 139 (59.1) 67 (34.5) 36 (22.2) 1 (0.9)

19 (86.4) 13 (34.2) 7 (19.4) 11 (47.8) 0 (0)

20 (74.1) 19 (43.2) 21 (55.3) 18 (28.6) 4 (11.8)

18 (20)

326 (39.2)

50 (36.8)

82 (39.8)

Similar observations can be made for the use of the old preverbal particle depending on the type of verb in negative clauses with indefinites. As seen in Table 3.25, auxiliaries and modal verbs already start out with a lower frequency of en than lexical and ‘special’ verbs in the earliest time segment. The absolute numbers for auxiliaries are rather low throughout, meaning that the statistics may not be as reliable. But the total number of negative clauses with indefinites and auxiliaries increases, indicating that the early sharp drop in the use of en is probably real. Also the developments in modal and lexical verbs seem to point at a stable decrease in the use of en over the entire period. The average percentages are rather close together, but the values for the individual sub-periods differ sharply. While the general ‘ranking’ of the different types of verb with respect to their influence on the realization of the preverbal particle is the same as for the realization of en with nicht, with lexical verbs most strongly favouring the bipartite expression of negation, followed by ‘special’ verbs, modal verbs, and finally auxiliaries (cf. the GoldVarb X factor weights in Table 3.26), the individual differences between the factors

Table .. Effect of the type of verb on the expression of negation with n-marked indefinites ne/en . . . NMI

NMI alone

factor weight

lexical ‘special’ modal auxiliary

82 (39.8) 50 (36.8) 326 (39.2) 18 (20)

124 (60.2) 86 (63.2) 505 (60.8) 72 (80)

.597 .567 .472 .431

total p = 0.043

476 (37.7)

787 (62.3)

verb position

3 Indefinites in the scope of negation



in this factor group are smaller. The factor weights of the individual factors all centre around a probability of 0.5. In case of lexical and ‘special’ verbs, the preference for bipartite negation is only slight, as is the preference of modal verbs and auxiliaries for the innovative stage III style negation. .. Summary Middle Low German essentially preserves the tripartite system of indefinites of Old Low German, though it replaces some individual indefinites. For instance, sum ‘some’ is lost and replaced by eyn, een. On the whole however, the system remains one in which there is a series of indefinites used in neutral contexts, one used in weak NPI contexts, but also licensed in the scope of direct negation, and one series, the n-marked one, restricted to the scope of negation. That is, NPI indefinites continue to be ‘inclusively’ distributed (Jäger 2007; 2008; 2010). However, while NPI indefinites are attested under direct negation, n-marked indefinites are nearly exclusively used in this context. Middle Low German has negative concord in the form of negative spread. The standard expression of sentential negation does not co-occur with n-marked indefinites. The original preverbal particle can co-occur with them, but as argued in section 2.2.1, no longer expresses sentential negation in Middle Low German. In this sense, Middle Low German does not have negative doubling. The main development in Middle Low German is the loss of the former preverbal negation particle en,ne < ni. The two extra-linguistic and two linguistic factors significantly influencing this process in negative clauses with indefinites are the same as in negative clauses with nicht: the date of composition of a text, the scribal dialect, the position, and the type of the finite verb. Also the precise impact of these factors was seen to be similar overall.

. Conclusion While the system of indefinites remains rather stable between Old and Middle Low German, major changes affect the interaction between indefinites in the scope of negation and the expression of sentential negation. It was argued in section 3.2.2 that Old Low German went from an original stage without negative concord, whether negative doubling or negative spread, to one with strict negative doubling, attested in the minor texts. This change is connected to the rise of n-marking on indefinites in the scope of negation during the Old Low German period. While the realization of indefinites in the scope of negation as n-free is the majority pattern in Old Low German, n-marking as the realization of indefinites in the scope of negation becomes the majority pattern in Middle Low German. Furthermore, n-marked indefinites become able to co-occur with each other



The History of Low German Negation

in Middle Low German, a behaviour that is not attested in the Old Low German corpus. As was argued in Chapter 2, the old preverbal particle ne/en < ni is no longer able to express negation on its own in Middle Low German. Given the definition of negative doubling adopted here (see section 3.1.2) requiring multiple elements expressing negation, any co-occurrence of ne/en and n-marked indefinites should not be counted as negative doubling, which was lost when the language enters Jespersen’s Cycle and replaces the old preverbal negation particle ni with a postverbal adverbial particle nicht in the transition between Old Low German and Middle Low German. The new expression of standard negation, nicht, virtually does not co-occur with n-marked indefinites as seen in section 3.3.2. In opposition to Old Low German, Middle Low German therefore has negative spread, but no longer negative doubling under the definition given in section 3.1.2. The next chapter introduces the theoretical background of the account of the development of the expression of standard negation as well as the developments concerning indefinites in the scope of negation in the history of Low German outlined in Chapter 5.

 Theoretical background Before a formal account of the developments affecting the expression of sentential negation and the interaction between the sentential negation and indefinites in its scope is proposed in the next chapter, the present chapter introduces the theoretical background for the proposal.

. Syntactic theory For the analysis of the data and developments presented in the previous chapters, a version of Minimalism (cf. Chomsky 1995b; 2000; 2001) will be adopted. In this framework, syntactic structure is formed by the operations Merge, which combines two elements into one constituent, and Move, which achieves displacement of constituents from lower to higher positions in the syntactic structure being built. Structural dependencies between constituents, such as movement, but also agreement, are mediated by the morpho-syntactic features they carry. These features can be either interpretable, that is, have an impact on the semantic interpretation, or uninterpretable. In the latter case, one speaks of purely formal features, the latter of which have to be eliminated from the derivation before the level of semantic interpretation by entering into an Agree relation with interpretable features of the same type.1 As the notion of interpretability relates to semantic content, that is, not narrowly syntactic properties, and thus requires look-ahead before reaching the interfaces between syntax and semantics, newer versions of the theory (Chomsky 2000; 2001) have assumed a distinction between valued and unvalued features, which are only relevant within syntax, to drive syntactic derivations. Under this view, it is required that all unvalued features (probes) have received a value from a bearer of a valued feature (the goal) upon reaching the interfaces. Pesetsky and Torrego (2007) propose that features vary along both dimensions—interpretability and valuation. For instance, gender as a purely 1 Depending on one’s exact view of feature checking, they can also enter into an Agree relation with other uninterpretable features of the same type, eliminating one of the uninterpretable occurrences, but will ultimately need one interpretable feature to be removed from the derivation (Pesetsky and Torrego , López ). Cf. Haegeman and Lohndal () for such a proposal in relation to negative concord, and the discussion in section ...



The History of Low German Negation

syntactic property (natural gender aside) is valued (lexically specified) on nouns, but uninterpretable (Carstens 2010, Bošković 2011), while it is unvalued (and hence also uninterpretable; Chomsky 2001) on adjectives, (120). (120) Portuguese uma cas-a nov-a a house-[uGen:Fem] new-[uGen:_] ‘a new house’ Verbs receive the value of φ-features (number, person) from nouns, on which they are interpreted; φ-features being both unvalued and uninterpretable on verbs, (121). (121) German Die Kind-er singen. the child-[Num:Pl; Pers:3] sing-[uNum:_; uPers:_] ‘The children are singing’ According to Pesetsky and Torrego (2007), an unvalued probe can have an interpretable feature helping to delete an uninterpretable feature on its valued goal. Tense, for example, is interpretable on T, but uninterpretable on v. v on the other hand provides the value, for instance, past. Under their approach, subjects also have an uninterpretable tense feature, which accounts for the agreement of subjects with T, that is, nominative case. In (122), the [iT]-feature on T agrees with the [uT] features on DP (=nominative) and v (solid arrows), and has its unvalued [iT]-feature valued by v in return (dashed arrow). (122)

T uf:_ iT:_

vP

DPsubj if:num,pers uT:_

v⬘ v uT:past

VP

Agree operates under c-command. Under the standard version of the theory (Chomsky 2000; 2001), it is the uninterpretable/unvalued probe scanning its c-command domain for an interpretable/valued goal (123a). But for Pesetsky and Torrego (2007), for instance, a notion of reverse Agree, by which an interpretable/valued feature values an uninterpretable/unvalued one in its c-command domain, is required. This obtains for instance between [iT] on T and [uT] on the subject in (122). However, as Zeijlstra (2008a) points out, there is no reason why the Agree relation between [uφ] on T and [iφ] on the subject should be primary and the Agree relation between [iT]

4 Theoretical background



on T and [uT] on the subject should be secondary. Furthermore, Zeijlstra (2008a; 2012) argues that reverse Agree is necessary to account for concord phenomena such as negative concord, where an interpretable negation feature needs to c-command uninterpretable negation features, (123). (123) Italian Non-[iNeg] ha detto niente-[uNeg] NEG has said nothing ‘(S)he said nothing.’ (lit. ‘She did not say nothing’) The syntactic derivation proceeds by continually building up structure by the application of the operations Merge and Move, and by checking features under Agree. At certain points during the derivation (the completion of a phase; Chomsky 2000), the structure derived up to that point is sent off to the interfaces with the cognitive systems, the articulatory (phonetic/phonological) and the conceptual (semantic) system, and is no longer accessible for syntactic computations such as agreement or extraction/displacement.

. Language change Grammatical change may be divided into three processes, viz. actuation, actualization, and transmission. A change is actuated when a certain reanalysis occurs in a certain linguistic context. A reanalysis may not immediately become apparent, or actualized, until it has spread to other linguistic contexts, cf. Timberlake (1977). Once a change spreads to more speakers, losing linguistic restrictions possibly originally attached to it, it is said to be regularly transmitted. In this study, a generative approach to language change will be adopted. Historical variation within one language is taken as an instance of cross-linguistic variation, i.e. variation between two languages, under this view because two different historical stages will have two (slightly) different underlying grammars (with respect to certain linguistic properties) in the same way as two different contemporary languages, or contemporary dialects of a language have different underlying grammars. This resonates with the Uniformitarian Principle (Labov 1972, Lass 1997) according to which ‘the linguistic processes taking place around us are the same as those that have operated to produce the historical record’ (Labov 1972:101) and ‘[n]o linguistic state of affairs (structures, inventory, process, etc.) can have been the case only in the past’ (Lass 1997:28).2 Chomsky (2005:6) identifies three factors affecting ‘the growth of language in the individual’ (and hence, by uniformity, language change): (1) genetic endowment (Universal Grammar; UG), (2) experience (primary linguistic data; PLD), and (3) 2

The term ‘Uniformitarianism’ was originally borrowed from geology by Whitney ().



The History of Low German Negation

‘principles not specific to the faculty of language’.3 While (1) (UG) restricts possible variation and (2) (PLD) can create variation within the limits set by UG, it is the socalled third factors that have come to be thought of as crucial in affecting how (1) and (2) interact in particular with reference to language change. Such factors are said to include ‘principles of structural architecture’ and ‘principles of efficient computation’ (Chomsky 2005:6), the latter also known as economy principles. Linguistic variation is assumed to be located in the properties of lexical items, an assumption called the Borer–Chomsky Conjecture, (124).4 (124) The Borer–Chomsky Conjecture All parameters of variation are attributable to differences in the features of particular items (e.g. the functional heads) in the lexicon. (Baker 2008:353) That is, what is subject to diachronic variation and change is the features of functional heads, leading for instance to changing patterns of agreement and movement. According to Longobardi’s (2001) ‘inertial’ approach to language change, based on ideas from Keenan (1994; 2002), syntactic change should never be spontaneous or internally motivated, but rather be triggered by other changes, be they phonological, semantic, or themselves syntactic (triggered by other phonological or semantic changes): [S]yntactic change should not arise, unless it can be shown to be caused—that is, to be a wellmotivated consequence of other types of change (phonological changes and semantic changes, including the appearance/disappearance of whole lexical items) or, recursively, of other syntactic changes, given a plausible theory of Universal Grammar (UG) and language acquisition. (Longobardi 2001:278)

In spite of controversy in the literature around Longobardi’s understanding of inertia (Walkden 2012), in particular from the point of view of an acquisitional approach to languages, to be discussed presently, the analysis of the development of negation in Low German proposed in Chapter 5 will retain the idea that solid triggers are required to cause syntactic change. Language change is assumed to take place during (first) language acquisition under the generative view. As children do not have direct access to the grammar(s) underlying the linguistic input they receive (the PLD), ‘reanalysis’, i.e. the postulation of a new analysis of the grammar that generated the input data, is possible where two underlying structures give rise to one surface form, or at least two very similar ones, perhaps only in a restricted context at first. As under generative assumptions, language 3

Cf. also Chomsky (:). ‘The availability of variation [is restricted] to the possibilities which are offered by one single component: the inflectional component.’ (Borer :) ‘Parametric variation is restricted to the lexicon, and insofar as syntactic computation is concerned, to a narrow category of morphological properties, primarily inflectional.’ (Chomsky :). 4

4 Theoretical background grammar 1 (adult)

grammar 2 (child)

output 1

output 2



Figure .. Andersen’s (1973) model of language change

acquisition is aided by the innate language faculty of acquirers, i.e. the principles of UG, it is expected that in an ideal world, children abduce the parent grammar perfectly during language acquisition, even if the input is defective. However, the input might be(come) ambiguous regarding the underlying rules to be abduced by the language acquiring child for instance by phonological change, due to e.g. the working of markedness constraints, because of borrowing, or because of imperfect second language acquisition in the parent generation, typically in a situation of language contact.5 The crucial role of language acquisition for language change was first pointed out by Andersen (1973; 1987), and has been at the heart of generative approaches to language change since (cf. Lightfoot 1979; 1991; 1999, Roberts 2007). The model is outlined in Figure 4.1.6 The acquisitional view of language change in terms of parameter re-setting during language acquisition in a way implies that changes occur abruptly. In fact, however, changes mostly surface in a gradual fashion and often take more than one generation to complete. Recall the diachronic variation in the expression of negation observed in Chapters 2 and 3; it takes the preverbal marker about two hundred years to be lost from the texts in our corpus. Often, the replacement of an older form with a newer one only slowly gathers speed, then proceeds more rapidly, and peters out with a slowly shifting residue, resulting in a typical S-shaped curve plotting the replacement (Kroch 1989, Labov 1994, Denison 2003). This slow spread of a new form may seem at odds with the acquisitional view. Once a parameter is set in a speaker, there should be no more variation within the same speaker. As Roberts (2007:296–297) discusses, the impression of gradualness arises from a combination of two types of factors ‘cushion(ing) the effects of an instantaneous, discrete, structural change in the historical record’ (Roberts 2007:297), (a) sociolinguistic ones and (b) grammatical ones. Regarding the first kind of factors, it has to be kept in mind that the research of historical stages of languages necessarily rests on the evaluation of written records. Written language tends to preserve archaic features, so style and accommodation may 5 For a cognitive model of language change under dialect contact, based on van Coetsem’s () notions of source-language agentivity and recipient-language agentivity, cf. Lucas (). 6 Cf. e.g. Andersen (:) and Lightfoot (:).



The History of Low German Negation

play a role, all the while an author may already have acquired the ‘new’ grammar, giving rise to variation within one and the same text. An impression of gradualness may also arise because of data aggregation—while some authors in a given period are more progressive, others are more conservative, giving rise to a mixed picture. On the side of the grammar itself, Roberts mentions factors such as lexical diffusion, more fine-grained parameters, and true optionality. A change may for instance happen earlier in one grammatical context and then spread to others. One generative approach explicitly dealing with the gradualness of syntactic changes is Kroch’s (1989; 1994) ‘grammar competition’ approach. According to Santorini’s (1992; 1993) Double Base Hypothesis, speakers are competent in two grammars during periods of change, that is, essentially bilingual with respect to the competing parameters or features, giving rise to the variation observed. This ‘bilingualism’ is unstable due to Kroch’s (1994) interpretation of the Blocking Effect (Aronoff 1976), which he sees as a ‘global economy constraint’. The idea is that one speaker can acquire two largely overlapping, minimally different grammars, or mutually exclusive grammatical options within one grammatical system, if there is sufficient triggering input (clear evidence that the input cannot have been generated by just one grammar): ‘the learner will postulate competing grammars only when languages give evidence of the simultaneous use of incompatible forms, s/he will always have positive and unequivocal evidence of competition’ (Kroch 1994:5). This simultaneous acquisition is explicitly likened to diglossia, which obviates the problem of the learnability of such competing grammars, as under a standard acquisitional approach, a parent language can only provide the triggering experience for a parameter setting in one unique way. The important point about the grammar competition approach is that it analyses gradualness as competition between two discrete grammars, thus maintaining the discreteness of parametric change that is important to the acquisitional approach, albeit on a different level (Roberts 2007:313). The exact time course of syntactic changes in Kroch’s theory is governed by extragrammatical factors: based on evidence that bilingualism is never fully balanced and bilinguals generally have a preference for one of the two languages, Kroch argues that ‘one would expect to see a shift over time in favor of the true “native” language of a community in cases of syntactic diglossia’ (Kroch 2001:722f). A variant can have such an acquisitional advantage if it is either more native to more speakers or if there is a difference in social register between the competing variants, that is, if some form of prestige plays a role. According to Kroch, children are sensitive to frequencies in their linguistic environment. That means that as soon as the new form gets a slightly higher probability of occurring in the input to the language learner, that is, a statistical advantage over the competing form, it will gradually replace the old form in use. We will see in section 5.3 how far a grammar competition approach can help account for the changes in the expression of negation found in historical Low German.

4 Theoretical background



. The syntactic representation of negation Since Pollock (1989), the structural locus of sentential negation within generative approaches to syntax has generally been assumed to be a functional projection. Based on a comparison of English and French, Pollock proposed to split up the I(nflection)P(hrase) into a T(ense)P(hrase), a Neg(ation)P(hrase), and an Agr(eement)P(hrase), leading to the hierarchy of functional projections in a clause seen in (125). (125) [TP [NegP [AgrP [VP ]]]] While the existence of AgrP was soon contested (Iatridou 1990), even for the languages that Pollock discussed, and while separate agreement phrases have fallen out of use since Chomsky (1995b)7 , the concept of NegP as the structural locus of sentential negation has since been very popular, and has been extended to other languages besides English and French. The NegP-hypothesis has also been very successful in accounts of the historical development of negation in various languages, as it offers head and specifier positions that can be targeted by new or old negative markers during their grammaticalization, as for instance proposed by Frisch (1997), Rowlett (1998), van Kemenade (2000), Ingham (2000), Zeijlstra (2004), Jäger (2008), and Willis (2011a). However, there are probably few functional projections on whose existence there is so much agreement, yet on whose exact number, syntactic position, and precise contribution to interpretable content there is so much division. In the current and the following section, 4.3 and 4.4, different proposals will be discussed critically, before a NegP-free account of the syntax of negation and of Jespersen’s Cycle is proposed in section 4.4.2. .. NegP-approaches to the syntax of negation The NegP-hypothesis has received several implementations. A problem with the extension of Pollock’s original NegP-hypothesis to other languages and historical stages of languages is that negation is not always expressed in the same position, and that based on scope facts, the logical negation operator, assumed to be encoded in syntax through NegP, must be in different hierarchical positions in different languages with respect to other material like tense or the subject, cf. Ouhalla’s (1991) NegPparameter. Under a view that functional features—in the present case the negation feature—correspond to functional categories and project functional projections

7 Julien (), in a large typological study in which she finds herself unable to generalize about structural positions of AgrP(s), cross-linguistically (‘as far as agreement markers are concerned, almost anything goes’, Julien :), concludes that ‘projecting Agr-heads are absent from all languages’ (Julien :).



The History of Low German Negation

(e.g. Giorgi and Pianesi 1997, Hegarty 2005), the presence of negation features in a derivation would cause the projection of a NegP. Zeijlstra’s (2004) proposal works along similar lines; according to him, a NegP is in fact only projected in case there are formal negation features present in a derivation. A semantic negation operator alone without overtly marked syntactic dependencies, more precisely, negative concord, will not project a NegP:8 [N]egative adverbs only move to SpecNegP if there is positive evidence for the existence of a [uNeg] feature. This can either be a negative affix, a preverbal negative marker, overt movement to a higher position than the position that the negative marker is base-generated in, or overt agreement with an element carrying a phonologically present [uNeg] feature. (Zeijlstra 2004:174)

Therefore, according to Zeijlstra, very closely related and structurally similar languages or historical stages of one language, which only differ in the presence or absence of negative concord in them, are distinguished by whether or not a NegP is projected. For Bavarian and Standard German, for instance, Zeijlstra argues that the former, but not the latter, projects a NegP, (126), because Bavarian has negative concord (Weiß 1998; 1999; 2002c), (127a), while Standard German does not. (126)

a. [vP nicht [vP . . . ]] Standard German b. [NegP nedi [vP ti [vP . . . ]]] Bavarian (after Zeijlstra 2004:175)

It seems somewhat artificial that two otherwise structurally so similar languages should differ in the amount of functional structure they project. Some authors have therefore argued that a NegP is universally projected in negative clauses, including in languages without negative concord; for Standard German, for instance Jäger (2008), for whom the projection of NegP is not based on [uNeg] features, but the presence of logical negation in a clause. However, it is not clear why Zeijlstra needs a NegP to account for negative concord in Bavarian. Under his proposal, ned is a phrasal negator bearing an [iNeg] feature that moves to SpecNegP to license [uNeg] indefinites under c-command. However, Bavarian negative indefinites invariably have to precede ned, as seen in (127a) and (127b). (127) Bavarian a. I hob’ma koa broud ned kaffd I have me no bread NEG bought ‘I didn’t buy myself a (loaf of) bread.’ (lit. ‘I didn’t buy myself no bread’) (Weiß 1999:837)

8

On Zeijlstra’s difference between syntactic and semantic negation, see also section ..

4 Theoretical background b. Mia hod neamad koa stikl broud ned gschengt. me has nobody no piece bread NEG given ‘Nobody gave a piece of bread to me.’



(Weiß 1998:186)

If the licensing of [uNeg] features is strictly under c-command by an [iNeg] feature, as Zeijlstra proposes for the negative concord in general, it would require that the indefinites reconstruct into vP in any case, and the phrasal negator ned might as well be adjoined to vP; a separate NegP would not be required. Neither approach can as such account for the fact that all agreeing [uNeg] indefinites have to precede ned in Bavarian. In fact, Weiß analyses ned as the head of NegP, which licenses the indefinites in its specifier under specifier–head agreement, accounting for their required positioning to the left of ned. The problem with this proposal, however, is that if ned was a head, movement of the finite verb to the left in verb-second and verb-first clauses would be expected to be blocked under the Head Movement Constraint (Travis 1984; cf. also Jäger 2008:54). Besides, the specifier–head configuration for agreement was abolished after Chomsky (1993), requiring a different solution for the leftward shift of Bavarian negative indefinites under current versions of Minimalism.9 A somewhat different conception of the nature and locus of NegP is presented under the cartographic approach to syntax. This approach postulates a fixed hierarchy of functional projections given by UG, which is intended to account for all cross-linguistically attested configurations of functional material—both grammatical morphemes, free or bound, and phrasal material such as adverbs, or arguments. ‘Configurations’ are understood as a combination of scopal relations and linear order. As the functional hierarchy is assumed to be given by UG, it is invariant across languages. The goal of the cartographic programme is to elucidate the precise ‘map’ of the functional hierarchy. Given the cross-linguistic variation in the linear and scopal position of the expression of negation mentioned above, different representatives of the cartographic enterprise have made rather divergent proposals as to the position of NegP in the functional hierarchy. Cinque (1999:124) assumes that NegP ‘can be “basegenerated” on top of any of the adverb-related projections below Modepistemic ’ in the hierarchy of functional projections he proposes to account for the order of adverbs and their interaction with tense, aspect, mood, and modality. This suggests that, according to Cinque, there is normally only one NegP per clause, which can positionally vary. This assumption is not shared by all proponents of the 9 This problem applies more generally to languages which are argued to exhibit so-called Neg-Shift (Christensen ) or Neg-Movement (Haegeman ). I do not attempt to provide an account satisfying current theoretical assumptions here, and only point to the possibility that Neg-Shift may be a specific instantiation of a more general requirement to raise quantificational material out of Nuclear Scope (Diesing ) to take scope or avoid existential closure (Heim ), which may be covert in some languages and overt in others. If this movement cannot be generally attributed to the need to satisfy a feature in NegP, but is but an instantiation of a more general pattern of quantifier shift, there is no requirement that the target of the movement of negative indefinites be NegP either, which undermines the view that NegP exists.



The History of Low German Negation

cartographic approach. On the basis of data from Romance languages, mainly Italian dialects, Zanuttini (1997) argues for four fixed NegPs interspersed with (extended) verbal and adverbial projections as seen in (128). (128) [NegP1 non [TP1 V+Agr [NegP2 mica [TP2 [AdvP already ] [NegP3 niente [AspPperf Vpast−part [AspPgen/prog [AdvP always ] [NegP4 NO ]]]]]]]] (Zanuttini 1997) Poletto (2008a;b) proposes yet another cartographic implementation of the NegP hypothesis for Italian dialects according to which there is only one (low) ‘big’ NegP. This NegP is, however, internally complex; it contains all the etymologically and semantically/pragmatically different postverbal elements found in Italian dialects also discussed by Zanuttini (1997), as in (129a). These then move from this low NegP via its specifier to functional projections interspersed with the Cinquean ones along the clausal spine, essentially arriving at the same hierarchy that Zanuttini proposed, as in (129b). Those target positions are not negation positions per se, but they check ‘other’ features these elements may have.10 (129)

vP

a.

vP

NegP Spec

Focus/OperatorP ScalarP

NO non

MinimizerP mica

QP/ExistentialP niente (after Poletto 2008b:64)

10 The trees in () are my interpretation of Poletto’s labelled brackets. Her paper does not state explicitly where exactly and how the complex NegP is attached to the clausal spine. According to Poletto (p.c.), however, the complex NegP is ‘attached to the vP[. . . ] as other adverbs’, that is, adjoining to vP or occupying the specifier of an unidentified functional head. For a similar approach within the framework of nanosyntax assuming a vP-adjoined ‘big’ NegP containing negative markers targeting different positions on the clausal spine, see De Clercq ().

4 Theoretical background



FinP

b.

ScalarP

TP

NegPi tj

Focus/OperatorP ScalarP non

tj

T+V

… …

MinimizerPj mica

QP/ExistentialP

TPanterior … vP ti

vP

(Poletto 2008b:69) According to Poletto (2008b), this proposal is an improvement on Zanuttini’s as it ‘makes a clear prediction of which lexical items can be grammaticalized and used as possible negative markers’. However, this seems to suggest that, for instance, minimizers can only ever turn into MinimizerP-negators. The fact that the neutral (standard) Italian sentential negator non for instance, which Poletto locates in ScalarP, derives historically from a minimizer after univerbation with a negation marker (non < ne unum ‘NEG one (thing)’; Jespersen 1917:7) seems to contradict this.11 It seems more likely that the grammaticalization options of lexical items are not determined by syntactic slots, but by the semantic properties of the lexical items undergoing the grammaticalization themselves (and the way they are interpreted, pragmatically), notably scalarity (Eckardt 2012). Just as under approaches taking NegP to be the unique locus of (interpretable) sentential negation, maximally one of the different NegPs assumed by Zanuttini (1997) or Poletto (2008a;b) hosts the interpretable features. All other NegPs are only postulated to provide structural positions in the fixed hierarchy of functional heads for negation particles that cannot be related to the interpretable negation features, and 11 Of course, as minimizers denote low endpoints of pragmatic scales, the distinction between a ‘MinimizerP’ and a ‘ScalarP’ appears somewhat artificial from a semantic point of view. Poletto (p.c.) allows for upwards grammaticalization from MinimizerP to ScalarP within the ‘big’ NegP.



The History of Low German Negation

to deal with the cross-linguistic variation.12 This position, NegP-1 for Zanuttini, or ScalarP for Poletto, where the remnant of the complex NegP moves, is situated above TP under both proposals. This assumption is problematic because there are indications that sentential negation non ‘not’, analysed as realizing Neg-1/Scalar, scopes below (non-clitic) subjects in Italian, the language whose dialects Zanuttini and Poletto analyse.13 Despite proposals to treat subjects as (structurally higher) topics in null-subject languages like Italian, Rizzi (2005:210) concedes that ‘there is clear evidence that a full functional unification of subject and topic is not possible.’ Evidence comes from the unavailability of Clitic Left Dislocation in contexts in which ‘preverbal subjects are fully felicitous when they express new information’ (Rizzi 2005:210), (130), and with certain quantified subjects, (131) (cf. also Cardinaletti 2004).14 (130)

a. Q: Che cosa è successo? what is happened b. A: Un camion ha tamponato un autobus a truck has bumped a bus ‘A truck bumped into a bus’ c. A : Un autobus è stato tamponato da un camion a bus is been bumped by a truck ‘A bus was bumped into by a truck’ d. A : #Un autobus / l’autobus per Roma, un camion lo ha a bus the-bus for Rome a truck it has tamponato bumped ‘A bus/the bus for Rome, a truck bumped into it’ e. A : #Un autobus / l’autobus per Roma, lo ha tamponato un a bus / the-bus to Rome it has bumped a camion truck ‘A bus/the bus to Rome, bumped into it a truck’ (Rizzi 2005:210)

(131)

a. ∗ Nessuno, Piero lo ha visto no one Piero him has seen

12 To be sure, taking the cartographic approach seriously, there is no need for functional projections to be projected from functional features, as they and their hierarchical order are hard-wired into UG. 13 Zanuttini (:–) only addresses the relation between NegP and the position of subject clitics. 14 According to Zeijlstra (), nessuno, as in () is analysed as exceptionally licensed by a covert [iNeg] operator inserted above the regular position of non (see section ., example (), for details). This position must therefore be below nessuno ‘no one/anyone’.

4 Theoretical background b. Nessuno ha visto Piero no one has seen Piero ‘No one saw Piero’



(Rizzi 2005:211)

Assuming that an NPI such as anima viva ‘a living soul’ is not very different from nessuno in quantificational terms, that is, that it is a subject and not a (higher) topic, the fact that it is not able to precede non, (132), points to non scoping below (Spec)TP. (132)

a. ∗ A living soul wasn’t seen. b. Italian ∗ Anima viva non si è vista. soul living NEG REFL is seen ‘A living soul wasn’t seen’

Therefore, while they provide different structural positions to accomodate negation markers of different etymological origins and degress of grammaticalization, neither Zanuttini’s nor Poletto’s cartographic approaches capture the interaction between the LF-scope and the surface position of sentential negation. .. Earlier NegP-free approaches Finally, several authors have argued that there is no NegP at all, whether only for English (Baker 1991, Ernst 1992) or universally (Penka 2011). Following Ernst (2002) and Nilsen (2003), according to whom the order of adverbs and functional categories is determined by semantic requirements like the semantic type of its complement or polarity restrictions, Penka (2011) argues that sentential negation interacts with other scope-taking material in the clause in the same way. She reminds the reader that, logically, negation is an operator, whose function it is to reverse the truth value of a proposition. Penka therefore proposes to treat negation as an operator OP¬ of type < t, t >, requiring an argument of type < t >, that is, a constituent denoting a truth value, returning the inverse truth value to the input truth value (133). (133) not is of type < t, t >  1 if t = 0 [[not]]= λt ∈ Dt . 0 if t = 1 (Penka 2011:10) Under Penka’s approach, the smallest projection in syntax of type < t > is vP, but other positions are not excluded.15 Such an approach, shifting the burden of ordering restrictions to semantic requirements holding anyway, avoids the unnecessary doubling of such requirements by means of a fixed hierarchy of functional projections in the syntax. 15

Cf. Penka (:) for negation operators modifying smaller constituents.



The History of Low German Negation

The negation operator can be covert (in some constructions) in some languages, as long as it can be inferred from overt material in the sentence, such as negative markers in surface positions that do not coincide with the semantic scope position, or (morphologically) negative indefinites (Penka 2011:51). This approach can for instance account for the fact that in strict negative concord languages such as Czech, negation scopes over quantifiers or non-subject NPIs even when these precede the negative marker, as in (134). If the negative particle marked the scope of negation, this would be unexpected. The covert operator is assumed to be merged above the quantifier. (134) Czech Milan OP¬ moc nejedl Milan much NEG=eat.PERF neg > much: ‘Milan hasn’t eaten much’ ∗ much > neg: ‘There is much that Milan hasn’t eaten’

(Zeijlstra 2004:245)

However, Penka’s approach cannot fully cover the typological and historical variation in the expression of negation as for instance described by Zeijlstra (2004). Zeijlstra observes that there are essentially the following types of languages with respect to the syntactic properties of the sentential negation marker: 1. languages with a weak [uNeg] negative marker or affix on the finite verb and a covert [iNeg] OP¬ (e.g. Czech) 2. languages with an [iNeg] ‘free’ syntactic head (e.g. Italian) 3. languages with an [iNeg] phrasal/adverbial negator, which is in SpecNegP in NC-languages (e.g. Bavarian), or adjoined to vP in non-NC languages (e.g. Standard German). While Penka’s account has no problems dealing with types 1 and 3, it encounters some conceptual problems in cases of languages of type 2. As for languages of the first type, Zeijlstra (2004) argues that the [uNeg] feature will project its own NegP with a covert [iNeg] OP¬ in its specifier, due to Giorgi and Pianesi’s (1991; 1997) Feature Scattering Principle, allowing every feature to head its own projection. [I]f there is no position available to host an element carrying [iF] and an LI consists of a feature [uF] itself, this feature may project itself in order to create new structure to host the element carrying [iF] to have its [uF] feature checked. (Zeijlstra 2004:159).

Specifically, Zeijlstra argues that . . . negative markers that are base-generated on Vfin carry an uninterpretable negative feature [uNeg] that needs to be eliminated. This feature has to move out of the verbal domain in order to project a higher functional projection NegP. Then the negative feature [uNeg] becomes located in Neg◦ , and it may merge with an abstract negative operator Op¬ that carries [iNeg]. Under spec-head agreement [uNeg] gets deleted. (Zeijlstra 2004:168).

4 Theoretical background



Zeijlstra considers that in some languages of this type the finite verb moves along with [uNeg] to Neg◦ . (135) [VP V[uNeg] ] → [NegP OP¬[iNeg] [Neg Neg◦[uNeg] [VP V[uNeg] ]]] In this first type of language, one would not need a NegP under Penka’s approach, according to which [uNeg] features are always licensed under c-command by an [iNeg] licenser. A simple adjunction of OP¬ to vP (or higher) as proposed by Penka would suffice to account for such languages; the [iNeg] operator would c-command the [uNeg] feature on the verb just as it would under Zeijlstra’s proposal involving NegP.16 Also languages of the third type can be accounted for without NegP as under Penka’s approach, as the adverbial [iNeg] element could be adjoined to any category of type < t >, licensing any [uNeg] features in its scope. However, if the negative marker is an [iNeg] head under Zeijlstra’s analysis, as Penka, following Zeijlstra, assumes for languages like Italian, the question is how it can attach to the clausal spine (as it needs to take a type < t > complement according to (133)) without de facto being the head of a NegP. I will propose an alternative analysis in section 4.4.2 which derives the typological differences between languages, accounts for Jespersen’s Cycle (not only in historical Low German), and assimilates the development of negation to grammaticalization phenomena in other lexical categories. Before that, I discuss approaches to Jespersen’s Cycle that have made use of the NegP-hypothesis.

. Jespersen’s Cycle .. NegP-accounts of Jespersen’s Cycle As mentioned above, most approaches to the syntax of negation follow a version of the NegP-hypothesis, some implementations of which were discussed in section 4.3. In a similar fashion, accounts of the historical developments affecting the syntax of negation differ according to (a) whether they take the presence of NegP to be subject to diachronic variation (e.g. Weiß (1998), Abraham (2003), Zeijlstra (2004; 2007; 2008b), Wallage (2005; 2008)), or (b) whether they assume a NegP always to be present (e.g. Roberts and Roussou (2003), van Gelderen (2004a;b; 2008a; 2011b), Roberts (2007), Willis (2011a)).17 For Zeijlstra (2004) and Wallage (2005), proponents of the first kind of analysis, the assumed variation in the availability of NegP is a consequence of the theory of Bare 16 Besides, as mentioned above, specifier–head configurations are no longer assumed to be required for agreement under current versions of Minimalism. 17 I will not discuss cartographic approaches to Jespersen’s Cycle here, in as far as they exist (van Kemenade  might be an example, although she remains non-committal about it). Under a cartographic interpretation, several NegPs are available universally, in each position in which some language or variety has a negative marker. It is unclear how the shift is triggered between which of these is ‘active’ in a given period and which ceases to be and why grammaticalization of more than one new negative marker at a time never seems to occur, even though one would assume all NegP-specifier positions to be available.



The History of Low German Negation

Phrase Structure (Chomsky 1995a), according to which structure is a consequence of syntactic dependencies. According to Zeijlstra (2004; 2007; 2008b), functional projections are only postulated by a language learner if there is evidence for the presence of uninterpretable features in the derivation, in the form of ‘doubling effects’ such as dislocation or agreement (cf. section 4.3.1). Negative concord being considered an instance of the latter, Zeijlstra assumes all negative concord languages to project NegP, while languages without negative concord only project NegP if they have a negative marker that has the distribution of a syntactic head.18 Wallage (2005; 2008), on the other hand, assumes that uninterpretable or unvalued features alone cannot project a functional projection. Hence at stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle, at which he argues the negative head to have an unvalued negation/polarity feature (as also assumed by e.g. Willis 2011a), there is a NegP only if there are visible reflexes of syntactic dependencies. In principle, the valued [pol:neg] feature is part of the feature specification of v◦ (Wallage 2005:302), as [uT: past] is, for instance, for Pesetsky and Torrego (2007). Analyses of Jespersen’s Cycle of the second kind have, for instance, been proposed by Roberts and Roussou (2003), van Gelderen (2004a;b; 2008a; 2011b), Roberts (2007), Willis (2011a), and, for historical (High) German, by Jäger (2008). According to these proposals, the head of NegP has an interpretable/valued negation or polarity feature at stage I of Jespersen’s Cycle.19 The future adverbial negator (for instance, French pas, English not, Welsh ddim, etc.) initially has no negation or polarity features at this stage, but is simply a negative polarity item or has an ‘uninterpretable operator feature’ that needs to be licensed by a suitable operator (cf. for French Roberts 2007:72; 79–80). Later, it is integrated into the negative system and acquires an uninterpretable/unvalued negation/polarity feature, (136a). At stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle, this licensing relationship is reversed by another reanalysis, which leaves the preverbal marker with the uninterpretable/unvalued negation/polarity feature and the new adverbial element with the interpretable feature licensing it, (136b). It is not clear what triggers the reversal of the feature values once two elements are present at this stage. (136) a.

NegP AdvP

pas uPOL[NEG]

→ Neg⬘ Neg

ne Pol[NEG]

b.

NegP AdvP

pas Pol[NEG]

Neg⬘ Neg ne uPOL[NEG] (Willis 2011a:96)

18 19

Recall the difference between Standard German (a) and Bavarian (b) discussed in section ... Approaches vary as to which model of feature checking or valuation is assumed.

4 Theoretical background



Once this step has been completed, the new interpretable negation marker may be considered sufficient to express sentential negation, leading to the loss of the old preverbal marker. According to Roberts and Roussou (2003) and Willis (2011a), these reanalyses affect both the head and specifier positions of NegP, that is, the material filling these positions as well as whether head or specifier carry the interpretable features. Under this approach, the question is what triggers and what restricts such changes. A concrete proposal has been made by van Gelderen (2004a; 2004b; 2008b; 2011a; 2011b). To account for cyclical change in language including negative cycles such as Jespersen’s Cycle and grammaticalization, she makes extensive use of so-called third factor principles (cf. section 4.2). The principles she proposes are the Head Preference Principle (HPP), (137), the Late Merge Principle (LMP), (138), and Feature Economy (FE), (139). (137) Head Preference Principle: Be a head, rather than a phrase.

(van Gelderen 2011b:298)

(138) Late Merge Principle: Merge as late as possible.

(van Gelderen 2011b:298)

(139) Feature Economy: Minimize the semantic and interpretable features in the derivation, for example: Adjunct/argument Specifier (of NegP) Head (of NegP) affix semantic > [iNeg] > [uNeg] > — (van Gelderen 2011b:299) Under van Gelderen’s proposal, the LMP accounts for the reanalysis of former arguments and adjuncts as SpecNegP, while the HPP is made responsible for the reanalysis of a specifier as a head, for instance within NegP. Feature Economy, finally, connects the changes governed by the LMP and the HPP and introduces a trigger for the lexical renewal typical of cyclical changes by postulating that uninterpretable features are more economical than interpretable ones. Given that uninterpretable features always need to be licensed by interpretable ones to prevent a derivation from crashing, this causes the grammaticalization of new interpretable material. (140) is a schematic representation of Jespersen’s Cycle based on van Gelderen (2011b:304; Fig. 8.4):20 (140)

a.

NegP

(by LMP)

Neg°

VP

[uNeg]

XP [NEG]

20

‘[NEG]’ in () symbolizes semantic negativity, cf. ().



The History of Low German Negation NegP

b.

XP [NEG] > [iNeg]

(by LMP and FE)

Neg°

VP

[uNEG] > Ø c.

NegP Neg°

(by HPP) VP

[iNeg] d.

NegP

Neg°

(by FE)

VP

[iNeg] > [uNeg] In (140a), a weak (=[uNeg]) Neg◦ negator is strengthened by a semantically negative element in VP. This element, by the LMP, comes to be reanalysed as SpecNegP, and by Feature Economy, it changes from semantically negative to [iNeg], while the original negative head loses its negative feature (140b). By the HPP, this [iNeg] SpecNegP element is then reanalysed as Neg◦ , (140c). By Feature Economy again, its [iNeg] feature becomes [uNeg], (140d). At this point, being ‘weak’ (=[uNeg]), it requires strengthening, provided by negative indefinites inside VP, and the cycle starts over again. Van Gelderen explicitly takes negative concord to be indicative of the imminent renewal of the expression of sentential negation. This is because the ‘weakening’ of the original negative marker that Jespersen (1917) takes to be the first step in the renewal, is seen as a change in the interpretability of the [Neg] feature of the negative marker, with [uNeg] being weaker than [iNeg], because a [uNeg] negator needs to rely on an [iNeg] (or semantically negative) licenser. The renewal of negative markers is therefore explicitly seen as inextricably intertwined with the availability of negative concord: if a language has negative concord, it means that its negator is a [uNeg] head requiring strengthening, which the concording element is thought to provide, and is regarded as being in the first stages of Jespersen’s Cycle, cf. van Gelderen’s (2011b:337–338) brief allusion to the triggers of Jespersen’s Cycle. This is problematic, however. Although there may be [iNeg] or semantically negative indefinites, these are not typically the

4 Theoretical background



source of indefinites involved in negative concord. A comparison of the historical development of indefinites across languages suggests that the latter often arise from NPIs (and potentially formerly positive elements), become increasingly restricted to the scope of negation, and typically stop at acquiring a [uNeg] feature (that is, their strong NPI-hood is reanalysed as a checking requirement with a negation operator) without (and against Feature Economy) developing an [iNeg] feature (Breitbarth et al. To appear). [iNeg]-indefinites typically arise through univerbation with an [iNeg] negator, which is but one of several strategies of creating ‘negative indefinites’ (Haspelmath 1997). If indefinites in negative concord languages were uniformly strengthening a [uNeg] negator, one could not account (a) for the distinction between strict and nonstrict negative concord (cf. Zeijlstra 2004) nor (b) for the fact that negative doubling (of any kind) most commonly correlates with negative spread (the co-occurrence of [iNeg] indefinites would lead to double logical negation). Furthermore, the new negators arising through Jespersen’s Cycle are not necessarily former concordant negative indefinites, a prediction that van Gelderen’s proposal seems to make. Finally, the impression arises that syntactic change occurs in a deterministic fashion: weakening under Feature Economy is inevitable, triggering, also inevitably, cyclic renewal, making use of the Late Merge and Head Preference Principles. However, as variously observed in the literature on Jespersen’s Cycle, languages can be remarkably stable, and remain in a certain stage for a long time, certainly a stage with an emphatic adverbial emphasizer preceding the actual initiation of Jespersen’s Cycle (see e.g. Posner 1985, Breitbarth et al. 2013). Given these problems, van Gelderen’s approach cannot be adopted as it is, and the role of the third factor principles, as well as the need for a separate NegP and its role in the renewal of the expression of negation, needs to be reconsidered. In the present book, I reject the NegP-hypothesis with respect both to the analysis of the syntax of negation and to accounting for Jespersen’s Cycle, based on the conceptual and empirical problems with this hypothesis discussed in the previous sections, and propose an alternative analysis in section 4.4.2. My analysis does make use of two third factor principles, Minimize Structure and (van Gelderen’s) Feature Economy, but I argue that they do not apply automatically, but need robust triggers, due to inertia (Longobardi 2001, Keenan 2002). .. A NegP-free account of Jespersen’s Cycle Under an analysis without a functional projection NegP, the locus of cross-linguistic or historical variation in the expression of negation lies in the morphosyntactic properties of individual lexical items, not in the position, structure, or availability of a functional projection NegP.21 This is essentially also Roberts and Roussou’s (2003) 21 This is, in a sense, a strict understanding of the Borer–Chomsky Conjecture in the formulation of Baker (), ().



The History of Low German Negation

and Wallage’s (2005) intuition, although they do not (fully) commit to a NegP-free approach. [W]e follow Déprez (2000) (who follows Ladusaw 1992) [. . .] in taking the cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntactic realization of negation to be connected to intrinsic properties of negative words and negative operators, rather than to the position and the structure of NegP. (Roberts and Roussou 2003:138).

In the present section, I propose such an approach. This approach makes crucial use of (what would nowadays be called) a third factor principle called Minimize Structure, first proposed by Cardinaletti and Starke (1999). The central claim is that the grammaticalization cline observed in negative markers, an instance of more general patterns observed in grammaticalization, can be understood as involving a successive reduction of the internal structure of the items involved. The term grammaticalization has been used in at least two senses, a functional one and a formal one. According to Heine et al.’s (1991) definition, it is a change ‘where a lexical unit or structure assumes a grammatical function, or where a grammatical unit assumes a more grammatical function’, while for Haspelmath (2004), it is a change ‘by which the parts of a constructional schema come to have stronger internal dependencies’.22 Cutting across these two definitions is an increasing semantic abstraction affecting elements undergoing grammaticalization (von Fintel 1995, Willis 2010a). In the cyclic renewal of negative markers, both definitions seem to apply. Functionally, formerly lexical material comes to be used as the expression of a grammatical category. Formally, there is the diachronic ‘fluctuation’ already observed by Jespersen (1917) between free particles and bound morphemes used to express negation, The history of negative expressions in various languages makes us witness the following curious fluctuation: the original negative adverb is first weakened, then found insufficient and therefore strengthened, generally through some additional word, and this in its turn may be felt as the negative proper and may then in course of time be subject to the same development as the original word. (Jespersen 1917:4)

As is the case with other instances of grammaticalization, the development of negation particles under Jespersen’s Cycle follows an ordered chain of stages, a so-called cline, each representing a higher degree of grammaticalization. In a first step, a nominal minimizer, generalizer or (negative) indefinite is reanalysed as a negative polarity adverb, and from there as a new (adverbial) negative marker. Such phrasal negative markers can then go on to become clitics and ultimately affixes, (141). (141) argument > adverbial emphasizer > phrasal negator > clitic > affix > ∅

22

Both quoted after Kiparsky (:).

4 Theoretical background



The similarity of the cline that negation particles follow when they pass through Jespersen’s Cycle and the development of, for instance, agreement morphology (Givón 1976, van Gelderen 2011b), (142), is striking. (142) noun/demonstrative > pronoun > clitic > affix > ∅ Under generative approaches to grammaticalization (Roberts and Roussou 2003, van Gelderen 2011b, Kiparsky 2012), the strict directionality from less grammatical to more grammatical, from less abstract to more abstract, and from independent to increasingly dependent is a consequence of universal properties of language, namely the hierarchical (scopal) order of functional cateories, combined with so-called third factors (Chomsky 2005; 2007) such as economy principles (see also section 4.4.1). The functional hierarchy restricts the possible pathways, while the economy principles effect the ‘upwards’ character of grammaticalization (Roberts and Roussou 2003, van Gelderen 2004a) and the formal cline from full phrase via clitic to affix and eventually zero (van Gelderen 2011b). However, under a NegP-free approach to the syntax of negation as advocated here, the question arises as to what position in the hierarchy newly grammaticalizing negative markers should aim for, if a designated structural position for sentential negation markers is absent. As argued above, such a ‘designated’ position is an illusion anyway, as the scope position of sentential negation is relative to other scope-taking operators, quantifiers, and its surface position is subject to cross-linguistic variation. It is also not necessary for a primary negative marker to surface in its LF scope position (for English, see for instance Cormack and Smith 1998; 2000; 2002). The alternative account outlined here is able to account for the formal cline in (141) without adopting the NegP hypothesis. This account relies on the notion of structural deficiency introduced by Cardinaletti and Starke (1999), combined with van Gelderen’s (2004a; 2011b) Feature Economy. Cardinaletti and Starke (1999) observe that many languages have synonymous pairs or triplets of pronouns which are differentiated by contrasting syntactic distributions, (143). (143) Je ✓ l’ ai aidé (∗ elle) I her have helped her (Cardinaletti and Starke 1999:152) The full or ‘strong’ class is syntactically independent, its members can be coordinated, modified, contrastively stressed, and occur in sentence-initial position like elle ‘she’ in (144a–d). A second, deficient or ‘weak’, class on the other hand does not have these three properties and is restricted to the middle field. The third class, clitics, are finally completely dependent on a host. Cardinaletti and Starke analyse French dative me ‘me’ as clitic, with moi as the weak and à moi as the strong form. La in (144a–d) is also a clitic.



The History of Low German Negation

(144)

a. Je ∗ LA ai aidé (✓ ELLE) I HER have helped HER aidé (☞ elle) (☞ = ostension) b. Je ∗ ☞ la ai have helped her I her c. Je ∗ la et l’autre ai aidé (✓ elle et l’autre) I her and the other have helped her and the other d. Je seulement ∗ la ai aidé (seulement ✓ elle) I only her have helped only her (Cardinaletti and Starke 1999:152)

Based on such data from various Romance and Germanic languages, Cardinaletti and Starke (1999) argue that the three classes of pronouns they describe—strong, weak, and clitic—are distinguished by the amount of internal structure they have.23 Weak pronouns realize less structure than strong pronouns, and clitics are even more structurally impoverished than weak pronouns. Similar to sentential syntax, they postulate three layers of functional strcture for lexical items, C, , and I.24 The C-layer encodes referentiality and case on pronouns, the -layer prosodic information, and the I layer φ-features. Therefore, weak pronouns, lacking the C-layer, can only occur in positions where, for example, their case information can be recovered; Cardinaletti and Starke suggest the specifier of agreement projections. Clitics, additionally lacking prosodic information, have to attach to a functional head able to license them prosodically. (145)

a. Strong pronouns CLP

CL°

ΣLP ΣL°

ILP IL°

LP

23 Note that the strong and weak forms can be homonynous and are distinguished by the ability to bear a range restriction (Cardinaletti and Starke :). Cardinaletti and Starke argue that deficient pronouns never bear a range restriction, while strong pronouns bear their own range restriction (+human, by default). This accounts for the differences in the examples in ().

() a. Elles sont trop grandes. (✓+human, ✓−human) they are too big b. Elles et celles d’à côté sont trop grandes. (✓+human, ∗ −human) they and those besides are too big c. Jean trouve elles et celles d’à côté belles. (✓+human, ∗ −human) John finds them and those besides pretty (Cardinaletti and Starke ) 24

This -layer is proposed in analogy to Laka’s (a) polarity phrase P at the clausal level.

4 Theoretical background



b. Weak pronouns ΣLP

ΣL°

ILP IL°

LP

c. Clitics ILP

IL°

LP (Cardinaletti and Starke 1999:195)

Furthermore, Cardinaletti and Starke (1999:198) formulate an economy principle called Minimize Structure, (146), which regulates the choice between strong, weak, and clitic pronouns, requiring the use of the most reduced structure possible, that is, unless it leads to ungrammaticality (=‘up to crash’). More reduced forms can only be used if the erased structure can be recovered, deriving characteristic distributional and prosodic restrictions on strong, weak, and clitic pronouns. (146) Economy of Representations: Minimize Structure. Only if the smaller structure is independently ruled out, is the bigger alternative possible. (Cardinaletti and Starke 1999:47) In (143), for instance, as the more deficient form la is available, the stronger form elle is ruled out. Cardinaletti (2010) extends this analysis to modal particles in Italian and German, arguing that they are in fact deficient adverbs, lacking the highest structural layer, which accounts for their distributional restrictions.25 It is a well-known fact that (German) modal particles historically derive from full adverbs, by a process of grammaticalization (Molnár 2002, Wegener 2002). Cardinaletti shows that just like weak pronouns, modal particles cannot be coordinated (147a) or modified (147b); they are positionally fixed, (148), but they are still prosodically independent. (147)

a. ∗ gehen Sie doch und mal zum Arzt. go you MP and MP to.the doctor ‘Just go to the doctor.’ b. trinken Sie (∗ sehr) ruhig noch ein Bier! MP another beer drink you very

25 The idea to treat German modal particles as weak adverbs using the approach of Cardinaletti and Starke () was first proposed by Grosz ().



The History of Low German Negation ‘Go ahead, drink another beer!’ (adapted from Coniglio 2005:30–31, cited in Cardinaletti 2010:495)

(148)

a. das Auto ist klein: billige Autos sind eben so. the car is small cheap cars are MP so ‘The car is small cheap cars are indeed like that.’ b. ∗ das Auto ist klein: eben sind billige Autos so. the car is small MP are cheap cars so (adapted from Thurmair 1989:28, cited in Cardinaletti 2010:495)

Further support for her proposal comes from the observation that some modal particles have progressed further in their grammaticalization, such as dn/n < denn ‘than’ (e.g. Grosz 2005; 2007, Bayer 2002a). Dn/n is prosodically dependent, and behaves like a C-clitic, appearing in the Wackernagel position (Lenerz 1985), (149a). ‘Weak’ denn, like the other modal particles, occurs in a lower position, within the middle field, (149b). Other, pronominal, Wackernagel-clitics cluster with dn/n, as seen in the Bavarian example in (150). (149)

Geburtstag? a. was schenkst (dn) du ihr (∗ dn) zum what give MP you to-her MP for-the birthday (denn) zum Geburtstag? b. was schenkst (∗ denn) du ihr MP you to-her MP for-the birthday what give ‘What are you going to give her for her birthday?’ (adapted from Cardinaletti 2010:501)

(150) Wann hod -a -s -da -n zoagt? when has -he -it -you -MP shown ‘When did he show it to you?’

(Bayer 2002a:23)

In parallel to the three classes of pronouns identified by Cardinaletti and Starke (1999), Cardinaletti (2010) argues that adverbs can be structurally deficient, too, (151). Like weak pronouns, weak adverbs (modal particles) need to be adjoined to a functional projection that can recover their missing structure/features. Like clitic pronouns, clitic adverbs need to adjoin to a functional head able to license them prosodically. (151)

a. Full adverb CAdvP

ΣAdvP

° CAdv ° ΣAdv

IAdvP ° IAdv

LP

4 Theoretical background



b. Weak adverbs (modal particles) ΣAdvP

° ΣAdv

IAdvP ° IAdv

LP

c. Clitic adverbs (modal particles) IAdvP

° IAdv

LP (Cardinaletti 2010:510)

I propose to extend this analysis to the cross-linguistic typology and grammaticalization cline of negative markers. That is, I argue that there are different classes of negative markers distinguished by the amount of internal structure they have. Unlike Cardinaletti (2010), though in line with Grosz (2007), I do not treat the process of structure minimization as a (purely) synchronic process, but (also) as a result of grammaticalization over time. As in other cases of grammaticalization, there may be a period in which an older (less grammaticalized) and a newer (more grammaticalized) form are simultaneously present in a language (divergence). Negative markers are no different in this respect. The assumption that some languages have homonymous forms of a negative marker with different amounts of internal structure can account for the ‘dual’ status negation markers have in some languages, for instance English or Norwegian.26 While English n’t has been argued to be an inflectional affix on finite auxiliaries by Zwicky and Pullum (1983), the long-standing controversy about whether unreduced not is a head or a phrase can be settled by assuming that when used to express neutral sentential negation, it is a deficient form. The stressed contrastive not, which is modifiable (absolutely not), would be analysed as a full adverb, only distinguished from the deficient element by its distribution, not its form. This is also the form used in narrow scope and narrow focus negation.27 Evidence comes from Cormack and Smith (1998; 2000; 2002) who show that there is a difference in LF-scope (and hence, by compositionality, underlying syntactic position) between neutral and contrastive not, scoping above and below possibility modals, respectively, the latter of which cannot be reduced to n’t, (152). While the reducible ‘neutral’ not expresses

26 27

Such ‘dual’ status was also observed for pronouns, see footnote . For these distinctions of what is traditionally called constituent negation, see Jäger ().



The History of Low German Negation

sentential negation, as shown by the positive question tag in (152a), the strong narrowfocus negator NOT in (152b) does not, as the negative question tag indicates.28 (152)

a. Edwin can’t/cannot climb trees, can he? neg > mod ‘Edwin is not permitted/able to climb trees’ b. Edwin can NOT climb trees, can’t he? mod > neg ‘Edwin is permitted not to climb trees’ (after Cormack and Smith 2002:137)

This suggests that English has in fact three instantiations of not with different degrees of structural deficiency: an affix n’t, a weak form not (Cormack and Smith’s Pol[NEG]), and a homophonous strong form not (Cormack and Smith’s Adv[NEG]) . Likewise, Norwegian ikke has what appear to be affixal realizations, besides more phrasal ones. Johannessen (1997), who takes this to be evidence of ikke’s general head status, signals that ikke productively assimilates with mostly monosyllablic verbs, leading to sometimes far-reaching phonological restructuring, (153).29 Of course, this assimilation only occurs in verb-second clauses, where the finite verb precedes the negator, (154). The full form can be stressed and modified, as in English, (155). (153)

a. har ikke > hakke ‘has not’ b. går ikke > gåkke ‘goes not’ c. syr ikke > sykke ‘sews not’ (from Johannessen 1997:3)

(154) Han sier at han ikke går / (∗ gåkke) he says that he NEG goes ‘He says that he’s not going.’ (155) Jeg aner slettes ikke hva du mener I know absolutely NEG what you mean ‘I absolutely don’t know what you mean.’

(Johannessen 1997:4)

Similarly, phrasal or adverbial negators like German or Dutch nicht/niet are ambiguous between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ adverbs in this classification. The strong form can be modified, contrastively stressed, and (marginally) be placed in the prefield if strong contrastive focus is involved, (156).

28 This test for the presence of sentential negation was proposed (besides other such tests) by Klima (). 29 This process is optional and ‘stylistically less formal’ (Johannessen :), but apparently productive, though Johannessen reports a few exceptions (e.g. ✓trer ikke > trekke ‘withdraws not’ but ?trær ikke > trække ‘threads not’). Assimilation with non-monosyllabic verbs also occurs, leading to the deletion of entire syllables, but is said to be lexicalized and not productive (e.g. skulle ikke > skukke ‘should not’).

4 Theoretical background



(156) German a. Das stimmt absolut / ganz und gar nicht that adds.up absolutely whole and wholly not ‘That doesn’t add up at all.’ b. Claudia hat A, B und C getan. NICHT hat sie D getan. Claudia has A B and C done not has she D done ‘Claudia has done A, B, and C. Contrary to that, she has NOT done D.’ In a neutral negative clause however, the weak form is used, which is restricted to a low middle field position at the edge of vP. We have so far seen cases of negators that would be analysed as affixal, weak, or strong negators. The question arises whether there are also ‘clitic’ negators. This can be answered affirmatively. I mentioned above that the only real problem Penka’s NegPfree approach faces are the ‘strong’ preverbal negators in several Romance languages. I propose to treat these negators as clitics on the finite verb in T.30 In many Italian dialects, they form clusters with pronominal clitics, like -l and me in (157).31 (157) Venetian No -l me piaze NEG -it me likes ‘I do not like it’

(Poletto 2008b:66)

The functional head prosodically licensing Romance clitic negators is thus T. The fact that they are dependent on T for licensing accounts for the fact that languages like Spanish or Italian do not allow true (morphological) imperative forms to co-occur with the negative marker (Zanuttini 1996, Zeijlstra 2004), but require a surrogate form (e.g. subjunctive or infinitive)—according to Zanuttini, (true) imperatives lack T.32 (158) (∗ Non) telefona! NEG call.IMP ‘Don’t call!’

(after Zanuttini 1996:187–188)

The question arises what information should be encoded in the structural shells of negative markers stripped by Minimize Structure, and how it is recovered. I propose

30 This may be a simplification; in fact, Zanuttini () distinguishes two positions for clitic negators in function of their distribution with respect to other clitics. These details are not important at this point. Also, clitic negators may be clitic on other functional projections than T in other languages, for instance C. 31 The similarity to (dialectal/colloquial) German dn/n clustering with pronouns in the Wackernagel position is suggestive, with the difference that this is T, not C as in (). 32 In contrast to the present proposal, Zanuttini (; ) posits a NegP to select TP. However, the fact discussed in section . (example ()) that NPI subjects are not grammatical in Italian suggests that the position of negation at LF cannot dominate SpecTP. This problem does not arise under the present account because the clitic negator adjoins to the head of TP, and therefore does not c-command (required for NPI-licensing) SpecTP.



The History of Low German Negation

that the ‘C’-layer corresponds to focus. A ‘full’ negator equipped with it can be used to express narrow focus of negation, a ‘weak’ negator lacking it needs to adjoin to vP, the domain of neutral wide information-structural focus; it can thus not express a different focus itself. The ‘’-layer, just as for pronominal elements and modal particles, encodes prosodic information. A clitic negator, lacking this layer, needs to attach to a functional head in order to recover this information. It was just argued that this head is T. Finally, the ‘I’-layer houses an interpretable formal negative feature. An affixal negator, lacking this layer, may be [uNeg], but may also lose a formal negation feature under Feature Economy. Table 4.1 sums up the properties of the proposed grammaticalization stages of negative markers. Cardinaletti and Starke’s economy principle Minimize Structure favours the insertion of more deficient forms where there is a choice between two available forms. This raises the question how such a choice arises, diachronically. Given the role of inertia in language change (cf. Longobardi 2001), other (and robust) triggers are required to set off structural change; Minimize Structure does not by itself create more deficient forms to be used. Neither does Feature Economy, under the assumptions made here, apply without being triggered. Clearly, Minimize Structure (146) is also not designed to account for the cyclic renewal of the expression of negation with new phrasal markers. The grammaticalization of new negation markers is a complex interplay of semantic and syntactic properties of input items, lexical bridging contexts, and the loss of original syntactic and semantic distributional restrictions (van der Auwera 2009, Hoeksema 2009, Breitbarth et al. 2013). In Chapter 5, the triggers for the specific changes in Old Low German and Middle Low German will be discussed. While the present proposal shares certain intuitions with Poletto’s (2008b) proposal, namely that negators with different amounts of functional structure move to different licensing positions in the clausal hierarchy, it differs from the latter by (a) not assuming that the structurally smallest elements are remnants of larger phrases which had lower material moved out of them first, (b) not assuming designated layers of structure for different types of negators depending on their etymological source, (c) not doubling these layers within a low adverbial phrase and on the clausal spine, and (d) not tying negators of different etymological sources to fixed structural positions. Table .. The four classes of negative markers and their properties

strong weak clitic affix ∗ middle

size

distribution

formal feature

CAdv P Adv P IAdv P AdvP

free∗ , constituent neg. adjoined to vP clitic on T affix on Vfin

[iNeg] [iNeg] [iNeg/uNeg] [uNeg/–]

field, but SpecCP possible

4 Theoretical background



The present approach is able to do without a separate NegP (or NegPs) projected on the clausal spine and still account for all the facts. Much as separate agreement phrases are no longer assumed and φ-features are now added to other (functional) heads, I propose that NegP(s) should be given up and that negative markers be treated as structurally dependent on other projections or heads, depending on their degree of grammaticalization, and that negation features can be added to other (functional) heads.33

. Negative concord In the analysis of the interaction between the expression of negation and indefinites in its scope in the history of Low German in Chapter 5, I will in essence adopt Zeijlstra’s (2004 et passim) approach to negative concord and refine it where needed, in particular using Haegeman and Lohndal’s (2010) proposal of Pairwise Agree to account for negative spread and the absence of negative doubling in Middle Low German. This account assumes that negative concord is a syntactic dependency between elements with uninterpretable negation features ([uNeg]) and one element with an interpretable negation feature ([iNeg]). [uNeg] features are licensed under c-command by an element bearing an [iNeg] feature. Such an element may be a covert operator. Zeijlstra outlines different systems for different types of languages.34 In a language like Italian for instance, the preverbal negative particle has an interpretable negation feature [iNeg], licensing [uNeg] n-words under c-command, (159a). If a [uNeg] indefinite precedes the finite verb and with it the normal position of the [iNeg] negation particle, it would no longer be c-commanded by this particle, (159b). In this situation, it self-licenses (following an idea suggested by Ladusaw 1992) by causing the insertion of an abstract OP¬ bearing the licensing [iNeg] feature, barring the co-occurrence of a preverbal n-word with the [iNeg] sentential negator in such languages (the non-strict negative concord languages), (159c). (159) Italian a. ∗ (Non[iNeg]) ha telefonato nessuno[uNeg]. NEG has called no one ‘Nobody called’ b. Nessuno[uNeg] (∗ non[iNeg]) ha telefonato a nessuno[uNeg]. NEG has called to no one no one ‘Nobody called anyone’

33 For similar arguments concerning gender and agreement phrases, see Ritter () and Julien (), respectively. 34 Examples ()–() are adapted from Zeijlstra ().



The History of Low German Negation c. OP¬[iNeg] Nessuno[uNeg] ha telefonato a nessuno[uNeg]. no one has called to no one ‘Nobody called anyone’

Other languages, such as Czech, have a [uNeg] negative particle expressing standard sentential negation. If the negative indefinites can be shown to be [uNeg] as well, such a language will always have an abstract [iNeg] OP¬ encoding the logical negation. In such a language (a strict negative concord language), n-words can either precede or follow the sentential negation particle without causing it to drop in the former case, (160). (160) Czech a. OP¬[iNeg] Ne[uNeg]volá nikdo[uNeg]. NEG-called no one ‘Nobody called’ b. OP¬[iNeg] Nikdo[uNeg] ne[uNeg]volá. no one NEG-called ‘Nobody called’ Finally, for languages without negative concord, Zeijlstra proposes that the standard negator and/or negative indefinites are semantically negative ([Neg]). Dutch, German, and the Scandinavian languages are such languages, according to Zeijlstra, as the sentential negator cannot (in the standard varieties of these languages) co-occur with negative indefinites, nor can negative indefinites co-occur with each other, (161).35 (161) Swedish a. Sven har inte[Neg] skrivit ingenting[Neg]. Sven has NEG written nothing ‘Sven didn’t write nothing’ (i.e. ‘Sven wrote something’) b. Ingen[Neg] har skrivit ingenting[Neg]. no one has written nothing ‘No one wrote nothing’ (i.e. ‘Everyone wrote something’) Zeijlstra (2004) claims that [t]ypologically speaking, all NC languages exhibit [. . .] both Negative Spread and Negative Doubling. In all NC languages, multiple n-words can establish NC relations, and in all NC languages a separate negative element (the negative marker) is involved in the NC relation. Languages only differ with respect to whether a negative marker should always accompany n-words. (Zeijlstra 2004:63)

35

Cf. Zeijlstra (: Chapter ) for more details of Zeijlstra’s proposal.

4 Theoretical background



With an eye on the developments in the history of Low German, however, both parts of this generalization will have to be modified: there are negative concord languages that exhibit negative doubling without negative spread, for instance Old Low German,36 and there are negative concord languages that exhibit negative spread without negative doubling, for instance Middle Low German or Standard French. The existence of these apparently unusual two types of language, which will be argued for below, will require certain adaptations of the theory. There are two alternative analyses of negative spread available in the literature, one in terms of Multiple Agree (Ura 1996, Hiraiwa 2001) between concordant indefinites and one in terms of Pairwise Agree (based on ideas in Pesetsky and Torrego 2007). Zeijlstra (2004) argues that negative spread is to be accounted for by Multiple Agree, the ability of one interpretable feature to (simultaneously) license more than one uninterpretable negation feature in its scope.37 (162) Italian a. Nessuno ha telefonato a nessuno. no one has called to no one ‘Nobody called anybody’ b. [NegP Op¬[iNeg] nessuno[uNEG]i ] [vP ti ha telefonato a nessuno[uNEG] ] (Zeijlstra 2004:259) 36 Biberauer and Zeijlstra () acknowledge that the existence of languages without negative spread but with negative doubling is predicted by Zeijlstra’s feature system, and argue that one variety of Afrikaans they call ‘Afrikaans A’ is such a language. In this variety, n-words co-occur with sentence-final nie, but not with each other (unless double negation is intended).

()

Afrikaans Niemand het niks gekoop nie no one has nothing bought NIE2 ‘No one has bought nothing’ (i.e. ‘Everyone bought something’) (adapted from Biberauer and Zeijlstra ())

It is, however, important to note that Afrikaans has two elements nie. One, sometimes called nie1 , expresses sentential negation and occurs in the middle field, much like Dutch niet or German nicht. The other, nie2 , occurs in strictly sentence-final position, whether the sentence is negated by nie1 or a negative indefinite (see, among others, den Besten b, Robbers , and Bell ). ()

Hy is ∗ (nie1 ) moeg nie2 he is NEG tired NIE2 ‘He is not tired’

(adapted from Biberauer and Zeijlstra ())

Nie2 is unable to express sentential negation on its own. Biberauer and Zeijlstra’s () ‘negative marker’ entering ‘negative doubling’ with n-marked indefinites is nie2 . It is furthermore important to note that Biberauer (; ; ), building on Oosthuizen (), has argued independently that sentencefinal nie2 is really a polarity marker, not a negative marker, based on the observation that it can also occur in non-negative affective contexts, besides not being able to express sentential negation on its own. Therefore, Afrikaans A does not count as an example of a negative doubling language without negative spread according to the definitions of standard negation and negative concord adopted in this book. 37 He bases this on the accounts of multiple case marking or multiple wh-constructions in Japanese by Ura () and Hiraiwa ().



The History of Low German Negation

Penka (2011) also assumes Multiple Agree and stipulates that it can be optional in some negative concord languages (such as Romanian and French) and that it is entirely unavailable in what Zeijlstra calls Double Negation languages, such as Present-day Standard German, due to her requirement that n-words be adjacent to their licensing negation operator in this type of language. However, given that Agree is an operation of narrow syntax, it should be universal, not parameterized.38 Against Zeijlstra’s (2004) proposal, Haegeman and Lohndal (2010) argue, based on the distribution of negative markers and n-words in West Flemish, that Multiple Agree overgeneralizes and that the required operation is (recursive) Pairwise Agree. Besides this empirical argument, Haegeman and Lohndal point out that Multiple Agree violates (the strict version) of Chomsky’s (2000; 2001) Defective Intervention Constraint, (163).39 (163) Defective Intervention Constraint α>β>γ ∗ AGREE (αγ ), α is a probe and β is a matching goal, and β is inactive due to a prior Agree with some other probe. (Chomsky 2000:123) According to their approach, two uninterpretable features can agree with each other,40 leading to the elimination of one occurrence of the two. This single [uNeg] feature can then enter the next binary Agree relation in a bottom-up fashion, until a bearer of an [iNeg] feature is encountered that will eliminate the uninterpretable feature from the derivation. (164) [ α [ β [ γ ]]] iF uF uF iF iF

uF

⇒ Agree ⇒ Agree (Haegeman and Lohndal 2010:197)

Haegeman and Lohndal’s account is based on the fact that negative concord in West Flemish is sensitive to the type of n-words and their relative position (165a,b vs. 165c), as well as evidence from DP-internal negative concord (166). Two types of features play a role, negative features ([i/uNeg]) and quantificational features ([i/uQ]).

38

For additional problems with Penka’s account, see section ... Zeijlstra (:–) adopts Hiraiwa’s () weakened (derivational) version of this (originally representational) constraint, allowing multiple goals to agree with a probe simultaneously once the latter is merged. Note that this mechanism necessarily only works with ‘reverse’ Agree, under which a probe c-commands its goals. This way, several unchecked goals may be present in the derivation at the moment the probe is merged. 40 See also Pesetsky and Torrego () and López (). 39

4 Theoretical background (165)



a. dat er doa niet dikkerst [uNeg] niemand [uNeg, iQ] gewerkt that there there not often no one worked eet has b. dat er doa niet dikkerst [uNeg] niemand [uNeg, iQ] niet that there there not often no one not [uNeg, uQ] gewerkt eet worked has doa niemand [uNeg, iQ] niet dikkerst [uNeg] niet c. ∗ dat er that there there no one not often not [uNeg, uQ] gewerkt eet worked has ‘that not often did anyone work there’ (Haegeman and Lohndal 2010: after their (14) and (27))

(166) dan ze va [DP niet vele [iNeg] geen boeken [uNeg] ] ketent not many no books contented that they of zyn are ‘that they are not pleased with many books’ (Haegeman and Lohndal 2010: after their (18) and (27)) They argue that there can only be Pairwise Agree between two elements with maximally matching features. That is, the features of two items have to be either identical to Agree (e.g. [uNeg] + [uNeg]), or match (e.g. [uNeg, iQ] + [uNeg]). They cannot Agree if an uninterpretable feature of a certain type is not matched, either by another uninterpretable or an interpretable feature of the same type (e.g. ∗ [uNeg] + [uNeg, uQ]). This situation obtains in (165c) between niet dikkerst and niet, causing the ungrammaticality. A Pairwise Agree account will be adopted in the present study (section 5.1.2), because of its conceptual advantages over Zeijlstra’s (2009) and Penka’s (2011) treatments of languages with negative spread but without negative doubling.

. Summary Summing up, a generative approach to language is adopted in the present book. In line with Chomsky (2005; 2007), three factors are taken to influence the course of language change: universal grammar delimiting the space of (historical) variation, language acquisition as the locus of change, and so-called third factor principles, such as economy principles. Two such principles will play a role in the analysis in the following chapter, Minimize Structure and Feature Economy. Following Longobardi’s (2001) ‘inertial’ theory of language change, it is assumed that robust triggers are



The History of Low German Negation

required to set off a change. Therefore, it was claimed in the present chapter, third factor principles do not actively drive change, automatically leading to ever more economical systems. Rather, their application is assumed to be only possible where independent changes motivate their invocation. We will discuss concrete examples from the historical development of negation in the next chapter. In the present chapter, a case was made for a NegP-free account of the syntax of negation and Jespersen’s Cycle. Under the proposed account, negative markers can be strong, weak, clitic, or even affixal adverbs in terms of Cardinaletti and Starke’s (1999) analysis of pronouns and Grosz’s (2007) and Cardinaletti’s (2010) analysis of modal particles. The position in the clause of the different types of negators is determined by their licensing requirements depending on the amount of structure they lack, not because of a fixed negative projection. Diachronically, the ‘weaker’ forms are derived from the ‘stronger’ forms by Minimize Structure and Feature Economy, given triggers provided through other changes. To account for negative concord, a modified version of Zeijlstra’s (2004) proposal in terms of feature checking between interpretable and uninterpretable negation features under c-command is adopted, the modification concerning the analysis of negative spread, for which Haegeman and Lohndal’s (2010) account in terms of Pairwise Agree with maximal matching is adopted. In the next chapter, the theoretical assumptions outlined in the present chapter will be applied to the observations made in Chapters 2 and 3 about the development of the expression of negation and the interaction between negation and indefinites in historical Low German.

 The development of negation in Low German As seen in Chapter 2, the formally (and semantically) non-negative (io)uuiht ‘anything’ is, in various forms, the element most commonly involved in strengthening or emphasizing the expression of negation in Old Low German. At that stage, the element that later grammaticalizes as the new negator under Jespersen’s Cycle, formally negative (n-marked) niouuiht ‘nothing’ < ni + iouuiht, was still rather uncommon. This is potentially related to the only slowly developing preference for n-marking indefinites in the scope of negation during the Old Low German period, which was discussed in Chapter 3. It was shown there that in the Heliand epos, the only Old Low German text that shows any variation between n-marked and n-free forms, indefinites like (io)uuiht, ioman ‘anything, anyone’ seem to fulfil the same function in negative clauses as indefinites like niouuiht, nioman ‘nothing, no one’, which was analysed as the innovative form. In Middle Low German, on the other hand, nicht ‘not’ > niouuiht has fully taken over as the standard expression of sentential negation and indefinites in the scope of negation are standardly n-marked, while the old preverbal ne/en < ni/ne can no longer express negation on its own. In this chapter, a formal account of the developments observed will be proposed. The changing interaction between sentential negation and indefinites is discussed first, in section 5.1, as the featural properties of the lexical items involved in the expression of negation can best be seen looking at this interaction. The changing expression of sentential negation under Jespersen’s Cycle is the topic of section 5.2. The changes affecting the negative particles will be analysed in terms of the account outlined in section 4.4.2. However, Minimize Structure or Feature Economy are not assumed to themselves drive the changes in the negative markers. Independent changes such as the emergence of an n-marked series of indefinites, or the rise of new adverbial reinforcers, are argued to be the triggers. Contrary to common assumptions, the former preverbal negation particle is not considered to be involved in the expression of negation any longer as soon as there is a new standard expression



The History of Low German Negation

of negation at stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle, that is, nicht in Middle Low German. Given the definition of negative concord adopted here, (58), which relies on the notion of ‘expressing’ negation as ‘indicating the presence of logical negation’, this entails that the co-occurrence of the preverbal particle and n-marked indefinites is not considered an instance of negative concord (negative doubling) once nicht has grammaticalized. The claim that the former preverbal negation particle does not express sentential negation any more also extends to the continued unsupported use of ne/en in exceptive clauses in Middle Low German, after the rise of nicht. It will be argued that the preverbal marker undergoes a lexical split early on, presumably already in Old Low German. The marker used in exceptive clauses is argued to have been reanalysed as a high, C-related marker.

. The interaction of indefinites and negation in historical Low German In Chapter 3, the following developments in historical Low German were seen. The use of n-marked indefinites in the scope of negation was initially uncommon in Old Low German, but increases in frequency in the course of that period. By the Middle Low German period, n-marked indefinites become near-obligatory in the scope of negation. Based on this observation, it was concluded that the nmarked series of indefinites is historically younger than the n-free one. A likely scenario is that this series formed by univerbation of the indefinites of the n-free series with the negative particle ni: ni + ioman ‘NEG + anyone’ > nioman ‘no one’. In order to account for the developments observed, I will adopt a combination of the analyses offered by Zeijlstra (2004; 2011) and Haegeman and Lohndal (2010) and adapt it to fit the specific developments in historical Low German. .. Negative concord in Old Low German As noted in section 3.2.2, n-marked indefinites are absent in the Genesis fragments, relatively rare in the Heliand epos, but used in all relevant cases in the minor texts, suggesting a diachronic increase in their frequency during the Old Low German period. Furthermore, n-marked indefinites could not co-occur with each other in Old Low German, as witnessed by the absence of negative spread in clauses with more than one indefinite in the scope of negation such as (81), repeated here. (167)

a. Nis thes tueho enig gumono nigienumu NEG=is the.GEN.SG.N doubt any men.GEN.PL none.DAT.PL ‘None of the men have any doubt about it’ (lit. ‘there is not any doubt about it to none of the men’) (Heliand 3190–3191)

5 The development of negation in Low German



b. it ni mag iu te enigoro frumu huuergin | uuerdan te it NEG can you to any benefit at.all redound to enigumu uuilleon. any happiness ‘It is not able to do you any good at all, nor bring you any happiness’ (Heliand 1854–1855) This pattern of interaction can be summarized as there being no negative spread, but obligatory negative doubling. Under an analysis along the lines of Zeijlstra (2004) or Haegeman and Lohndal (2010), one is forced to analyse these data such that the n-marked indefinites of Old Low German carried an interpretable [Neg]-feature, as they cannot co-occur with each other. This situation would at least hold in the Heliand, where both n-marked and n-free indefinites occur in the scope of negation, and where cases of more than one indefinite in a negative clause are attested. Such an analysis also implies that, at least in the Heliand, the preverbal negation particle must carry an uninterpretable [Neg]-feature, as it can co-occur with the [iNeg] n-marked indefinites. Being [uNeg], it is either licensed by a covert [iNeg] operator OP¬ (in the absence of an n-marked indefinite), or by an [iNeg] n-marked indefinite. The question arises how to analyse the negative particle ni/ne in the Genesis, where n-marked indefinites are not attested and how to account for the transition to the type of interaction found in Middle Low German (section 5.1.2). The fact that all negative clauses in the Genesis contain ni, and that no n-marked indefinites are used in the scope of negation might suggest that ni carries an [iNeg] feature here. On the other hand, there is one case of an NPI subject preceding the negated verb in the Genesis, (168a), which on the contrary would suggest that ni is [uNeg] in the Genesis as in the Heliand. This is so because, according to Zeijlstra (2004), NPI-subjects can only precede a sentential negator in languages in which the negator carries a [uNeg] feature. From example (168a), it looks as though ni/ne is a clitic, certainly a deficient form, on the finite verb under the analysis proposed in section 4.4.2.1 It attaches before gi-, an aspectual marker on the verb. Assuming that ênig seg is in SpecTP in this example, and ni ginas in T2 , a covert [iNeg] OP¬ adjoined to TP would license both the NPI subject and the [uNeg] negation particle on the finite verb. The partitive pronoun is ‘of it’ is analysed as a Wackernagel clitic here, following Axel’s (2007) findings on clitic pronouns in closely related Old High German.

1

For more discussion of the status of the preverbal marker, see below. In a right-headed TP as proposed for the structurally very similar Old High German (e.g. Lenerz ; , Axel , Jäger ). 2



The History of Low German Negation

(168)

a. that is ênig seg ni ginas that of.it any man NEG was.saved ‘that no man was saved from it’ b.

(Genesis 322)

CP TP

C that-is OP¬

TP T

DP ênig seg i

vP ti

T tj

ni-ginasj

A futher argument in favour of assuming that preverbal ni/ne already had an uninterpretable [uNeg] feature in the Genesis is that the distribution of n-marked and n-free indefinites could not be shown to differ significantly between the Genesis and the Heliand, which were written around the same time (see section 3.2.2). Given that all other West-Germanic languages used n-marked indefinites which are cognates of the Old Low German ones (ni + n-free indefinite) from their earliest attestations on, it is unlikely that only Old Low German should have created them late. Rather, they must be a common West Germanic development and were probably only accidentally not attested in the Genesis, being attested in c.20 of the cases in the earliest Old Low German text, the Heliand.3 As the n-marked series is transparently derived from the NPI-series by univerbation with ni, the fact that n-marked indefinites should have an [iNeg] feature is not surprising. In an earlier stage, to be reconstructed for Old Low German, the preverbal negation marker must have carried an [iNeg] feature, deriving the [iNeg] n-marked indefinites. A plausible scenario is that in that reconstructed stage, negation was expressed by [iNeg] ni on the verb in finite negative clauses with indefinites, while n-free NPI forms were used for the indefinites. In isolation, for instance in fragment answers, ni + NPI indefinite was used, because NPI indefinites cannot form elliptical answers by themselves.4

3 Cf. section .., where it was seen that the difference in distribution of n-marked indefinites in Heliand and Genesis was not statistically significant. 4 This is seen in other languages with NPI indefinites, for instance North Sámi (Marit Julien, p.c.), ().

maidege. () Q: Maid don leat oaidnán? A: ∗ (In) NEG.1sg anything what.ACC you is seen ‘Q: What have you seen? – A: Nothing’

5 The development of negation in Low German



Once formed, the [iNeg] indefinites would constitute an external cause for a reanalysis of feature content of the preverbal negation particle (following Feature Economy), which could also account for the dispreference of negative doubling in the Genesis and the Heliand—initially, double negation between an [iNeg] ni/ne and [iNeg] n-marked indefinites had to be avoided. The new n-marked series of indefinites, once it was formed, had three important properties distinguishing it from the n-free series. First, its members were restricted to the scope of negation. Second, they were morphologically marked for this restriction. This means that a more specific series of indefinites became available for use in the scope of negation. Jäger (2008; 2010) proposes that the choice between available series of indefinites is governed by a form of the Elsewhere Condition (Kiparsky 1973), according to which a more specific form will be used in a given context if it is available. This might be behind the rise of the n-marked indefinites in Old Low German, too. Third, carrying an interpretable negation feature [iNeg] according to the argument above, this series of indefinites was able to mark overtly the presence of logical negation instead of indicating the presence of a covert OP¬. Assuming that the covert expression of sentential negation is only a last resort option,5 this new series of indefinites avoids the need to postulate a covert operator. Two questions may arise at this point. First, would postulating an [iNeg] feature on an n-marked indefinite (negative quantifier) not lead to double negation with the covert [iNeg] operator whose insertion is triggered by the [uNeg] feature on the negation particle ni (under Ladusaw’s 1992 self-licensing)? And second, how is the availability of split-scope readings in Old Low German accounted for? The availability of such readings is the reason for which Penka (2011) assumes that negative indefinites invariably carry a [uNeg] feature.6 Also in Old Low German, such readings are found, assuming, as proposed above, that ni/ne had a [uNeg] feature and n-marked indefinites an [iNeg] feature. In (169), the scope order appears to be ¬ > modal > ∃, while the surface order is modal > ¬ > ∃ ([uNeg] > modal > [iNeg]).

5

Cf. also Zeijlstra (:). Such readings arise where negation is expressed on an indefinite following a modal verb, but where the unmarked scope reading is negation > modal > existential quantifier, as in () (cf. also Penka and von Stechow  and Penka ). 6

() Bei der Prüfung muss kein Professor anwesend sein. at the exam needs/must no professor present be a. ‘It is not required that there be a professor present.’ b. ‘There is no professor who is required to be present.’ c. ?? ‘It is required that there be no professor present.’

¬ > must > ∃ ¬ ∃ > must must > ¬ ∃ (Penka :)



The History of Low German Negation

(169) Sie quadun tho that sie ni[uNeg] mostin manno they said then that they NEG could man.DAT nigenumu[iNeg] an the helagon tid te handbanon uuerden none.DAT in the holy time to murderer become ‘they said that they could not become the murderer of any man on the holiday’ ¬ > motan > ∃ (Heliand 5198–5200) Regarding the first question, the position assumed in the present work is that covert [iF] operators should only be projected as a matter of last resort in order to ensure syntactic licensing of all uninterpretable features [uF] (see also Zeijlstra 2004:246). Assuming, as is common within the Minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995b; 2000; 2001), that syntactic derivations proceed in a bottom-up fashion, ni’s [uNeg]-feature is already licensed at the level of vP before any covert operator would be merged, minimally adjoining to vP (Penka 2011), or in the specifier of a designated NegP under Zeijlstra’s approach. This is true for both object (170) and subject (171) n-words. Even adverbial n-words, in the present corpus only nio ‘never’, if analysed as adjoined to vP, are unproblematic. In all cases, [iNeg] c-commands [uNeg] and thus ensures the syntactic licensing.7 (170)

a. ne antuuordida niouuiht uuid iro uurethun uuord NEG answered nothing against their hostile words ‘He didn’t reply anything to their hostile words.’ (Heliand 5382–5383) b.

vP: ¬∃u[thing (u) ∧ λx.answer (x,u)](h)= ¬∃u[thing (u) ∧ answer (h,u)]

DP: h ∅.3SG

vP: λP.¬∃u[thing (u) ∧ P(u)](λyλx.answer (x,y)) =¬∃u[thing (u) ∧ λx.answer (x,u)]

DP: λP.¬∃u[thing (u) ∧ P(u)]

v◦ : λyλx.answer (x,y)

niouuiht [iNeg]

ne-antuuordida [uNeg]

7 The trees in (b) and (b) represent the base-generated word orders. After that, verb movement to C or Foc still applies. It is well known, however, that such movement reconstructs, cf. the grammaticality of NPI-verbs like German brauchen or Dutch hoeven ‘need’ in verb-second clauses.

5 The development of negation in Low German (171)



a. that san ni suerea neoman enigan edstaf . . . that soon NEG swear no one any oaths ‘that no one should swear any oaths soon . . .’ (Heliand 1508–1509) b.

vP: λP.¬∃u[person (u) ∧ P(u)](∃z[oath (z) ∧ λx.swear (x,z)]) =¬∃u[person (u) ∧ ∃z[oath (z) ∧ swear (u,z)]]

v :

DP: λP.¬∃u[person (u) ∧ P(u)]

λP.∃z[oath (z)&P(z)](λyλx.swear (x,y)) =∃z[oath (z) ∧ λx.swear (x,z)]

neoman [iNeg]

DP: λQλP.∃z[Q(z)&P(z)](λv.oath (v)) =λP.∃z[oath (z)&P(z)]

v◦ : λyλx.swear (x,y) ni-suerea [uNeg]

D λQλP.∃z[Q(z)&P(z)]

NP λv.oath (v)

enigan

edstaf

The scenario proposed here can thus account for the absence of negative spread in Old Low German, see (81), as well as its rise between Old Low German and Middle Low German, (119). As just argued, the new morphologically negative series starts out having an [iNeg] feature. The rise of negative spread can be accounted for by assuming that this changes into a [uNeg] feature during later Old Low German or early Middle Low German, again as a consequence of the present understanding of van Gelderen’s (2008a; 2011b) Feature Economy. Concerning the second question, how to account for split-scope readings if the n-marked indefinites arising in Old Low German are [iNeg] instead of [uNeg], the proposal by Zeijlstra (2011) to analyse such indefinites as syntactically complex items will be adopted. According to Zeilstra, the negative indefinites in languages without negative concord consist of an indefinite and a covert negation operator OP¬ carrying an interpretable negation feature [iNeg]. The whole complex item may undergo Quantifier Raising to a higher scope position, after which the negative operator is interpreted in the higher copy, but the indefinite in the lower copy. Even in such a situation, the whole lexical item is spelled out as a single word. The derivation in (172) shows how this works for a negative clause, (74) from section 3.2.1, from the Heliand



The History of Low German Negation

containing a modal verb and an n-marked indefinite.8 Neoman in (172a) is represented in (172b) as a complex consisting underlyingly of the indefinite eoman and the negative operator, which is spelt out as n-. The underlined part of the syntactically complex element indicates where this part is interpreted. (172)

a. Ni scal neoman lioht the it habad liudiun dernean NEG shall no one light who it have people.DAT.PL hide ‘No one who has it should hide a light from people.’ (Heliand 1405) b.

CP

C

DP OP¬

eoman TP

C ni-scal

T

VP

OP¬

eoman

tni−scal

V

DP

V

lioht DP

V

liudiun

dernean

It can be concluded that an analysis of ni/ne as [uNeg] and of n-marked indefinites as [iNeg] in Old Low German, suggested by their syntactic distribution, is possible making fairly standard assumptions about syntactic derivations and their interpretation.

8 The representation in (b) abstracts away from the question of what the original position of the modal verb is, whether this should be a biclausal or a monoclausal structure, perhaps with a layered VP. For ease of exhibition, it was put in T. Old Low German modal verbs have not yet developed non-finite verb forms, thus potentially justifying this simplification. The only exception is uuillian, which is attested as an infinitive once in the Heliand, cf. Breitbarth ():

() Ni scal that riki god, quad he, uualdand uuillien. NEG shall that empire God said he ruling will-INF ‘He said: The ruling God shall not want/desire that empire’

(Heliand –)

5 The development of negation in Low German



.. Negative concord in Middle Low German As seen in Chapter 3, the dominant type of negative concord in Middle Low German is negative spread, regardless of the (dwindling) presence of ni/ne, which—unable to express negation on its own (cf. section 3.3.2)—should not count as the standard negator at that stage. While n-marked indefinites can co-occur with each other in Middle Low German, they do not co-occur with the new standard sentential negator, nicht. In order to account for these observations, a version of Haegeman and Lohndal’s (2010) proposal will be assumed. The type of negative concord found in Middle Low German—negative spread without negative doubling with the standard expression of negation—is also found in other languages, in Standard French for instance. Zeijlstra (2009) and Penka (2011) have proposed accounts for this. I will briefly discuss the problems with their accounts before proposing an alternative, exploiting the options offered by Haegeman and Lohndal’s (2010) account (see section 4.5). Under Zeijlstra’s (2009) account of French negative concord, the absence of negative doubling is to be attributed to the properties of pas. Zeijlstra argues that pas is semantically negative (¬(∃)), but does not have a formal (syntactic) [iNeg] feature which could license the [uNeg] n-words under Agree. Accordingly, the semantic negation feature clashes (that is, produces double negation) with the [iNeg] OP¬ projected by the [uNeg] features of the n-words. (173)

a. Op¬[iNeg] Jean (ne) mange pas[¬] rien[uNeg] Jean NE eats NEG n-thing ‘Jean doesn’t eat nothing’ b. Op¬[iNeg] Personne[uNeg] (ne) mange pas[¬] rien[uNeg] n-body NE eats NEG n-thing ‘Nobody doesn’t eat anything’ (Zeijlstra 2009: his (19))

The problem with this account is that the distinction between a ‘semantic’ and an ‘interpretable’ formal feature is not intuitive. Both introduce a logical negation operator at LF. It is not clear why a ‘semantic’ negation feature should not be able to license an uninterpretable negation feature on an indefinite, unless a distinction between (un)interpretable and (un)valued features as proposed for instance by Pesetsky and Torrego (2007) is made, according to which n-words would have an uninterpretable, but valued negation feature, and therefore do not need valuation from the semantically negative pas. Zeijlstra does not make such a distinction explicitly, and it is doubtful whether such an account is able to derive all the facts. If n-words were, for instance, [uPol: neg], if the sentential negator were [iPol: neg], and if OP¬ were [iPol: _], and the reason why negative doubling is not available were that the presence of two valued negation features leads to double negation, the presence of two n-words would also lead to double negation.



The History of Low German Negation

Penka (2011) on the other hand attributes the blocking of negative doubling to properties of the n-words themselves, by distinguishing [uNeg] and [uNeg∅] indefinites. She proposes that n-words in languages like French are equipped with a special [uNeg∅] feature that can only be licensed by a covert negation operator OP¬ [iNeg∅], (174a-ii, b-ii). The sentential negator pas on the other hand is [iNeg], and thus unable to enter an Agree relation with the [uNeg∅] n-words, (174a-i, b-ii). This is unlike ‘normal’ [uNeg] n-words which, according to Penka, can be licensed by either overt or covert carriers of an interpretable negation feature, (174b-i). (174) sums up Penka’s proposed inventory of features, (175) illustrates the proposed licensing mechanism. (174) Inventory of [Neg]-features: a. Interpretable features: i. [iNeg] on (some) negative markers ii. [iNeg∅] on the abstract negation operator Op¬ b. Uninterpretable features: i. [uNeg] has to be checked by [iNeg] or [iNeg∅] ii. [uNeg∅] has to be checked by [iNeg∅] (Penka 2011:79) (175) Jean n’a pas[iNeg] [VP OP¬[iNeg∅] [VP vu personne[uNeg∅]]] Agree

×

(after Penka 2011:80)

The main problem with Penka’s proposal is the assumption that [uNeg] n-words can be checked by either a bearer of an [iNeg] feature or by a covert OP¬ bearing the special [iNeg∅] feature (174b-i), while standard Minimalism does not allow agreement between unlike features. If a [iNeg∅] is indeed different from a [iNeg] feature, it should only be able to license [uNeg∅] indefinites, while [uNeg] indefinites could only be licensed by [iNeg] elements.9 The second problem for a broader adoption of Penka’s proposal is the assumption of a parameterization of (Multiple) Agree, mentioned in section 4.5. A final problem specifically for the applicability of Penka’s approach to historical Low German is that she assumes negative indefinites to be [uNeg] universally. This, as we have seen, cannot account for the Old Low German system. As seen above, the negative particle ni must be [uNeg], as the language has strict negative doubling, and as even n-free NPI subjects can precede the negative particle on the finite verb and still be interpreted within the scope of negation. If the n-marked indefinites were [uNeg] as well, the absence of negative spread and its later rise could not be explained in a satisfactory way. In those languages that Penka studied, a system with a [uNeg] 9

I thank a reviewer for OUP for pointing this out.

5 The development of negation in Low German



negation particle and (under her analysis) [uNeg(∅)] n-words has at least optional, if not obligatory, negative spread. Therefore, an account along the lines proposed by Haegeman and Lohndal (2010) for West Flemish will be adopted.10 The features of the negative markers and nmarked indefinites in the different periods of historical Low German are summarized in Table 5.1. As argued in section 5.1.1, the preverbal negator originally must have carried an [iNeg] feature, which was reconstructed based on the fact that negative doubling only seems to have arisen later, and the initial absence of negative spread when it did, which points at n-marked indefinites carrying [iNeg], inherited from ni/ne. Following Haegeman and Lohndal (2010), n-marked indefinites additionally carried an [iQ] feature. Once ni/ne changed from [iNeg] to [uNeg] under the influence of the [iNeg, iQ] n-marked indefinites as reconstructed above, a covert OP¬ became necessary to license ni/ne in clauses without n-marked indefinites. As proposed by Haegeman and Lohndal (2010), I postulate the features of this operator to in fact be [iNeg, iQ]. The Q-feature becomes important in Middle Low German, where the n-marked indefinites have become [uNeg, uQ], deviating from Haegeman and Lohndal (2010) by assuming that Middle Low German n-marked indefinites bear a [uQ] feature. But as other uninterpretable features, for instance φ-features, these Q-features are simply taken 10 To some extent, the quantificational features of the elements involved will need to be stipulated, as the Middle Low German corpus used in the present study does not provide the types of evidence Haegeman and Lohndal use: there is no DP-internal negative concord of the West Flemish type, and the simultaneous occurrence of various types of n-marked expressions is different. Expressions like NEG + adverb (e.g. ‘not often’) do not seem to co-occur with argumental n-words, apart from perhaps (nicht) mer ‘(not/nothing) any more’ ().

() Und ik noch myne erven beholdet dar nichtes nicht meer ane. and I nor my heirs keep there nothing.GEN NEG/nothing any.more on ‘And neither I nor my heirs shall keep anything (at all) of this any more.’ (Scharnebeck //) In this example, it is a question, however, whether nicht belongs to nicht mer or to the argumental n-word, nicht(e)s ‘nothing’, which is originally a genitive of the indefinite nicht ‘nothing’. The combination nichtes nicht appears to be what Zeijlstra () calls an ‘emphatic multiple negative expression’, meaning roughly ‘nothing at all’ (literally ‘nothing of nothing’), and is still common in Modern Low German (see examples (–)) as well as dialectal Present-day German and Dutch (e.g. Aelbrecht () and Zeijlstra ()). Evidence for nichtes nicht forming a single constituent (instead of two concordant ones) comes from cases like (a), where nicht and mer clearly belong to different phrases, and (b), which is otherwise parallel to (a), but where there is no mer, unlike in (). () a. . . . unde beholden us dar nichtes nicht eghens mer ane to ewigen and keep us there nothing.GEN nothing own any.more on to eternal tiden. times ‘. . . and [we] keep nothing of it at all to ourselves any more until eternity’ (Scharnebeck //) b. . . . dar doch zik nichtes nicht wars heft ane vorvolghet where yet REFL nothing.GEN nothing true.AGR has on proceeded ‘. . . where nothing true has happened at all’ (Stralsund )



The History of Low German Negation

Table .. Negative concord and the features of negative elements in historical Low German

pre-attestation OLG (reconstructed) Genesis Heliand minor texts Middle Low German

NC

OP¬

ni/ne/en

nicht

NMIs

no NC

n.a.

[iNeg]

n.a.

[iNeg, iQ]

no NC optional (strict) N2 (strict) N2 NS , no N2

[iNeg,iQ] [iNeg,iQ]

[uNeg] [uNeg]

n.a. NPA

([iNeg, iQ])∗ [iNeg, iQ]

[iNeg,iQ] [iNeg,iQ]

[uNeg] –

NPA [iNeg]

[iNeg/uNeg, i/uQ] [uNeg, uQ]

 NC = negative concord; NMIs = n-marked indefinites; NPA = negative polarity adverb; N2 = negative doubling; NS = negative spread ∗ not attested

to be syntactic ‘glue’ indicating what kinds of elements can be combined in syntax and should co-occur with each other. At this point then, they require an OP¬ with [iNeg, iQ] features in order to be licensed, (176a). As the sentential negator nicht can match the [uNeg] feature with its [iNeg] feature, but not the [uQ] feature, using it with n-marked indefinites would leave unmatched [uQ] features by the end of the derivation, (176b). (176)

a. [ OP¬ [ NMI [ NMI ]]] [iNeg,iQ] [uNeg,uQ] [uNeg,uQ] [iNeg,iQ] [uNeg,uQ] [iNeg,iQ] b. [ nicht [iNeg] [iNeg] [iNeg]

⇒ Agree ⇒ Agree

[ NMI [ NMI ]]] [uNeg,uQ] [uNeg,uQ] [uNeg,uQ] [uQ]

⇒ Agree ⇒ partial Matching ⇒∗

This is able to derive the empirical facts within the limits of checking theory, without resorting to checking relations between unlike features, not warranted by the theory, as under Penka’s proposal ([Neg] vs. [Neg∅]), or an unintuitive distinction between semantically negative and interpretable negation features, as under Zeijlstra’s. As argued above, it is assumed here that third factor principles such as Minimize Structure or Feature Economy do not operate freely, but, given the role of inertia in language change, merely define pathways of change when a reanalysis is independently triggered. The changes from [iNeg]/[iQ] to [uNeg]/[uQ] postulated here can all be argued to be triggered in such a way. We have already addressed the change [iNeg] > [uNeg] affecting the original preverbal negative marker, argued to occur as a result of

5 The development of negation in Low German



the formation of [iNeg] n-marked indefinites by univerbation with the old negation marker. Similar triggers can be found for the other applications of Feature Economy, affecting the old preverbal negator and the n-indefinites. Once these [iNeg] n-marked indefinites had established themselves as the neutral way of expressing indefinite quantification in negative clauses in later Old Low German, negative spread became virtually necessary in order to enable the use of this ‘neutral’ form of indefinite in clauses with more than one indefinite in the scope of negation, causing the change from [iNeg, iQ] to [uNeg, uQ]. As will be argued in more detail below, the former preverbal negation particle ne/en, already an affix on the finite verb in terms of Minimize Structure, loses its [uNeg] feature when nicht loses its emphatic value and turns into the standard expression of negation (cf. also Breitbarth 2009), a weak (structurally deficient) [iNeg] adverb. While possible under Feature Economy, the lack of such triggers seems to have prevented a change from [iNeg] to [uNeg] in nicht since Middle Low German, and no new negative doubling has arisen. Cases of apparent negative doubling can receive an alternative explanation. While the negative marker nich occasionally co-occurs with n-marked indefinites (177), these can also be found on their own in finite negative clauses, (178).11 (177) Modern Low German a. Ick heww kein Rauh nich I have no rest NEG ‘I have no peace of mind’

(Reuter, Kein Hüsung, ch. 4)

b. An so wat hest Du nie nich dacht to such something have you never NEG thought ‘You never thought about something like that.’ (Reuter, Kein Hüsung, ch. 4) (178) Modern Low German denn dat hett nicks wider tau bedüden for that had nothing again to mean ‘for that did not mean anything, again’ (Reuter, De Urgeschicht von Meckelnborg, ch. 2) N-marked indefinites are also found to co-occur with nich in fragment answers, (179).

11 Note that Jäger’s () arguments concerning the ambivalent status of the determiner kein in (a) can probably not be brought to bear on the issue. Kein is likely a High German loan in Low German, as Middle Low German mostly used the inherited n-marked form neen. It is unlikely that kein would have been borrowed along with knowledge of its history (even though Heine and Kuteva () argue that such ‘replications’ happen), rather, it would have been borrowed as a negative quantifier.



The History of Low German Negation

(179) ‘Wat hest dor?’ Aewer ick kunn swigen un säd: ‘Oh, nicks what have.2SG there but I can be.silent and said oh nothing nich!’ NEG ‘“What do you have there?” But I can be silent and said: “Oh, nothing (at all).”’ (Reuter, Schurr Murr, ch. 2) Given that in most cases they occur on their own as in (178), cases like nicks nich (179) appear to be what Zeijlstra (2010) calls emphatic multiple negative expressions rather than cases of negative doubling. Such emphatic expressions have arguably already existed since the Middle Low German period as discussed in footnote 10. Such expressions are also common in colloquial and dialectal Dutch and German (Aelbrecht 2008, Zeijlstra 2010). Aelbrecht’s argument that niemand nie ‘no one not’ in (180a) forms a single constituent comes from its ability to front as one in verb-second clauses, (180b). Aelbrecht proposes an ellipsis analysis of fragment answers and argues that the reason why niemand nie can form such a fragment answer, (180c), is that it is one constituent, fronted to SpecCP as in (180b), with the rest of the CP elided. (180) Asse Dutch a. Ij ee niemand nie gezien. he has no one NEG seen ‘He didn’t see anyone.’ b. Niemand nie em ik gisteren gezien. no one NEG have I yesterday seen ‘I didn’t see anyone yesterday.’ c. A: Wie eit’em gezien? B: Niemand nie. who has=he seen no one not ‘Who did he see?’ ‘No one.’

(Aelbrecht 2008)

Recall the analysis of n-marked indefinites in Old Low German proposed above. Following Zeijlstra’s 2011 analysis of German negative indefinites, it was argued that they had a complex internal syntactic structure, consisting of a negative operator and an existential indefinite. The Old Low German [iNeg] indefinites arose through univerbation with the sentential negator, ni/ne. The Modern Low German emphatic negative indefinites exhibit exactly the same structure, they form a compound with [iNeg] nicht. If this is on the right track, we would take the non-emphatic n-marked indefinites in Modern Low German to continue carrying a [uNeg] feature (as the Middle Low German ones), while the occasional forms reinforced with nich can be taken as emphatic forms, spelling out the otherwise covert OP¬. Under this scenario, it is (again) the properties of indefinites that change, not the properties of the sentential negation marker: the reanalysis of the sentential negation marker as part of a indefinite pronoun, DP, or adverb gives rise to a new series of

5 The development of negation in Low German



(potentially initially emphatic, Zeijlstra 2010) negative quantifiers. Now the analysis regarding the changing features of negative markers and indefinites in the scope of negation in historical Low German have been set out, the following section turns to an account of Jespersen’s Cycle in Old and Middle Low German.

. Incipient Jespersen’s Cycle in Old Low German .. Preverbal ni/ne As seen in section 2.1.1, the preverbal negation particle appears strictly left-adjacent to the finite verb and covaries with it positionally, suggesting an analysis as an affix on the finite verb (and not a clitic on T) in terms of the analysis proposed in section 4.4.2. As argued in section 5.1.1, it must be analysed as carrying a [uNeg] feature, based on the attested data. This again would support its analysis as an affix under the proposal in section 4.4.2. .. The grammaticalization of nicht Despite the adverbial use of (nio)uuiht being one of the least frequent types of negation strengthening in Old Low German, it is this type that forms the input to Jespersen’s Cycle in Low German. The adverbial use of an indefinite meaning ‘nothing’ or ‘anything’ to pragmatically strengthen the expression of negation is a crosslinguistically common phenomenon (Breitbarth et al. To appear). Bayer (2006; 2009), mainly discussing data from (historical) English, German, and Dutch, argues that the adverbial use of ‘nothing’ across languages ‘arises with high reliability in contexts in which this most unmarked NQP [=negative quantifier phrase, AB] appears in a potential (structural) object position while being unlicensed as a thematic object by argument structure’ (Bayer 2009:28).12 What is meant is that the adverbial use of ‘nothing’ arises with predicates that allow for an (optional) structural argument (which satisfies the case requirement of ‘nothing’). As Breitbarth et al. (2013) discuss, a very common class are predicates allowing an optional extent argument, such as ‘avail/succeed/profit’ (181) and ‘help/harm’, which in many languages include an optional argument indicating the extent or degree of, for example, success, as well as predicates expressing caring or indifference such as ‘care/be bothered’ (182). (181)

a. Middle Welsh Ac ny dygrynoes y gelynyon dim yn eu herbyn . . . and NEG succeed.PAST.3S the enemies anything against-them ‘And the enemies had no success against them . . .’ (Brut Dingestow 135.12–13) (Breitbarth et al. 2013:148)

12 ‘NQP’ stands for negative quantifier (phrase) and ‘most unmarked’ refers to the fact that the restriction of ‘nothing’ (or ‘some-/anything’), THING, is the least specified or most general of all indefinites; ‘some/any-/nobody’ for instance is restricted to PERSON, ‘some-/any-/nowhere’ to PLACE.



The History of Low German Negation b. Classical Arabic l¯a yad.urrukum kayduhum šay’an NEG harm.you their.cunning (any)thing ‘Their cunning will not harm you at all.’ (Qur’an 3:120)

(182)

a. Dutch Dat kan me niet(s) schelen. that can me not(hing) differ.INF ‘I don’t care about that.’

(Breitbarth et al. 2013:149)

(Hoeksema 1994:277)

b. German In meiner Branche gibt es allerdings etliche Händler, die das in my field gives it however certain dealers who that nichts kümmert. nothing bothers ‘In my field there are, however, certain dealers who are not worried by this in the least.’ (Bayer 2009: his (52)) Bayer also quotes weather verbs as being able to be used pseudo-transitively (183b), and therefore able to license adverbial nichts, (183b), besides ‘complain/protest’, ‘work’, ‘help’, ‘sleep’, ‘be afraid/pleased’, and ‘cry’. (183)

a. Bei uns, am Rande der Cevennen in Südfrankreich, hat es in at us at-the border the Cevennes in South-France has it in den vergangenen neun Monaten praktisch nichts geregnet the past nine months practically nothing rained ‘In our area at the border of the Cevennes in Southern France during the past nine months it has practically not rained at all’ b. the year it rained money (Bayer 2009: his (64a) and (65a))

As seen in section 2.1.2, Old Low German (nio)uuiht is first used adverbially with predicates permitting an optional (non-thematic) extent argument. According to Breitbarth et al. (2013), such predicates with an (optional) structural argument position are cross-linguistically common bridging contexts for the grammaticalization of new negators from nominal sources, that is, incipient Jespersen’s Cycle. A ‘harm’ verb, derian, was already seen above, (29b), to be able to occur with adverbial (nio)uuiht in Old Low German:13

13 In (), it is neouuiht in the older Monacensis manuscript and uuiht in the younger Cottonianus manuscript.

5 The development of negation in Low German (184) Ne ik thi geth ni deriu (neo)uuiht and.not I you also NEG damage nothing ‘I will also not harm you at all’



(Heliand 3892)

Under Bayer’s analysis, the quantificational nature of ‘nothing’ in these cases triggers the projection of a negative operator, while the restriction of the quantifier, THING, is responsible for what he calls the NPI-effect, i.e. the strengthening or emphatic reading (‘anything at all’). This effect arises because NPIs give rise to domain widening, which negative quantifiers do not (Kadmon and Landman 1993). Bayer’s analysis can account for the transitivity restrictions often observed with incipient new negators deriving from nominal sources: while they are often already available in what he calls the structural argument position (the pseudo-argument position in Breitbarth et al. 2013) of the mentioned types of intransitive predicates, they can only be understood as the internal argument of transitive (or unaccusative) predicates, not as an adverbial strengthener. Example (185) from Poletto (2008a) demonstrates this: the minimizer gnente ‘nothing’ in its adverbial use (as a negation strengthener) is available with intransitive verbs, (185a,b), but not with transitives, (185c,d), or unaccusatives, (185e). (185) Venetian a. Nol lavora gnente. NEG=he works nothing ‘He doesn’t work.’ b. Nol dorme gnente. NEG=he sleeps nothing ‘He doesn’t sleep.’ leze gnente libri. c. ∗ Nol NEG=he reads nothing books ‘He doesn’t read books.’ magna gnente la roba dolse. d. ∗ Nol NEG=he eats nothing the stuff sweet ‘He doesn’t eat sweets.’ vien gnente. e. ∗ Nol NEG=he comes nothing ‘He’s not coming.’

(Poletto 2008b:72)

Based on the evidence presented in section 2.1.2, it is proposed here that this crosslinguistically common bridging context for the reanalysis of ‘nothing’ also formed the entry point to Jespersen’s Cycle for niouuiht ‘nothing’ in the transition from Old Low German to Middle Low German. In fact, as was seen in the discussion of the examples in (29), partially repeated here in (186), transitive/reflexive verbs



The History of Low German Negation

that have all argument positions filled could already co-occur with unambiguously adverbially used ((n)io)uuiht ‘(no/any)thing > at all’ in Old Low German (Heliand). This shows that Old Low German was already beyond the stage that the Venetian dialects discussed by Poletto (2008a) is in: the equivalents of examples like (185c) and (185d) (i.e. transitive verbs with all thematic argument positions filled) are attested in Old Low German, with uuiht, eouuiht, and neouuiht. (186)

a. ni sculun us belgan uuiht NEG shall.PL us be.angry anything ‘We shall not be angry at all’

(Heliand 4895)

b. Ni scal ine fargumon eouuiht, ni farmuni ine an is mode. NEG shall him neglect anything nor deny him in his mind ‘He shall not neglect him at all, nor deny him in his mind’ (Heliand 3219–3220) c. Ni balg ina neouuiht uuið thes uuerodes geuuin NEG angered him nothing with the.GEN crowd.GEN fight ‘he was not angry at all about the maliciousness of the people’ (Heliand 5120–5121) This reanalysis from an optional extent argument as a negative polarity adverb structurally corresponds to a reanalysis from a VP-internal argument position to a position adjoined to VP. This could happen because of a surface ambiguity between the optional argument position and the VP-adjunct position. Niauuiht precedes the right sentential bracket in example (17), repeated as (187) here. (187) thia the thar niauuiht gimanigfaldoda sindun an thero those who there nothing multiplied are on the genuftsamidu thero geuono abundance the.GEN.PL gifts.GEN ‘those who are not/to no extent multiplied in the abundance of the gifts’ (Psalmenauslegung 12,7–8) In this position, it can be interpreted either as an (optional/non-thematic) argument of the verb in a VP-internal position or as an adverbial emphasizer of the negation adjoined to VP. The existence of examples such as (29)/(186) is evidence for the completion of the reanalysis of ((n)io)uuiht as an adverbial element. Under the NegP-less approach followed in the present work, the subsequent step in Jespersen’s Cycle of coming to express sentential negation corresponds to this adverbial emphasizer acquiring an interpretable negation feature. Under the approach proposed in section 4.4.2, it starts out as a strong adverbial negator, able to express also narrow focus negation. In the Old Low German corpus, one example for this is found in the glosses on Gregory’s homilies from the 11th century, (188).

5 The development of negation in Low German (188) illorum non solum animae. Sed caro quoque: . . . [niet ekir iro selon] neuen ok NEG only their soul but also ‘not only their souls, but also . . .’



(GG.63,15–16)

In a final step, by Minimize Structure, it becomes a weak adverbial negator, adjoined to vP. (189) illustrates the proposed analysis of these developments. (189)

→

vP DP …

CAdvP

v

nicht

vP

nicht

vP/XP CAdvP

→

vP

→

vP/XP

nicht [iNeg]

vP IAdvP

vP

nicht [iNeg]

As the external cause for the loss of the C-layer (=loss of focus) under Minimize Structure, the rise of new adverbial emphasizers in Middle Low German, such as mit nichte lit. ‘with nothing’ or neynerleye wis ‘in no way’ can be identified. (190) . . . dar wy ofte unse ervende unsen vader nicht [. . .] hinderen there we or our heirs our father NEG prevent nesolen nynerleye wijs NE=shall no way ‘. . . from which neither we nor our heirs shall prevent our father in any way.’ (Steinfurt 07/01/1355)

. Jespersen’s Cycle in Middle Low German .. The transition from stage II to stage III The only account of Jespersen’s Cycle in Middle Low German offered in the literature is the one by Sundquist (2007). Sundquist follows the grammar competition approach of Frisch (1997), who for Jespersen’s Cycle in English argues that there is only an indirect competition between the old and new negation particles as they are not full grammatical doublets but only functional ones. The old particle occupies the head of NegP under Frisch’s analysis, and the new one occupies SpecNegP. According to Frisch, the bipartite expression of negation is the result of an overlap between the old and the new system, not an independent way of expressing negation. I will argue below that this account does not do justice to the Middle Low German data and will propose



The History of Low German Negation

instead that there is neither a direct nor an indirect competition between the old and new negation particles. Also the interpretation of Jespersen’s Cycle offered by Wallage (2005) for English, according to which there is a competition between the old form of the preverbal particle expressing negation independently and the new form which needs to be supported by another expression of negation, will be rejected for Middle Low German, as there is no evidence for an independent preverbal particle expressing negation in this language.14 Instead, I argue that the preverbal particle lost its [uNeg] feature due to Feature Economy, when the new adverbial negator was established and acquired its [iNeg] feature. As seen above, it had already been reduced to a [uNeg] affix during the Old Low German period. As a featureless affix, language learners eventually failed to acquire it. Before turning to my own analysis of the development of negation in Middle Low German, I will discuss a number of problems with Sundquist’s (2007) proposal. Under the grammar competition approach (Kroch 1989; 1994), syntactically related changes, that is, changes due to the resetting of the same parameter (or, in more recent terms, changes in the same morphosyntactic feature) are expected to proceed at the same rate in all linguistic contexts, as ‘a constant rate of change across contexts is mathematically equivalent to fixity of contextual effects, in direction and size, across time periods’ (Kroch 1989:206). That is, the actualization of a change will proceed at the same rate in different contexts even if the actual frequencies of usage vary in each context. This is captured by Kroch’s Constant Rate Hypothesis. Kroch uses the logistic function to model the S-curve typically observed in the replacement of an old form by a new one,15 and its logistic transform to measure its slope. The slopes of the replacement curve of one linguistic variant by another in two separate linguistic contexts should be parallel for it to be said that they exhibit the Constant Rate Effect and thus point at one single underlying change. (191) Constant Rate Effect When one grammatical option replaces another with which it is in competition across a set of linguistic contexts, the rate of replacement, properly measured, is the same in all of them. (Kroch 1989:200) The crucial question is of course what constitutes different linguistic contexts. Kroch (1989) for instance examines (among a number of other syntactic changes) the rate at which do-support spreads in negative and affirmative declaratives, negative and affirmative yes/no questions, and affirmative wh-questions (based on Ellegård’s 1953 study). This is, however, not what Frisch (1997) and Sundquist (2007) do. Frisch only looks at the variation in the use of single preverbal ne, bipartite ne . . . not, and postverbal single not in declarative clauses alone, excluding other clause types, 14 15

On the ‘unsupported’ use of ne/en in exceptive clauses, see section ... For an alternative, see Postma ().

5 The development of negation in Low German



or clauses with indefinites in the scope of negation. Similarly, Sundquist looks at the variation in the three expressions of negation—ne/en alone, ne/en . . . nicht, and nicht—in Middle Low German, but does not differentiate grammatical contexts. This is a clear misunderstanding of Kroch’s definition of the Constant Rate Effect, viz. testing the ‘fixity of contextual effects’ ‘across contexts’. Not finding a Constant Rate Effect in their data, both Frisch and Sundquist conclude that the change from the preverbal to the postverbal expression of negation is not due to the change of a single parameter, but rather that the filling of SpecNegP and Neg◦ are licensed separately and are only indirectly related. As Frisch (1997) remarks, the loss of the preverbal marker and the rise of the postverbal one are likely two separate morphosyntactic changes, which should therefore not be subject to the Constant Rate Effect in the first place.16 In his discussion of Middle Low German, however, Sundquist assumes them to be, by plotting the three expressions of negation against each other. According to Frisch (1997), the two separate changes in the history of English are (i) the loss of the preverbal particle from Neg◦ , that is, the change in the expression of Neg◦ from ne to ∅, and (ii) the rise of not as the lexical realization of SpecNegP, that is, the change in the expression of SpecNegP from ∅ to not. The bipartite expression of negation is seen as a mere overlap of these two changes. In the present study, a slightly different account of Jespersen’s Cycle will be proposed for Middle Low German. As done by Frisch (1997), the rise of the new adverbial negation particle, nicht, is assumed to be a separate process from the loss of the old preverbal particle ne/en, without sharing the underlying assumptions of either of these approaches. While the present study shares the position of Wallage (2005) that the preverbal negation particle can only be lost once sentential negation has a new exponent, I argue that the original negative particle in historical Low German ceases to express negation in its ‘unsupported’ use once a new adverbial particle takes over the expression of negation (see also Breitbarth 2009). This is supported by the observation that there are virtually no negative clauses in the Middle Low German corpus used in which ne/en expresses negation on its own.17 As discussed in sections 2.2.1 and 3.3.2, the only exceptions are one clause only being negated using en, (33), and four clauses containing an n-free NPI indefinite besides ne/en, (115a). Together, these account for 0.2 of all negative clauses in the present Middle Low German corpus, and can thus be regarded as insignificant exceptions. As indicated above, Middle Low German ne/en in the bipartite construction, if it occurs at all, is amenable to several analyses. Under the first, it never changes at all, and remains [uNeg] until it disappears from the language. The rise of overt carriers of 16 17

Cf. also Wallage (), although his account differs from Frisch’s. On ‘unsupported’ ne/en in exceptive clauses, see section ...



The History of Low German Negation

the [iNeg] feature, first the n-marked indefinites in Old Low German, then the new adverbial negation particle nicht in late Old Low German/early Middle Low German, would remove the need to postulate a covert OP¬ to license the [uNeg] feature of ne/en, which is only a last resort option, as detailed above (Zeijlstra 2004:246). In the presence of overt [iNeg] negators, it is no longer able to express negation on its own, apart from those five extremely marginal cases mentioned above, making it functionally superfluous. However, under a feature-checking model, it is less likely that the preverbal marker remained [uNeg]: its loss would be unexplained, as it would continue to be licensed by [iNeg] nicht, and the covert [iNeg, iQ] OP¬ required to license [uNeg, uQ] n-marked indefinites in Middle Low German, as argued in section 5.1.2. Alternatively, it could be argued that ne/en turns into an NPI at the point when nicht is reanalysed as the new standard negator. Such an analysis has been proposed for French ne by Zeijlstra (2009) on the basis of the observation that French ne, like Middle Low German ne/en, cannot express negation on its own, and that it, unlike the Middle Low German particle, is available in a number of non-negative NPI contexts, (192). (192)

a. adversative predicate Je crains qu’il ne soit malade. I fear that=he NE be.SUBJN ill ‘I am afraid that he is (∗ not) ill.’ b. before-clause Elle a pleuré avant qu’elle ne se soit endormie. she has cried before that.she NE REFL be.SUBJN go.to.sleep ‘She cried before she went to sleep.’ (∗ didn’t go) c. comparative clause Le temps est pire qu’il ne l’était hier the weather is worse than.it NE it.was yesterday ‘The weather is better than it was (∗ n’t) yesterday.’

It is not impossible that the original preverbal element is subject to different developments in the different north-western European languages that underwent Jespersen’s Cycle. In Middle Dutch for instance, as well as in several present-day southern Dutch (Flemish) dialects, it is, like in French, available in certain non-negative NPI contexts, such as the standard of comparison in (193) and (194a), before-clauses (194b), conditionals (194c), and restrictive constructions (194d) (Breitbarth and Haegeman 2010). (193) Middle Dutch Ghien moget niet vorder rechten dan u manne en wijsen you=NE can NEG further judge than your men NE tell ‘You cannot judge more than your men tell you.’ (Beheydt 1998:16)

5 The development of negation in Low German



(194) Flemish dialects a. Marjo heeft nu meer koeien dan ze vroeger enhad. Marjo has now more cows than she before EN=had ‘Marjo has more cows now than she used to have.’ (Overijse, Barbiers et al. 2009:60) b. Zie da=d=ier wig zat veur dat a op u kappe see that=you=here away are before that he on your hood en=komt EN=comes ‘Clear out before he gets you.’ (Ghent, Tavernier 1959:247) c. as=ter den nieuwen maar en is [. . .] dan ben ek=ik al if=there the new.one but EN is then am I=I already gered. saved ‘As long as the new one is still there, I’m saved.’ (Buggenhout-Opstal, De Pauw 1973:5) d. K’(en) een mo drie marbels I=(EN) have but three marbles ‘I only have three marbles’

(Lapscheure, L. Haegeman, p.c.)

Such NPI uses outside negative clauses—if they are NPI uses at all—are not attested for Middle Low German ne/en, however.18 Furthermore, also the NPI analysis does not automatically account for the loss of the former preverbal marker—as an NPI, it would be licensed in negative clauses in any event. Therefore, the last possibility, of affixal ne/en giving up its formal negation features entirely, seems to be the most plausible account. .. The fate of the original preverbal particle I propose to treat the continued single occurrence of ne/en in Middle Low German exceptive clauses as the result of a lexical split of the Old Low German negative marker ni/ne, but not into an element bearing valued/interpretable and one bearing unvalued/uninterpretable negation features as assumed by Wallage (2005) for English. As argued in section 2.2.1, exceptive clauses do not seem to express sentential negation, and are syntactically and semantically different from negative conditionals, despite a functional similarity which has lead for instance Holmberg (1967) to call them ‘Konditionalsätze’. Holmberg (1967:29) notes that exceptive clauses of the type found in Middle Low German are a late and geographically restricted development in the West Germanic 18 An anonymous reviewer for OUP points out that an NPI analysis might be problematic from a wider cross-linguistic perspective, as there are languages (like Italian) in which the standard sentential negation marker (non in that case) is used in contexts like the ones in ().



The History of Low German Negation

languages, not found in Gothic, Old Norse, or Old English. In Old High German, they are only attested in two texts, Otfrid’s Gospel Book and Tatian, mostly in the formulaic form ni sî thaz ‘NEG be that’, which Holmberg argues to be quite different syntactically and semantically from later (Middle High German) ez ensî thaz ‘it EN be that’. The same can be observed in the history of Low German, which Holmberg only mentions cursorily.19 In the Heliand, six such formulaic cases, four with sî ‘be.SUBJN’ (195a) and two with uuari ‘were.SUBJN’ (195b) are found. (195) Old Low German a. ne si that he me an is arundi huarod sendean uuillea NEG be that he me on his affairs whereto send wishes ‘Unless He wishes to send me off on His affairs.’ (Heliand 121–122) b. that thu giuuald obar mik hebbian ni mohtis ne uuari that you power over me have NEG can.PAST NEG be.SUBJN that it thi helag god selbo fargaui that it you holy God self gave ‘that you could not have power over me, unless the holy God himself gave it to you’ (Heliand 5351–5352) That is, the negation particle and the subjunctive verb are in clause-initial position, followed by a (subject) complement clause introduced by that ‘that’. The matrix clause containing the negative marker therefore looks much like a regular Old Low German verb-first negative main clause, e.g. (196).20 (196) Old Low German ne dragu ic enig drugi thing. NEG bring I any deception ‘I am not bringing any kind of deception’

(Heliand 264)

By contrast, as discussed in section 2.2.1, exceptive clauses in Middle Low German show verb-second order, but this is not the only syntactic difference between the Old and Middle Low German constructions. While it is true that the first constituent in most (= 161) cases is a pronoun, as also noted for Middle High German by Holmberg (1967), there are also eight cases like (197a) with full nouns, and the pronouns are in most cases (85 vs. 76) referential (197b), instead of expletive, as would be expected if the Old Low German construction had simply been remodelled after the verb-second constraint became stricter (though such examples also exist, (197c)).

19 ‘Eine ähnliche Formelhaftigkeit zeigt auch das altsächsische ne sî that [The Old Saxon ne sî that exhibits a similar formulaic character; AB]’ (Holmberg :). 20 Verb-first order in negative main clauses is a feature of older Germanic languages more generally, cf. Longobardi (a), Eythórsson (), van Kemenade (), Ferraresi ().

5 The development of negation in Low German



(197) Middle Low German a. It en scal nement enne nyen stenwech setten eder hoghen, it NE shall no one a new stone.way set or make.higher en si darbi. de rad the council NE be.SUBJN there-by ‘No one shall build or make higher a new stone way, unless the coucil agrees.’ (Braunschweig 1349) b. Ok en schal me neymande jn dat gerichte setten, he en he NE Also NE shall one no one in the court set sij denne drittich jar olt be.SUBJN than thirty years old ‘Also, one shall not appoint anyone to court/judge, unless he is thirty years old.’ (Braunschweig 20/04/1488) c. Des geliik ok we nicht to tiden kumpt to der the.GEN same also who NEG on time comes to the dat he redelike morgensprake, id ensi morning.speech it NE=be.SUBJN that he reasonable entschuldeginge hebbe. excuse have. ‘The same applies to whoever does not come on time to the morning service, unless he have a reasonable excuse.’ (Uelzen 24/02/1443) The data suggest that ne/en is completely integrated into a verb-second clause in most cases; in some cases, the noun (198a) or pronoun (198b) in first position is an object of the clause (always a beneficiary in my data), not the subject as in (197a). Even where an expletive ‘it’ is used, the verb is not necessarily a form of ‘be’; modals and the verb schegen ‘happen’ are also attested (198c). That is, one can no longer speak of a negated subjunctive form of ‘to be’ in a dummy matrix clause. Ne/en appears to be fully integrated into the exceptive clause. (198) Middle Low German ersten sodane a. den genanten kalandes heren ensyn the named kaland’s sirs EN-be.SUBJN first those veirundevertich marck gensliken unde all wol to dancke betalt. forty-four marks entirely and all well to thank paid ‘unless those forty-four marks have been paid first in their entirety to the named sirs of the kaland society’ (Uelzen 12/07/1487) gulden betalt b. on enweren dusent him NE=were thousand guilders paid ‘unless he was paid a thousand guilders’

(Braunschweig 05/02/1417)



The History of Low German Negation c. . . . it enmoghe mit uns lopen [. . .] de neghesten tvintyg jar it NE=may with us run the next twenty years ‘. . . unless it run with us the next twenty years.’ (Oldenburg 01/11/1355)

Without trying to attempt tracing the ultimate origin of the exceptive construction, whether it be derived from an original question, optative, or ‘als Frage formulierten, negativen Bedingungssatz [as a negative conditional clause, formulated as a question; AB]’ (Holmberg 1967:30),21 I propose to analyse the development of the construction from Old to Middle Low German as follows. In Old Low German, ni/ne+sî/uuari, the matrix clause in the ne sî that construction, taking a CP complement, only consists of the negated verb, which can assumed to be in C, (199). The reason for assuming it to be in C, which cannot be seen in the Old Low German data themselves because the matrix clause does not contain other material that could be used as a diagnostic in Old Low German, is that negative main clauses with verb-first order are very common in the older Germanic languages, and have been argued to involve verb movement to C (e.g. Eythórsson 1995, van Kemenade 2000).

CP

(199)

C

TP

ne sîi

vP

CP

ti

that…

That is, originally, the exceptive construction consisted of a dummy matrix clause whose complement clause contributed the main content of the exception.22 In a next step, a reanalysis of the former dummy matrix clause led to integration of the complement clause expressing the exception with the former matrix clause. That is, the negated verb of the former dummy matrix clause was reanalysed as a constituent of the left periphery of the formerly embedded clause containing the exception, presumably facilitated by the presence of the complementizer that in the original exceptive construction, which delimits the left periphery, (200).

CP

(200)

C⬘

ne sî

21 22

C

TP

that

vP

See Holmberg (:–) for discussion of the different theories. This was also argued by Holmberg () to be the oldest form in High German.

5 The development of negation in Low German



In a final step, the finite verb of the former complement clause becomes able to move to C. The properties of the verb of the former matrix clause, namely the subjunctive morphology and the negative affix, are spelled out on the verb of the formerly embedded clause in C, (201). That is, the originally separate clauses ‘merge’ their properties into one. (201)

CP C⬘ C

TP

ne+SUBJN

vP

I propose to take the crucial change affecting the preverbal marker, leading to the lexical split from the former sentential negation marker, to occur at the point when the former matrix clause with the negative verb in C is reanalysed as a part of the C-layer of the former embedded clause. At this point, the preverbal negator loses its sentential scope and becomes an exponent of what Cormack and Smith (1998; 2002) call EchoNeg, a high LF scope position for negation within the C-domain of the originally embedded clause.23 This is the LF-scope of ne/en in Middle Low German exceptive clauses, even though it has become ‘lowered’ onto C at PF. Because of its (PF-)integration into the originally embedded clause, and as it continues to have the structure of an affix, it is spelled out on the subjunctive verb in C even though it is interpreted higher. Once this reanalysis has happened, ne/en + subjunctive has become a grammatical marker expressing ‘unless’, and it can apply to lexical verbs as well. At this point, the full application of the verb-second rule become possible, with objects able to front to SpecCP. The particle ne/en is lost once a new formulaic construction, again a ‘dummy’ main clause taking a clausal complement expressing the exception, gains hold, namely it si/were dan dat ‘it be/were than that . . .’, which uses the former comparative particle dan ‘than’, after a stage in which dan was used in the integrated exceptive clause just described, (202).24

23 According to Cormack and Smith, EchoNeg is for instance found in (). They call it EchoNeg because it works like negative question tags, which also only combine with non-negative clauses (or clauses where a negative marker does not have sentential scope) (Klima ).

() Shouldn’t you be in school? = you should be in school, shouldn’t you?  = you should not be in school, should you? 24 This may be a High German Loan, as it appears around the time High German begins to replace Low German in writing.



The History of Low German Negation

(202) id ensy dan myt willen [. . .] des edelen it NE=be.SUBJN than with declared.intention [. . .] of.the noble unsers leven juncheren our dear squire ‘unless it be with the permission of our dear noble squire’ (Steinfurt 07/05/1486) Unfortunately, such examples are too few in the Middle Low German corpus used for this study to trace this development with any degree of reliability.25 .. Grammar competition? The lexical split between ne/en that continues to be used in negative clauses in Middle Low German and the unsupported element ne/en used in exceptive clauses can in part be demonstrated quantitatively. While there are no quantitative data for the transition from stage I to stage II due to the corpus situation outlined earlier,26 it can be shown that the loss of ne/en, that is, the transition from stage II to stage III, proceeds separately in negative clauses and in exceptive clauses. Without wanting to imply that this change, the loss of ne/en, proceeds by grammar competition, the 25 Examples like () are found in Low Franconian chancery documents, a scribal dialect geographically adjacent to Westfalian. (In the period under consideration, Kleve is located in the transition area between Middle Low German and Middle Dutch, cf. Peters a:, and was therefore not included in the core corpus.)

() Ten weer dan, dat sii na sulke brieve voirscreven oick dat bekant hebn it=en were than dat they after such letters aformentioned also confessed have before voir richter off schepenen judge or jury ‘Unless it be the case that they also confessed before a judge or jury after such aforementioned letters’ (Kleve ) 26 The rise of nicht as a negative polarity adverb strengthening the expression of negation follows a crosslinguistically common path along which initial usage restrictions are gradually removed. Its reanalysis from a negative polarity adverb to an [iNeg] expression of sentential negation occurred because of the preference, alluded to above, for expressing [iNeg] overtly instead of by an abstract operator. Given the data available, it is not possible to trace the replacement of the adverbial strengthener with the sentential negator. As argued above, (), the former pronoun niouuiht became structurally ambiguous between an emphatic negative polarity adverb adjoined to vP and an [iNeg] negation marker. Although the available data do not allow the quantitative modelling of the transition from stage I to stage II, one may consider such an ambiguity as equivalent to grammar competition in the sense of the availability of two different possible structural analyses performing the same function (not in the sense of different parameter settings). Surface ambiguity is a generally accepted trigger for grammatical reanalysis, cf. Timberlake (). It means that language learners are free to attribute one of two possible analyses to a given input string. As a pronoun, niouuiht could be used as an optional extent argument. As all regular argument positions would be filled in such a case, niouuiht became available for reanalysis as an adverbial reinforcer. Once analysed as adjoined to vP, niouuiht could be reanalysed as an ([iNeg]) negator. The appearance of niouuiht in a new context is simply evidence of the resolution of an earlier ambiguity, the actualization of its reanalysis. At the same time, niouuiht > nicht continued to be used as an n-marked indefinite pronoun (‘nothing’) well into the Middle Low German period. It does not compete with the sentential negator in this function; this too is simply a case of a lexical split, the negator having become a structurally deficient adverb.

5 The development of negation in Low German



Table .. Rates of ne/en with nicht and n-marked indefinites in Middle Low German nicht ne/en . . . nicht

nicht alone

118 131 123 101 31

59 164 229 368 225

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574 ∗ NMI = n-marked

n-marked indefinites Rate

ne/en . . . NMI

NMI∗ alone

Rate

0.667 0.444 0.349 0.215 0.121

124 180 98 67 7

61 161 186 205 184

0.67 0.544 0.345 0.246 0.37

indefinite

Table .. Slope (in logit units) and intercept parameters of the logistic regressions on Table 5.2

nicht n-marked indefinites

Slope

Intercept

1.0127 1.0181

−17.571 −25.2191

tools of the grammar competition approach can be used here to demonstrate this. According to the Constant Rate Hypothesis (191), a change proceeds at the same rate in different contexts regardless of potentially different frequencies. All negative clauses, whether negated by nicht or n-marked indefinites, show the same rate of change.27 In order to show this, logistic regressions were performed on the data in Tables 2.7 and 3.16, summarized here in Table 5.2, with time as the independent variable. Using a χ 2 -test of significance (in R), we find that the rates of change, represented by the slope parameters of the logistic functions, do not differ significantly between the two contexts, in fact, they nearly entirely overlap (χ 2 = 0, p = 0.997), cf. Table 5.3. This suggests that these two contexts are really only one, namely sentential negation. The exceptive construction clearly forms a separate context. It was already shown that there is no overlap between the expression of negation in negative clauses (standardly with nicht) and the use of ne/en in exceptive clauses (cf. Table 2.5); nicht is never used in exceptive clauses, ne/en cannot express negation in negative clauses. Hence there is no competition between single ne/en and single nicht. The data (and rates of change) are not easily comparable to the regular negative clauses: in the corpus used for the 27 Negative clauses with nicht, on the one hand, and with n-marked indefinites, on the other, are virtually the only two types of negative clauses in Middle Low German as seen in Table . in section ... Hence these were chosen as the ‘contexts’ for checking the Constant Rate Effect.



The History of Low German Negation

present study, the preverbal marker is used invariably in exceptive clauses, even when dan appears towards the end of the period covered by the corpus. This means that there is no loss of ne/en in the available data from exceptive clauses. In Sundquist’s (2007) data, the number of sentences with ne/en only is compared to the total number of negative clauses, even though it seems likely that many or most of these are in fact exceptive clauses. His data therefore also do not reveal whether there is any loss of ne/en from exceptive clauses in his corpus, as he does not distinguish these from other clauses containing single ne/en. Even though logistic regression can be used to identify whether it is one single or several different changes affecting a given number of linguistic environments, this does not mean that the change in question has to be accounted for using a grammar competition approach. In the case at hand, a grammar competition approach, whether following Sundquist (2007)/Frisch (1997) or Wallage (2005), does not seem necessary for understanding the data and at least the transition from stage II to stage III. By the analysis proposed above, the former preverbal particle is affected by a lexical split. In negative clauses, the loss of ne/en results in the transition from stage II to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle. In exceptive clauses, ne/en is lost once a new formulaic construction with dan starts being used more frequently. These contexts do not overlap. Hence, there is no competition between the two types of ne/en. As seen in the discussion above, we found a Constant Rate Effect comparing the loss of ne/en from negative clauses with nicht on the one hand and with n-marked indefinites on the other. That is, the loss of ne/en proceeds at the same rate in the two contexts and therefore, by the Constant Rate Hypothesis, the loss of the original preverbal particle in Middle Low German is the same grammatical change in the two contexts. Under a grammar competition approach, the loss of ne/en from the two types of negative clauses could be seen as the competition between the realization and the non-realization of this particle. The question arises, however, what the underlying parameter should be that is subject to change in the two contexts, and how much additional information a grammar competition approach is able to contribute. All this shows is that it is the same element that is lost from these contexts. This is confirmed by the fact that it does not seem to matter how the contexts are chosen to subdivide the data. If, out of curiosity, the same logistic regression were applied to the data separated by the different scribal dialects, that is, a languageexternal ‘context’, we would still obtain the same result, viz. that the slopes, and thus the rates of change, are (nearly) identical (χ 2 = 0.9298, p = 0.8182), cf. Tables 5.4 and 5.5. This means that all the tests for a Constant Rate Effect show in the present case is that it is simply the same lexical item disappearing from all negative clauses. The Constant Rate Hypothesis has proven useful in determining whether certain word order changes are underlyingly related to a single parameter or not (cf. Santorini 1993), as well as in estimating the reanalysis of English not from an adverb to a negator (Wallage 2005). The latter could unfortunately not be replicated here for

5 The development of negation in Low German



Table .. Rates of ne/en with nicht and n-marked indefinites in Middle Low German Westphalian

1325–1374 1375–1424 1425–1474 1475–1524 1525–1574

Eastphalian

ne/en

∅

Rate

ne/en

41 46 8 26 22

10 11 10 40 65

0.804 0.807 0.444 0.394 0.253

106 133 49 43 20

∅

Rate

North Low Saxon

Hansa cities

ne/en

∅

Rate

ne/en

91 111 132 85 4

54 160 246 206 47

0.628 0.41 0.349 0.292 0.078

4 21 32 14 2

51 0.675 47 0.739 40 0.551 147 0.226 269 0.069

∅

Rate

5 0.444 97 0.178 119 0.212 180 0.072 28 0.067

Table .. Slope (in logit units) and intercept parameters of the logistic regressions on Table 5.4

Westphalian Eastphalian North Low Saxon Hansa cities

Slope

Intercept

0.691 0.9423 0.4966 1.743

–2.3698 –2.3779 –0.8513 0.106

the grammaticalization of nicht due to the lack of data; this development had to be reconstructed. However, these tests yield little information regarding the loss of lexical items beyond there being a trivial ‘competition’ between the realization and the nonrealization of the lexical item.

. Conclusion In this chapter, the development of the expression of standard sentential negation and of the expression of indefinite quantification in the scope of negation in the history of Low German was argued to be the result of a complex interplay of changes in the morpho-syntactic properties of individual lexical items. The original particle expressing standard negation in Old Low German, ni/ne, was argued to be a [uNeg] affix on the finite verb in all available texts of Old Low German. It undergoes a lexical split when the language enters stage II of Jespersen’s Cycle. In exceptive clauses, it becomes a C-related negation particle without sentential scope, similar to Cormack and Smith’s (1998; 2002) EchoNeg. In negative clauses, by Feature Economy, it loses the uninterpretable negation feature when the new standard negator nicht is grammaticalized. This grammaticalization involved (i) the reanalysis of a former indefinite pronoun (niouuiht ‘nothing’) as a negative polarity adverb (‘at all’), using predicates taking an optional extent argument as a bridging context



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Summary of the proposed analysis ni/ne/en

nicht

NMIs∗

OLG-1∗ OLG-2∗

AdvP [uNeg] AdvP [uNeg]

— CAdv P (> [iNeg])

MLG

AdvP [uNeg] > ∅

Adv P [iNeg]

[iNeg, iQ] [iNeg, iQ] > [uNeg, uQ] [uNeg, uQ]

∗ OLG-1 = Heliand

& Genesis; OLG-2 = minor texts; NMIs = n-marked indef-

inites

(ii) the reanalysis of this negative polarity adverb as a ‘strong’ [iNeg] negative marker able to express narrow focus of negation (iii) the change into a ‘weak’ (structurally deficient) negative adverb adjoining to vP by Minimize Structure. The last step turns nicht into the neutral standard negation marker in Middle Low German. Important changes affect not only the expression of standard negation in historical Low German, but also indefinites in the scope of negation. It was argued in the present chapter that n-marked indefinites are formed in Old Low German and start out with interpretable negation and quantificational features, [iNeg, iQ], accounting for their inability to co-occur with each other, and hence the lack of negative spread in Old Low German. The fact that Old Low German still had (strict) negative doubling is accounted for by the sentential negator ni/ne being [uNeg]. The n-marked indefinites were then reconstructed to have changed, by Feature Economy, to [uNeg, uQ] in Middle Low German, requiring licensing by a covert [iNeg, iQ] negation operator OP¬. This change was argued to have been caused by n-marked indefinites increasingly becoming the standard way of expressing indefinite quantification in negative clauses by the end of the Old Low German period. Under Haegeman and Lohndal’s (2010) Pairwise Agree account, relying on maximal matching of features, the fact that Middle Low German has negative spread, but no negative doubling with the standard negation marker, nicht, can then be accounted for by [iNeg] nicht only partially matching the features of the [uNeg, uQ] n-marked indefinites, leaving their [uQ] feature unchecked. The proposed analysis can be summarized by means of Table 5.6. This analysis adopts from Longobardi (2001) and Keenan (2002) the notion that syntactic change is necessarily externally motivated (inertia). For all proposed changes, or applications of the economy principles Minimize Structure and Feature Economy, such external motivations could be identified as triggers. These motivations may be other syntactic changes—the rise and spread of [iNeg, iQ] indefinites was speculated to have caused the change from (reconstructed) [iNeg] to [uNeg] in ni/ne—or the resolution of conflicting (functional) motivations, as in the case of n-marked indefinites changing from [iNeg, iQ] to [uNeg, uQ].

 Conclusion The present study surveys the development of the expression of standard sentential negation and of indefinite quantification in the scope of negation in historical Low German and proposes a formal analysis of these developments. Following Miestamo (2005), standard sentential negation was defined as the ‘obligatory (fully grammaticalized)’ way of reversing the truth value of a proposition expressed by a verbal declarative main clause. As in the closely related languages High German, Dutch, and English, the expression of standard sentential negation in historical Low German underwent Jespersen’s Cycle, the development by which an original negation marker is first reinforced by a new element and later replaced by it. In the West Germanic languages, and thus also Low German, an original preverbal particle, covarying with the position of the finite verb, was first joined and later ousted by an adverbial element derived from an erstwhile negative indefinite pronoun meaning ‘nothing’. The original stage with the preverbal particle only was referred to as stage I of Jespersen’s Cycle, the co-occurrence of the old and new markers as stage II and the final stage with the adverbial marker only as stage III. (203) stage I ni uuas ira hugi tuuifli NEG was her.DAT mind doubt ‘there was no doubt in her mind’

(Heliand 385)

(204) stage II Unde wanne wy deße twe vorscreven pund geldes nicht and if we these two aforementioned pound money.GEN NEG uth=en=gevet binnen den achte tagen sunte Peters, so . . . out=NE=give within the eight days Saint Peter’s so . . . ‘And if we do not spend these aforementioned two pounds within eight days of St. Peter’s, then . . . ’ (Scharnebeck 24/02/1395)



The History of Low German Negation

(205) stage III Ouer Hinrik Potlist wolde des nicht don, . . . but H. P. wanted that.GEN NEG do ‘But Hinrik Potlist did not want to do that . . . ’ (Stralsund 27/05/1425) Old Low German was clearly at stage I of Jespersen’s Cycle, with preverbal ni as the standard expression of negation, and showed only marginal signs of an incipient development in the direction of Jespersen’s Cycle. The crucial bridging context is formed by predicates that take an optional argument expressing an extent. The pragmatic function of such an extent argument is to emphasize the force of negation. Typically, elements denoting low points on pragmatic scales are used in this function, that is, minimizers or generalizers, because elements with these scalar properties are particularly informative under negation. If a situation is said not to hold to even the smallest extent, or even to hold to no extent at all, the force of the negative proposition is greater than of an ordinary negative proposition. Such an extent use of indefinite pronouns (io)uuiht ‘anything’ and niouuiht ‘nothing’ is attested in the corpus used for the present study with adjectives and (optionally) transitive/reflexive verbs that have all their thematic argument positions already filled, (206). (206) stage I with reinforcer ni sculun us belgan uuiht NEG shall.PL us be.angry anything ‘We shall not be angry at all/to any extent’

(Heliand 4895)

Although the n-free indefinite pronoun (io)uuiht ‘anything’ is more frequent as a reinforcer in Old Low German, extent uses are also attested with its n-marked equivalent, niouuiht ‘nothing’, which would later become the new standard expression of negation in Middle Low German, nicht. In cases where all thematic argument positions are already filled, an indefinite used as an optional extent argument can be reanalysed as an adverbial negation strengthener in this context, and from there as the new expression of standard negation. In Middle Low German, sentential negation is standardly expressed by the adverbial particle nicht ‘not’. The former preverbal clitic can still be present in negative clauses, but always in conjunction with another expression of negation, either nicht or n-marked indefinites, and it becomes very infrequent during the Middle Low German period. That is, Middle Low German is a stage II language in transition to a stage III language. By the end of the period during which Middle Low German was written, at the point when (Early New) High German takes over as the written standard, Middle Low German has essentially reached stage III. The development of the expression of standard negation runs parallel to developments affecting the expression of indefinite quantification in the scope of negation. In Old Low German, indefinites in the scope of negation are typically not n-marked.

6 Conclusion



All of the indefinites in the scope of negation in the Genesis fragments are n-free, as are 80 of the ones in the Heliand epos. Only in the late Old Low German minor texts, n-marking appears to become the rule. If there are several indefinites in the scope of negation, negation is marked at most on one of them. That is, Old Low German did not have negative spread. (207) ni . . . n-free indefinite nis unk hier uuiht biuoran NEG=is us.both here anything before ‘there is nothing here in front of the two of us’

(Genesis 21–22)

(208) ni . . . n-marked indefinite Sia ni namon is tho niam (=niaman) they NEG took it then no.one.DAT ‘they did not take it from no one’

(GG.63,10–11, 11th c.)

(209) no negative spread Nis thes tueho enig gumono nigienumu NEG=is the.GEN.SG.N. doubt any men.GEN.PL none.DAT.PL ‘None of the men have any doubt about it’ (lit. ‘there is not any doubt about it to none of the men’) (Heliand 3190–3191) Where n-marked indefinites are used, they always co-occur with the preverbal negation particle, regardless of the position of the indefinite relative to it. This suggests that Old Low German had strict negative doubling (Giannakidou 1998; 2000, Zeijlstra 2004). I therefore proposed that the negative marker in Old Low German must have had an uninterpretable negation feature [uNEG], as proposed for other strict negative concord languages by Zeijlstra (2004), and that the n-marked indefinite must have had an interpretable negation feature [iNEG]. Cross-linguistically, this is a rather unusual type of interaction between negation and indefinites (Biberauer and Zeijlstra 2012). In Middle Low German, unlike in Old Low German, n-marking on indefinites in the scope of negation is the rule, as is negative spread. (210) negative spread Vortmer scal nement nen nye wer mer buwen uppe der Furthermore shall no one no new weir any.more build on the Elve noch boven noch neden Elbe neither above nor below ‘Furthermore, no one shall build any new weir in the Elbe, neither upstream nor downstream.’ (Scharnebeck 23/11/1363) On the other hand, negative doubling with the standard expression of negation is not attested in the period in question; a single example of nicht and n-marked indefinites in 1,263 clauses with indefinites in the scope of negation was not considered sufficient



The History of Low German Negation

evidence for the presence of negative doubling, and was amenable to an analysis as an emphatic extent use of the pronoun nicht ‘nothing’, instead of the homonymous standard negation marker. These developments—the change of the standard expression of negation under Jespersen’s Cycle and the changes affecting indefinites in the scope of negation and their interaction with the expression of negation and with each other—were analysed using a generative account of syntactic change combined with Minimalist assumptions concerning the syntax of negation and negative concord. In line with current generative assumptions, three factors play a role in language change, universal grammar, experience, and ‘principles not specific to the faculty of language’, such as ‘principles of structural architecture’ and ‘principles of efficient computation’ (Chomsky 2005:6). These three factors interact; diachronic variation—always within the limits of universal grammar—is introduced into language during language acquisition, guided by considerations of structural and derivational efficiency. The analysis proposed does not rely on a functional projection NegP as the structural locus of negation, but on the properties of individual lexical items. These properties influence the way the items in question interact with each other. It was argued that negative markers in different languages and at different stages of Jespersen’s Cycle show a distribution similar to the one observed for pronouns by Cardinaletti and Starke (1999), and adverbs and modal particles by Grosz (2007) and Cardinaletti (2010): they can be ‘strong’, ‘weak’, and ‘clitic’, and finally ‘affixes’. The similarity with grammaticalization clines as formulated by Hopper and Traugott (2003) is not accidental; these types of negative markers are diachronically related. It was argued that two ‘third factor’ principles are responsible for the changes affecting negative markers, one expressing a preference for more economical structural representations and the other expressing a preference for more economical feature content: (211) Minimize Structure Only if the smaller structure is independently ruled out, is the bigger alternative possible. (Cardinaletti and Starke 1999:47) (212) Feature Economy Minimize the semantic and interpretable features in the derivation, for example: Adjunct/argument Specifier (of NegP) Head (of NegP) affix semantic > [iNeg] > [uNeg] > — (van Gelderen 2011b:299) Concretely, it was argued that Old Low German ni/ne is a negative affix on the finite verb bearing an uninterpretable negation feature [uNeg], based on its distribution in the clause and with respect to indefinites in the scope of negation. It invariably occurs left-adjacent to the finite verb regardless of the position of the latter. It must be [uNeg] because it does co-occur with n-marked indefinites, while these cannot co-occur with each other, indicating that they themselves bear an interpretable

6 Conclusion



negation feature. A further indication that ni/ne is [uNeg] is that it co-occurs with preverbal subject NPI indefinites, (213). (213) that is ênig seg ni ginas that of.it any man NEG was.saved ‘that no man was saved from it’

(Genesis 322)

The fact that the preverbal negation particle in Old Low German had an uninterpretable negation feature, requiring it to be licensed by a carrier of an interpretable feature, can be taken to be the principal trigger of Jespersen’s Cycle in Low German. Formalizing Ladusaw’s (1992) self-licensing mechanism for formal, not semantic, expressions of negation, Zeijlstra (2004) proposes that an abstract [iNEG] operator OP¬ is inserted in a position c-commanding unlicensed [uNEG] elements as a last resort strategy. As I argued the n-marked indefinites to be overt carriers of [iNEG] features in Old Low German, this last resort insertion of the covert operator is only required in negative clauses without n-marked indefinites. This creates an imbalance facilitating the reanalysis of a de-argumental adverbial strengthener as the new overt [iNEG] expression of standard negation. The new adverbial negator nicht < niouuiht in Middle Low German was analysed as a weak [iNeg] negative adverb adjoining to vP. Evidence for the predicted intermediate step in its grammaticalization as a new negation marker—niouuiht/nicht as a structurally ‘strong’ element with a C-layer encoding focus—are cases like (214), in which it is attested as a negator expressing narrow focus of negation. (214) illorum non solum animae. Sed caro quoque: . . . [niet ekir iro selon] neuen ok NEG only their soul but also ‘not only their souls, but also . . . ’

(GG.63,15–16)

The pattern of negative concord found in Middle Low German was accounted for by adopting Haegeman and Lohndal’s (2010) account of negative spread in terms of Pairwise Agree with maximal matching. It was proposed that n-marked indefinites in Old Low German were initially [iNeg, iQ], but became [uNeg, uQ] due to Feature Economy in the transition to Middle Low German. They can therefore co-occur with each other, as their features match, giving rise to negative spread. They are licensed by a covert [iNeg, iQ] operator. Nicht, whose [iNeg] feature would match the features of the n-marked indefinites only partially, would leave unchecked [uQ] features behind if it co-occurred with n-marked indefinites, accounting for the lack of negative doubling in Middle Low German. The original negation particle ne/en < ni/ne was argued to have lost its [uNeg] feature (by Feature Economy) once nicht became the unemphatic carrier of [iNeg] in negative clauses. This happened when nicht became structurally deficient, losing its C-layer by Minimize Structure, as the ability to express emphasis was argued to



The History of Low German Negation Table .. Summary of the proposed analysis ni/ne/en

nicht

NMIs∗

OLG-1∗ OLG-2∗

AdvP [uNeg] AdvP [uNeg]

— CAdv P (> [iNeg])

MLG

AdvP [uNeg] > ∅

Adv P [iNeg]

[iNeg, iQ] [iNeg, iQ] > [uNeg, uQ] [uNeg, uQ]

∗ OLG-1

= Heliand & Genesis; OLG-2 = minor texts; NMIs = n-marked indefinites

be linked to the presence of the C-layer in nicht. The only context in which ne/en continues to be used by itself in Middle Low German is exceptive clauses. I argued that ne/en does not express negation in this context, and that this use of the former preverbal particle is likely the result of a lexical split. In Old Low German, ni/ne was a negation particle in negative clauses as well as exceptive clauses, which were ‘dummy’ negative main clauses embedding a that-complement clause containing the actual exception. In Middle Low German exceptive clauses, the particle was reanalysed as a head in the clausal left periphery not encoding sentential negation, but semantically similar to Cormack and Smith’s (1998; 2002) EchoNeg. In conjunction with the subjunctive, it fulfils the function of an exceptive complementizer like English unless in the form of verbal morphology, attracting the verb to C. This split must have occurred when nicht grammaticalized as the new standard expression of negation, causing the former preverbal marker to lose its [uNeg] feature. Table 6.1 repeats the summary of the properties of negative markers and indefinites given in Table 5.6. The transition from stage II to stage III of Jespersen’s Cycle in Middle Low German was shown to be influenced by a number of language-internal as well as languageexternal factors. Both in clauses with nicht and with n-marked indefinites, the former preverbal particle is lost first in verb-initial clauses, and first with auxiliary and modal verbs. This was argued to be due to a combination of ne/en having become redundant in expressing negation and the fact that in Germanic languages, unstressed syllables (like ne/en) are not realized in prosodically difficult positions (like the sentenceinitial position) in language acquisition. Given the non-transparent role ne/en has in expressing negation in Middle Low German, it has a certain acquisitional disadvantage in this position. It was furthermore shown that the transition proceeds fastest in the scribal dialect of the East Elbian Hansa cities. This was argued to be a consequence of sociohistorical factors. The colonization of the area from the 12th century onwards created contact between different Altland dialects and led to dialect levelling. The former [uNeg] preverbal negation particle, replaced as the expression of standard negation by [iNeg] nicht in Middle Low German and subsequently losing its [uNeg] feature by

6 Conclusion



Feature Economy, constitutes a prime target for simplification, as it had become (a) functionally redundant and (therefore) (b) difficult to acquire in a short-term adult (L2) language contact situation.1 There are no indications that the new negator nicht has been subject to further changes under Feature Economy or Minimize Structure since Middle Low German; it continues to be the standard expression of negation in Modern Low German. A crucial caveat to the analysis presented in the present book is that economy principles do not change syntax automatically. As a consequence of the inertia of syntax (Longobardi 2001), any changes need to be robustly triggered; economy principles simply restrict the pathways a given change may take. The presence of [iNeg, iQ] n-marked indefinites in Old Low German created an imbalance in the way [uNeg] ni/ne was licensed: they are able to license it overtly, while a covert [iNeg(,iQ)] operator was required in clauses without (n-marked) indefinites. Covert operators being a last resort option, the imbalance was resolved when [iNeg] nicht was established as the new negation marker. An initially emphatic adverb possessing extra functional structure encoding focus, nicht became a neutral, that is, structurally deficient, element positionally fixed to adjunction to vP by Minimize Structure when new emphatic expressions strengthening the force of negation were created. The Old Low German [iNeg, iQ] n-marked indefinites became [uNeg, uQ] by Feature Economy in the transition to Middle Low German because they had become the neutral way of expressing indefinite quantification under negation, making negative spread the preferred option in case of multiple indefinites. The present study constitutes the first large-scale diachronic study of the development of negation in historical Low German, both empirically and theoretically. Empirically, it was shown that the developments are largely parallel to the High German ones described by Jäger (2008), though with a delay of about 200 years. The proposed formal account for the observed developments combines and refines a number of existing accounts of Jespersen’s Cycle as well as Negative Concord in the literature and applies them to this so far unexplored empirical base. The proposed account is novel in proposing to analyse the links in the grammaticalization cline of negative markers in terms of the typology of structural deficiency proposed for pronouns and adverbs by Cardinaletti and Starke (1999), Grosz (2007), and Cardinaletti (2010), and in rejecting the NegP-hypothesis on empirical and conceptual grounds. It is a potentially significant finding if some grammatical categories may not be strictly hierarchically ordered with respect to other functional categories, cf. the case made earlier against AgrPs by Iatridou (1990) and Julien (2002). A further important aspect of the proposed analysis is that so-called third factor principles on language change are not taken to be an automatic explanation for change; rather, it was argued that all changes need a solid trigger, whether formal or functional. 1

Cf. Walkden and Breitbarth () and references cited there.

References Abels, Klaus, and Ad Neeleman. 1999. Universal 20 without the LCA. In Merging Features: Computation, Interpretation, and Acquisition, ed. José M. Brucart, Anna Gavarró, and Jaume Solà, 60–79. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Abraham, Werner. 1999. ‘Jespersen’s Cycle’: The evidence from Germanic. In Interdigitations: Essays for Irmengard Rauch, ed. G. F. Carr, W. Harbert, and L. Zhang, 63–70. New York: Peter Lang. Abraham, Werner. 2003. Autonomous and non-autonomous components of ‘grammatic(al)ization’: Economy criteria in the emergence of German negation. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 56:325–365. Ackema, Peter, and Ad Neeleman. 2003. Context-sensitive Spell-out. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21:681–735. Aelbrecht, Lobke. 2008. Niemand nie in Vlaamse spreektaal. TABU 36:89–102. Andersen, Henning. 1973. Abductive and deductive change. Language 49:765–793. Andersen, Henning. 1987. From auxiliary to desinence. In Historical Development of Auxiliaries, ed. Martin Harris and Paolo Ramat, 21–52. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Andrew, Samuel Ogden. 1940. Syntax and Style in Old English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aronoff, Mark. 1976. Word Formation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Ashby, William. 1981. The loss of the negative particle ne in French: A syntactic change in progress. Language 57:674–687. van der Auwera, Johan. 2009. The Jespersen Cycles. In Cyclical Change, ed. Elly van Gelderen, 35–71. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. van der Auwera, Johan, and Annemie Neuckermans. 2004. Jespersen’s cycle and the interaction of predicate and quantifier negation in Flemish. In Dialectology Meets Typology: Dialect Grammar from a Cross-linguistic Perspective, ed. Bernd Kortmann, 454–478. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Axel, Katrin. 2005. Studien zur althochdeutschen Syntax. Linke Satzperipherie, Verbstellung und Verb-Zweit. Doctoral Dissertation, Erberhard Karls Universität Tübingen. Axel, Katrin. 2007. Studies on Old High German Syntax: Left Sentence Periphery, Verb Placement, and Verb-second. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Baker, Carl Lee. 1991. The syntax of English not: The limits of core grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 22:387–429. Baker, Mark C. 2008. The macroparameter in a microparametric world. In The Limits of Syntactic Variation, ed. Theresa M. Biberauer, 351–374. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barbiers, Sjef, Johan van der Auwera, Hans Bennis, Eefje Boef, Gunther De Vogelaer, and Margreet van der Ham. 2009. Syntactische Atlas van de Nederlandse Dialecten. Volume 2: Werkwoordsclusters, hulpwerkwoorden en negatie. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Bayer, Josef. 2002a. From modal particle to interrogative marker: A study of German denn. In Functional Heads. Papers Presented to Guglielmo Cinque on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday,

References



ed. Laura Brugè, Anna Cardinaletti, Giuliana Giusti, Nicola Munaro, and Cecilia Poletto, 13–28. New York: Oxford University Press. Bayer, Josef. 2002b. Minimale Annahmen in Syntax und Morphologie. In Sprachtheoretische Grundlagen der Kognitionswissenschaft: Sprachliches und nichtsprachliches Wissen [Linguistische Arbeitsberichte 79], ed. Anita Steube, 277–297. Universität Leipzig: Institut für Linguistik. Bayer, Josef. 2006. Nothing/nichts as negative polarity items? . Bayer, Josef. 2009. Nominal negative quantifiers as adjuncts. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 12:5–30. Beal, Joan C., and Karen P. Corrigan. 2005. No, nay, never: Negation in Tyneside English. In Aspects of English Negation, ed. Yoko Iyeiri, 139–157. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Behaghel, Otto. 1897. Die Syntax des Heliand. Prag, Wien, Leipzig: Tempsky-Freytag. Behaghel, Otto. 1918. Die Verneinung in den deutschen Sprachen. Wiss. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift des allg. Dt. Sprachvereins, 5. Reihe 38/40:225–252. Beheydt, Griet. 1998. Het gebruik en de vorm van de negatie in het zuidelijke Nederlands in een diachronisch perspectief (15e–20e eeuw). Licentiate’s thesis, University Leuven. Bell, Arthur. 2004. How n-words move: Bipartite negation and ‘split-NegP’. In Triggers, ed. Anne Breitbarth and Henk van Riemsdijk, 78–113. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Besch, Werner, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger (eds.). 2000. Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. 2. Teilband. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. den Besten, Hans. 1983a. On the interaction of root transformations and lexical deletive rules. In On the Formal Syntax of the Westgermania, ed. Werner Abraham, 47–131. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. den Besten, Hans. 1983b. Double negation and the genesis of Afrikaans. In Substrates versus Universals in Creole Languages, ed. Peter Muysken and Norval Smith, 185–230. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Biberauer, Theresa. 2007. A closer look at negative concord in Afrikaans. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 35:1–51. Biberauer, Theresa. 2008. Doubling and omission: Insights from Afrikaans negation. In Microvariations in Syntactic Doubling, ed. S. Barbiers, M. van der Ham, O. Koeneman, and M. Lekakou, 103–140. Bingley: Emerald. Biberauer, Theresa. 2009. Jespersen off course? The case of contemporary Afrikaans negation. In Cyclical Change, ed. Elly van Gelderen, 91–132. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Biberauer, Theresa, and Hedde Zeijlstra. 2012. Negation in Afrikaans: Filling the typological gap. Journal of Semantics 29. . Bieberstedt, Andreas. 2005. Komplexe Verbalgefüge in der mittelniederdeutschen Kanzleisprache. Niederdeutsches Jahrbuch 128:7–40. Bierwisch, Manfred. 1963. Grammatik des deutschen Verbs. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Bies, Ann E. 1996. Syntax and discourse factors in Early New High German: Evidence for verb-final order. MA thesis, University of Pennsylvania. . Bobaljik, Jonathan. 2002. A-chains at the PF-interface: Copies and ‘covert’ movement. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 20:197–267.



References

Bošković, Željko. 2011. On valued uninterpretable features. In Proceedings of NELS, ed. Suzi Lima, Kevin Mullin, and Brian Smith, 109–120. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Brattico, Pauli, and Saara Huhmarniemi. 2006. Finnish negation, the EPP feature and the valuation theory of morphosyntax. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 29:5–44. Braunmüller, Kurt. 2007a. Dialects, varieties and historical linguistics. In Nordisk dialektologi og sociolingvistik. Foredrag på 8. Nordiske Dialektologkonference Århus 15.–18. august 2006, ed. Torben Arboe, 11–31. Århus: Peter Skautrup Centret for Jysk Dialektforskning, Aarhus Universitet. Braunmüller, Kurt. 2007b. Receptive multilingualism in Northern Europe in the Middle Ages: A description of a scenario. In Receptive Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication, ed. Jan D. ten Thije and Ludger Zeevaert, 25–47. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Breitbarth, Anne. 2009. A hybrid approach to Jespersen’s Cycle in West Germanic. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 12:81–114. Breitbarth, Anne. 2011. Modality and negation in the history of Low German. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 30:131–167. Breitbarth, Anne. 2013a. Indefinites, negation and Jespersen’s Cycle in the history of Low German. Diachronica 30:171–201. Breitbarth, Anne. 2013b. Negation in the history of Low German and Dutch. In The Development of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, vol. 1: Case Studies, ed. David Willis, Christopher Lucas, and Anne Breitbarth, 190–238. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Breitbarth, Anne, and Liliane Haegeman. 2010. Continuity is change: The long tail of Jespersen’s cycle in Flemish. In Continuity and Change in Grammar, ed. Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts, and David Willis, 61–75. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Breitbarth, Anne, and Liliane Haegeman. 2014. The distribution of preverbal en in (West) Flemish: Syntactic and interpretive properties. Lingua 147:69–86. Breitbarth, Anne, Christopher Lucas, and David Willis. 2013. Incipient Jespersen’s Cycle: The (non-)grammaticalization of new negative markers. In Comparing Diachronies/ Sprachwandelvergleich, ed. Jürg Fleischer and Horst Simon, 143–164. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Breitbarth, Anne, Christopher Lucas, and David Willis. To appear. The Development of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, vol. 2: Patterns and Processes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burridge, Kate. 1993. Syntactic Change in Germanic: Aspects of Language Change in Germanic with Particular Reference to Middle Dutch. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 89. Cardinaletti, Anna. 2004. Toward a cartography of subject positions. In The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, vol. 2: The Structure of CP and IP, ed. Luigi Rizzi, 115–165. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cardinaletti, Anna. 2010. German and Italian modal particles and clause structure. The Linguistic Review 28:493–531. Cardinaletti, Anna, and Michal Starke. 1999. The typology of structural deficiency: A case study of the three classes of pronouns. In Clitics in the Languages of Europe (EALT/EUROTYP 20–5), ed. Henk van Riemsdijk, 145–233. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

References



Carstens, Vicky. 2010. Implications of the grammatical gender for the theory of uninterpretable features. In Exploring Crash-Proof Grammars, ed. M. Putnam, 31–57. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Cedergren, Henrietta J., and David Sankoff. 1974. Variable rules: Performance as a statistical reflection of competence. Language 50:333–355. Cheshire, Jenny. 1999. English negation from an interactional perspective. In Negation in the History of English, ed. Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Gunnel Tottie, and Wim van der Wurff, 29–53. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Cheshire, Jenny, Viv Edwards, and Pamela Whittle. 1995. Urban British dialect grammar: The question of dialect levelling. In Verbale Kommunikation in der Stadt, ed. Iwar Werlen, 67–109. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam. 1993. A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. In The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, ed. Ken Hale and Samuel J. Keyser, 1–52. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Reprinted as chapter 3 of Chomsky (1995). Chomsky, Noam. 1995a. Bare phrase structure. In Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory: Essays in Honor of Carlos Otero, ed. Hector Campos and Paula Kempchinsky, 51–109. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Chomsky, Noam. 1995b. The Minimalist Program. MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Essays on Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik, ed. Roger Martin, David Michaels, and Juan Uriagereka, 89–155. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Ken Hale: A Life in Language, ed. Michael Kenstowicz, 1–52. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam. 2005. Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry 36:1–22. Chomsky, Noam. 2007. Approaching UG from below. In Interfaces + Recursion = Language?: Chomsky’s Minimalism and the View from Syntax–Semantics, ed. Uli Sauerland and HansMartin Gärtner, 1–29. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Christensen, Ken Ramshoj. 2003a. NEG-shift in the Scandinavian Languages and English. Grammatik i Fokus, Lund, February 6th, 2003. . Christensen, Ken Ramshoj. 2003b. On the synchronic and diachronic status of the negative adverbial ikke/not. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 72:1–53. Christensen, Kirsti Koch. 1986. Norwegian ingen: A case of postsyntactic lexicalization. In Scandinavian Syntax, ed. Östen Dahl and Anders Holmberg, 21–35. Stockholm: Institute of Linguistics, University of Stockholm. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1976. Mica. Annali della Facoltá di Lettere e Filosofia, Universitá di Padova I:101–112. Reprinted in Cinque, G. (1991). Teoria Linguistica e Sintassi Italiana. Bologna: Il Mulino. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads. Oxford University Press. Clarke, Charles C. 1904. The actual force of the French ‘ne’. Modern Philology 2:279–287. Cloutier, Robert A. 2009. West Germanic OV and VO: The Status of Exceptions. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Amsterdam.



References

Coetsem, Frans van. 2000. A General and Unified Theory of the Transmission Process in Language Contact. Carl Winter. Coombs, Virginia Mae. 1976. A Semantic Syntax of Grammatical Negation in the Older Germanic Dialects. Verlag Alfred Kümmerle. (Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 177). Cormack, Annabel, and Neil Smith. 1998. Negation, polarity, and V positions in English. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 10:285–322. Cormack, Annabel, and Neil Smith. 2000. Head movement and negation in English. Transactions of the Philological Society 98:49–85. Cormack, Annabel, and Neil Smith. 2002. Modals and negation in English. In Modality and its Interaction with the Verbal System, ed. Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema, and Wim van der Wurff, 133–163. John Benjamins. Coupé, Griet, and Ans van Kemenade. 2009. Grammaticalization of modals in Dutch: Uncontingent change. In Historical Syntax and Linguistic Theory, ed. Paola Crisma and Giuseppe Longobardi, 250–271. Oxford University Press. Croft, William. 1991. The evolution of negation. Journal of Linguistics 27:1–27. Cruschina, Silvio. 2010. Aspetti morfologici e sintattici degli avverbi in siciliano. Quaderni di lavoro ASIt 11:19–39. Studi sui dialetti della Sicilia. A cura di Jacopo Garzonio. Dahl, Östen. 1979. Typology of sentence negation. Linguistics 17:79–106. Dal, Ingerid. 1952. Kurze deutsche Syntax. Tübingen: Niemeyer. De Clercq, Karen. 2013. A Unified Syntax of Negation. Doctoral Dissertation, Ghent University. De Pauw, Godelieve. 1973. Syntaktische kenmerken van het dialect van Buggenhout-Opstal. Licentiate’s thesis, Ghent University. Denison, David. 2003. Log(ist)ic and simplistic S-curves. In Motives for Language Change, ed. Raymond Hickey, 54–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Déprez, Viviane. 2000. Parallel asymmetries and the internal structure of n-words. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 18:253–342. Diesing, Molly. 1992. Indefinites. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Donhauser, Karin. 1996. Negationssyntax in der deutschen Sprachgeschichte: Grammatikalisierung oder Degrammatikalisierung? In Deutsch: Typologisch, ed. Ewald Lang, 201–217. Berlin: De Gruyter. Donhauser, Karin. 1998. Negationssyntax im Althochdeutschen: Ein sprachhistorisches Rätsel und der Weg zu seiner Lösung. In Deutsche Grammatik: Thema in Variationen, ed. Karin Donhauser and Ludwig M. Eichinger, 283–298. Heidelberg: Winter. Drach, Erich. 1937. Grundgedanken der deutschen Satzlehre. Frankfurt/Main: Diesterweg. Photomechanically reproduced, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963. Ebert, Robert P. 1978. Historische Syntax des Deutschen. Stuttgart: Metzler. Ebert, Robert P. 1980. Social and stylistic variation in Early New High German word order: The sentence frame (‘Satzrahmen’). Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Tübingen) 102:357–398. Ebert, Robert P., Oskar Reichmann, Hans-Joachim Solms, and Klaus-Peter Wegera. 1993. Frühneuhochdeutsche Grammatik. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Eckardt, Regine. 2012. The many careers of negative polarity items. In Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen, ed. Kristin Davidse, Tine Breban, Lieselotte Brems, and Tania Mortelmans, 149–176. Hamburg: Buske.

References



Ellegård, Alvar. 1953. The Auxiliary Do: The Establishment and Regulation of Its Use in English. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell. Edited by Frank Behre. Gothenburg Studies in English. Ernst, Thomas. 1992. The phrase structure of English negation. The Linguistic Review 9:109–144. Ernst, Thomas. 2002. The Syntax of Adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eythórsson, Thorhallur. 1995. Verbal Syntax in the Early Germanic Languages. Doctoral Dissertation, Cornell University. Eythórsson, Thorhallur. 2002. Negation in C: The syntax of negated verbs in Old Norse. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 25:190–224. Fauconnier, Gilles. 1975. Polarity and the scale principle. Chicago Linguistic Society 11:188–199. Ferraresi, Gisella. 2006. Word Order and Phrase Structure in Gothic. Leuven: Peeters. Ferraresi, Gisella, and Maria Goldbach. 2008. Principles of Syntactic Reconstruction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. von Fintel, Kai. 1995. The formal semantics of grammaticalization. In Proceedings of NELS 25. Volume 2: Papers from the Workshops on Language Acquisition & Language Change, ed. J. N. Beckman, 175–189. UMass Amherst: GLSA Publications. Frisch, Stefan. 1997. The change in negation in Middle English: A NEGP licensing account. Lingua 101:21–64. Fuß, Eric. 1998. Zur Diachronie von Verbzweit: Die Entwicklung von Verbstellungsvarianten im Deutschen und Englischen. MA thesis, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main. Fuß, Eric. 2000. Residual V2 as the historical origin of the V2 phenomenon. Proceedings of ConSole 8; ISBN 90-804582-3-6. van Gelderen, Elly. 2004a. Economy, innovation, and prescriptivism: From spec to head and head to head. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 7:59–98. van Gelderen, Elly. 2004b. Grammaticalization as Economy. Berlin: John Benjamins. van Gelderen, Elly. 2008a. Negative cycles. Linguistic Typology 12:195–243. van Gelderen, Elly. 2008b. Where did Late Merge go? Grammaticalization as feature economy. Studia Linguistica 62:287–300. van Gelderen, Elly. 2011a. Feature economy in the linguistic cycle. In Current Trends in Historical Syntax, ed. Paola Crisma and Giuseppe Longobardi, 93–109. Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Gelderen, Elly. 2011b. The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gerken, LouAnn. 1994a. A metrical template account of children’s weak syllable omissions from multisyllabic words. Journal of Child Language 21:565–584. Gerken, LouAnn. 1994b. Young children’s representation of prosodic phonology: Evidence from English-speakers’ weak syllable productions. Journal of Memory and Language 33:19–38. Gerken, LouAnn. 1996. Prosodic structure in young children’s language production. Language 72:683–712. Gerken, LouAnn. 2005. What develops in language development? Advances in Child Development and Behaviour 33:153–192. Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1998. Polarity Sensitivity as (Non)veridical Dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2000. Negative . . . concord? Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 18:457–523.



References

Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2005. N-words and negative concord. In The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, ed. Martin Everaert, Henk van Riemsdijk, Rob Goedemans, and Bart Hollebrandse, 327–391. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Giannakidou, Anastasia, and Suwon Yoon. 2010. No NPI licensing in comparatives. In Proceedings of the 46th Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 46), ed. Timothy Grinsell, Adam Baker, Julia Thomas, Rebekah Baglini, and Jon Keane. Chicago: University of Chicago. . Giorgi, A., and F. Pianesi. 1991. Towards a syntax of temporal representations. Probus 3:187–312. Giorgi, A., and F. Pianesi. 1997. Tense and Aspect: From Semantics to Morphosyntax. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Givón, Talmy. 1976. Topic, pronoun and grammatical agreement. In Subject and Topic, ed. Charles N. Li, 149–188. New York: Academic Press. Grosz, Patrick. 2005. dn in Viennese German: The syntax of a clitic version of the discourse particle denn. Diplomarbeit: Universität Wien. Grosz, Patrick. 2007. German discourse particles are weak sentence adverbs. In Proceedings of the XXXII Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, Firenze, 2–4 March 2006, ed. Maria Cecilia Picchi and Alan Pona, 79–91. Allessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Gysseling, Maurits. 1980. Die nordniederländische Herkunft des Helianddichters und des ‘altsächsischen Taufgelöbnisses’. Niederdeutsches Jahrbuch 103:14–31. de Haan, Ger J., and Fred Weerman. 1984. Taaltypologie, taalverandering en mogleijke grammatica’s: Het Middelnederlandse en. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 100:161–190. Haeberli, Eric, and Liliane Haegeman. 1995. Clause structure in Old English: Evidence from negative concord. Linguistics 31:81–108. Haegeman, Liliane. 1995. The Syntax of Negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haegeman, Liliane, and Terje Lohndal. 2010. Negative concord and multiple agree: A case study of West Flemish. Linguistic Inquiry 41:181–211. Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard. 2009. The grammaticalization of negative reinforcers in Old and Middle French: A discourse-functional approach. In Current Trends in Diachronic Semantics and Pragmatics, ed. Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Jacqueline Visconti, 227–251. Bingley: Emerald. Härd, John Evert. 2000. Syntax des Mittelniederdeutschen. In Sprachgeschichte. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. 2. Teilband, ed. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger, 1456–1463. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haspelmath, Martin. 2004. On directionality in language change with particular reference to grammaticalisation. In Up and Down the Cline: The Nature of Grammaticalization, ed. Olga Fischer, Muriel Norde, and Harry Peridon, 17–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Haspelmath, Martin. 2011. Negative indefinite pronouns and predicate negation. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. Available online at . Haspelmath, Martin, and J. Caruana. 1996. Indefinite pronouns in Maltese. Rivista di Linguistica 8:213–227.

References



Hegarty, Michael. 2005. A Feature-based Syntax of Functional Categories: The Structure, Acquisition and Specific Impairment of Functional Systems. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Heim, Irene. 1982. The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, and Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Heine, Bernd, and Tania Kuteva. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heine, Bernd, and Tania Kuteva. 2003. On contact-induced grammaticalization. Studies in Language 27:3:529–572. Herburger, Elena. 1998. Spanish N-words: Ambivalent behavior or ambivalent nature? MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 25:86–102. Hinterhölzl, Roland. 2004. Language change versus grammar change: What diachronic data reveal about the distinction between core grammar and periphery. In Diachronic Clues to Synchronic Grammar, ed. Eric Fuß and Carola Trips, 131–160. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hinterhölzl, Roland. 2009. The role of information structure in word order variation and word order change. In New Approaches to Word Order Variation in Germanic, ed. Roland Hinterhölzl and Svetlana Petrova, 45–66. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hiraiwa, Ken. 2001. Multiple agreement and the defective intervention effect. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 40:67–80. Hoeksema, Jack. 1983. Negative polarity and the comparative. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3:403–434. Hoeksema, Jack. 2009. Jespersen recycled. In Cyclical Change, ed. Elly van Gelderen, 15–34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hofmann, Dietrich. 1991. Die Versstrukturen der altsächsischen Stabreimgedichte Heliand und Genesis. Heidelberg: Winter. Holmberg, Anders. 1986. Word Order and Syntactic Features in the Scandinavian Languages and English. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Stockholm, Department of Linguistics. Holmberg, Märta Åsdahl. 1967. Exzipierend-einschränkende Ausdrucksweisen, untersucht besonders auf Grund hochdeutscher Bibelübersetzungen bis zum Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Hopper, Paul, and Elizabeth Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition. Horn, Laurence R. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. van der Horst, Joop M., and Marijke J. van der Wal. 1978. Negatieverschijnselen en woordvolgorde in de geschiedenis van het Nederlands. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 95:1:6–37. Iatridou, Sabine. 1990. About AgrP. Linguistic Inquiry 21:551–576. Ingham, Richard. 2000. Negation and OV order in Late Middle English. Journal of Linguistics 36:13–38. Ingham, Richard. 2003. Negative concord and the loss of the negative particle ne in Late Middle English. Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 7:145–166.



References

Ingham, Richard. 2010. Negative co-ordination in the history of English. In Continuity and Change in Grammar, ed. Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts, and David Willis, 181–199. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ingham, Richard, and Amel Kallel. To appear. Evidence from a correspondence corpus for diachronic change in French indefinites 1450–1750. In The diachrony of negation, ed. MajBritt Mosegaard Hansen and Jacqueline Visconti. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Iyeiri, Yoko. 2001. Negative Constructions in Middle English. Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press. Iyeiri, Yoko. 2002a. Development of any from Middle English to Early Modern English: A study using the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. In English Corpus Linguistics in Japan, ed. Toshio Saito, Junsaku Nakamura, and Shunji Yamazaki, 211–223. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Iyeiri, Yoko. 2002b. Development of any in Later Middle English and the decline of multiple negation. In And Gladly Wolde he Lerne and Gladly Teche: Essays on Medieval English Presented to Professor Matsuji Tajima on His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Yoko Iyeiri and Margaret Connolly, 127–143. Tokyo: Kaibunsha. Jack, George B. 1978a. Negation in Later Middle English prose. Archivum Linguisticum 9:58–72. Jack, George B. 1978b. Negative adverbs in Early Middle English. English Studies 59:295–309. Jäger, Agnes. 2007. On the diachrony of polarity types of indefinites. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Negation and Polarity, ed. Hedde Zeijlstra and Jan-Philipp Soehn, 78–84. University of Tübingen: Collaborative Research Center 441. Jäger, Agnes. 2008. History of German Negation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jäger, Agnes. 2010. Anything is nothing is something: On the diachrony of polarity types of indefinites. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 28:787–822. Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and Other Languages. Copenhagen: A.F. Høst. Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser I,5. Johannessen, Johanne Bondi. 1997. The status of the negation ikke in Norwegian. Manuscript, University of Oslo; . Julien, Marit. 2002. Syntactic Heads and Word Formation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kadmon, Nirit, and Fred Landman. 1993. Any. Linguistics and Philosophy 16:353–422. Keenan, Edward. 1994. Creating anaphors: An historical study of the English reflexive pronouns. Manuscript, University of California at Los Angeles. Keenan, Edward. 2002. Explaining the creation of reflexive pronouns in English. In Studies in the History of the English Language: A Millennial Perspective, ed. Donka Minkova and Robert Stockwell, 325–354. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. van Kemenade, Ans. 2000. Jespersen’s Cycle revisited. In Diachronic Syntax, ed. Susan Pintzuk, George Tsoulas, and Anthony Warner, 51–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kettmann, G., and J. Schildt. 1976. Zur Ausbildung der Norm der deutschen Literatursprache auf der syntaktischen Ebene (1470–1730). Der Einfachsatz. 2., unveränd. Aufl. Berlin (Ost): Akademie-Verlag. Kiparsky, Paul. 1973. Elsewhere in phonology. In A Festschrift for Morris Halle, ed. Stephen Anderson and Paul Kiparsky, 93–106. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Kiparsky, Paul. 1990. Origins of Germanic syntax. In Edinburgh Working Papers in Cognitive Science vol. 6: Parametric Variation in Germanic and Romance, ed. Elisabeth Engdahl, Mike Reape, Martin Mellor, and Richard Cooper, 151–152. Edinburgh: Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh.

References



Kiparsky, Paul. 1995. Indo-European origins of Germanic syntax. In Clause Structure and Language Change, ed. Adrian Battye and Ian Roberts, 140–169. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kiparsky, Paul. 2012. Grammaticalization as optimization. In Grammatical Change: Origins, Natures, Outcomes, ed. Dianne Jonas, John Whitman, and Andrew Garrett, 15–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Klein, Thomas. 1990. Die Straubinger Heliand-Fragmente: Altfriesisch oder Altsächsisch? In Aspects of Old Frisian Philology, ed. Rolf H. Bremmer Jr., Geart van der Meer, and Oebele Vries, 197–225. Amsterdam/Atlanta/Groningen: Rodopi. Klein, Thomas. 2000a. Phonetik und Phonologie, Graphetik und Graphemik des Altniederdeutschen (Altsächsischen). In Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. 2. Teilband, ed. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger, 1248–1252. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Klein, Thomas. 2000b. Sozio-kulturelle Voraussetzungen und Sprachraum des Altniederdeutschen (Altsächsischen). In Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. 2. Teilband, ed. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger, 1241–1247. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Klima, Edward S. 1964. Negation in English. In The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language, ed. Jerry A. Fodor and Jerrold Katz, 246–323. Englewoods Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. König, Werner. 2007. dtv-Atlas Deutsche Sprache. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Koster, Jan. 1975. Dutch as an SOV language. Linguistic Analysis 1:111–136. Kroch, Anthony. 1989. Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Linguistic Variation and Change 1:199–244. Kroch, Anthony. 1994. Morphosyntactic Variation. . Kroch, Anthony. 2001. Syntactic change. In The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory, ed. Mark Baltin and Chris Collins, 629–739. Malden/Mass.: Blackwell. Labov, William. 1972. Some principles of linguistic methodology. Language in Society 1:97–120. Labov, William. 1994. Principles of Linguistic Change, vol. I: Internal Factors. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell. Ladusaw, William A. 1979. Polarity Sensitivity as Inherent Scope Relations. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. Published 1980 by Garland, New York. Ladusaw, William A. 1992. Expressing Negation. In Proceedings of SALT II, ed. Chris Barker and David Dowty, 237–259. Ohio State University, Ohio State Working Papers in Linguistics 40. Ladusaw, William A. 1993. Negation, indefinites, and the Jespersen Cycle. In Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Joshua S. Guenter, Barbara A. Kaiser, and Cheryl C. Zoll, 437–446. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Laka, Itziar. 1994a. On the Syntax of Negation. Doctoral Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laka, Itziar. 1994b. On the Syntax of Negation. New York, London: Garland. Lasch, Agathe. 1914. Mittelniederdeutsche Grammatik. Halle an der Saale: Niemeyer. Lass, Roger. 1990. How to do things with junk: Exaptation in language evolution. Journal of Linguistics 26:79–102.



References

Lass, Roger. 1997. Historical Linguistics and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lehmann, Winfried P. 1953. The alliteration of Old Saxon poetry. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap Suppl. Vol. III:7–38. Lenerz, Jürgen. 1984. Syntaktischer Wandel und Grammatiktheorie. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Lenerz, Jürgen. 1985. Diachronic syntax: Verb position and COMP in German. In Studies in German Grammar, ed. Jindřich Toman, 103–132. Dordrecht: Foris. Lightfoot, David. 1979. Principles of Diachronic Syntax. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press. Lightfoot, David. 1991. How to Set Parameters. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Lightfoot, David. 1999. The Development of Language: Acquisition, Change, and Evolution. Oxford: Blackwell. Longobardi, Giuseppe. 1994a. La posizione del verbo gotico e la sintassi comparata dei complementatori germanici: Alcune riflessioni preliminari. In Miscellenea di studi linguistici in onore di Walter Belari, ed. P. Cipriano, P. Di Giovine, and M. Mancini, 353–373. Rome: Calamo. Longobardi, Giuseppe. 1994b. Reference and proper names. Linguistic Inquiry 25:609–665. Longobardi, Giuseppe. 2001. Formal syntax, diachronic minimalism, and etymology: The history of French chez. Linguistic Inquiry 32:275–302. López, Luis. 2008. The [person] restriction: why? And, most specially, why not? In Agreement Restrictions, ed. Roberta D’Alessandro, Susann Fischer, and Gunnar Hrafn Hrafnbjargarsson, 129–158. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lucas, Christopher. 2007. Jespersen’s Cycle in Arabic and Berber. Transactions of the Philological Society 105:398–431. Lucas, Christopher. 2009. The Development of Negation in Arabic and Afro-Asiatic. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Cambridge. Lucas, Christopher. 2012. Contact-induced grammatical change: Towards an explicit account. Diachronica 29: 275–300. Lucas, Christopher, and David Willis. 2012. Never again: The multiple grammaticalization of never as a marker of negation in English. English Language and Linguistics 16:459–485. Martins, Ana Maria. 1997. Aspectos da negação na história das línguas românicas: Da natureza de palavras como nenhum, nada, ninguém. In Actas do XII Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística. Vol. 2: Linguística Histórica e História da Linguística, ed. Ivo Castro, 179–210. Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Linguística. Martins, Ana Maria. 2000. Polarity items in Romance: Underspecification and lexical change. In Diachronic Syntax, ed. Susan Pintzuk, G. Tsoulas, and A. Warner, 191–219. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martins, Ana Maria. 2010. Negation and NPI composition inside DP. Paper presented at the 12th International Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference (DiGS), 14–16 July 2010, Cambridge University. Mazzon, Gabriella. 2004. A History of English Negation. Harlow, etc.: Pearson Longman. Meersman, A. de. 1980. Ontkenningen in ouder Nederlands. Studia Germanica Gandensia 21:5–14. Miestamo, Matti. 2005. Standard Negation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

References



Milroy, James, and Lesley Milroy. 1985. Linguistic change, social network and speaker innovation. Journal of Linguistics 21:339–384. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English Syntax. Oxford: Clarendon. Molnár, Anna. 2002. Die Grammatikalisierung deutscher Modalpartikeln. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Müller, Gertraud, and Theodor Frings. 1959. Die Entstehung der deutschen daß-Sätze. Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, phil.-hist. Klasse 103:168–175. Naro, Anthony J. 1978. A study on the origins of pidginization. Language 54:314–347. Neeleman, Ad, and Reiko Vermeulen (ed.). 2012. The Syntax of Topic, Focus, and Contrast: An Interface-based Approach. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Neuckermans, Annemie. 2008. Negatie in de Vlaamse dialecten volgens gegevens van de syntactische Atlas van de Nederlandse Dialecten (SAND). Doctoral Dissertation, Ghent University. Nevalainen, Terttu. 2006. Negative concord as an English ‘vernacular universal’. Journal of English Linguistics 34:257–278. Nilsen, Øystein. 2003. Eliminating Positions: Syntax and Semantics of Sentence Modification. Doctoral Dissertation, Utrecht University. Oosthuizen, Johan. 1998. The final nie in Afrikaans negative sentences. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics 31:61–94. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid, Gunnel Tottie, and Wim van der Wurff (eds.). 1999. Negation in the History of English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Ouhalla, Jamal. 1991. Functional Categories and Parametric Variation. London/New York: Routledge. Parry, Mair. 2013. Negation in the history of Italo-Romance. In The Development of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, vol. I: Case Studies, ed. Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, and David Willis, 77–118. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Payne, John. 1985. Negation. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume 1: Clause Structure, ed. Timothy Shopen, 197–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Penka, Doris. 2006. A cross-linguistic perspective on n-words. To appear in: Proceedings of BIDE05, International Journal of Basque Linguistics and Philology; . Penka, Doris. 2007. Negative Indefinites. Doctoral Dissertation, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen. Penka, Doris. 2011. Negative Indefinites. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Penka, Doris, and Arnim von Stechow. 2001. Negative Indefinita unter Modalverben. In Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen, ed. Reimar Müller and Marga Reis, 263–286. Hamburg: Helmut Buske. Linguistische Berichte, Sonderheft 9. Pensel, Franzjosef. 1976. Die Satznegation. In Zur Ausbildung der Norm der deutschen Literatursprache auf der syntaktischen Ebene (1470–1730). Der Einfachsatz. 2., unveränd. Aufl, ed. G. Kettmann and J. Schildt, 287–326. Berlin (Ost): Akademie-Verlag. Pereltsvaig, Asya. 2004. Negative polarity items in Russian and the ‘bagel problem’. In Negation in Slavic, ed. Adam Przepiorkowski and Sue Brown, 1–28. Bloomington: Slavica Publishers. Pesetsky, David, and Esther Torrego. 2007. The syntax of valuation and the interpretability of features. In Phrasal and Clausal Architecture: Syntactic Derivation and Interpretation, in



References

Honor of Joseph E. Emonds, ed. Simin Karimi, Vida Samiian, and Wendy K. Wilkins, 262– 294. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Peters, Robert. 1973. Mittelniederdeutsche Sprache. In Niederdeutsch: Sprache und Literatur. Band 1: Sprache, ed. Jan Goossens, 66–115. Neumünster: Wachholtz. Peters, Robert. 1995. Die angebliche Geltung der sog. mittelniederdeutschen Schriftsprache in Westfalen: Zur Geschichte eines Mythos. In Lingua Theodisca: Beiträge zur Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft. Jan Goossens zum 65. Geburtstag, Bd. 1, ed. Jos’e Cajot, Ludger Kremer, and Hermann Niebaum, 199–213. Münster: Lit. Peters, Robert. 1997. Regionale Schreibsprachen oder normierte Hansesprache? Das Projekt ‘Atlas frühmittelniederdeutscher Schreibsprachen’. In Gesellschaft, Kommunikation und Sprache Deutschlands in der frühen Neuzeit: Studien des deutsch-japanischen Arbeitskreises für Frühneuhochdeutschforschung, ed. Klaus J. Mattheier, Haruo Nitta, and Mitsuyo Ono, 173–186. Munich: iudicium. Peters, Robert. 1998. Zur Sprachgeschichte des niederdeutschen Raumes. Zeitschrift für niederdeutsche Philologie 117:108–127. Sonderheft Regionale Sprachgeschichte, ed. Werner Besch and Hans Joachim Solms. Peters, Robert. 2000a. Die Diagliederung des Mittelniederdeutschen. In Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. 2. Teilband, ed. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger, 1478–1490. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Peters, Robert. 2000b. Sozio-kulturelle Voraussetzungen und Sprachraum des Mittelniederdeutschen. In Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung, 2. Teilband, ed. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger, 1408–1422. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Peters, Robert. 2003. Variation und Ausgleich in den mittelniederdeutschen Schreibsprachen. In The Dawn of the Written Vernacular in Western Europe, ed. Mich‘ele Goyens and Werner Verbeke, 427–440. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Peters, Robert, and Christian Fischer. 2007. Der ‘atlas spätmittelalterlicher Schreibsprachen des niederdeutschen Altlandes und angrenzender Gebiete’ (ASnA). In Ostmitteldeutsche Schreibsprachen im Spätmittelalter, ed. Luise Czajkowski, Corinna Hoffmann, and Hans Ulrich Schmid, 23–33. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Peters, Robert, Christian Fischer, Karen Mens, Norbert Nagel, and Reinhard Pilkmann-Pohl. To appear. Atlas spätmittelalterlicher Schreibsprachen des niederdeutschen Altlandes und angrenzender Gebiete (ASnA). Berlin: De Gruyter. Petrova, Svetlana. 2011. The Syntax of Middle Low German. Habilitation thesis, HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin. Petrova, Svetlana. 2012. Multiple XP-fronting in Middle Low German root clauses. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 15:157–188. Pintzuk, Susan. 1991. Phrase Structures in Competition: Variation and Change in Old English Word Order. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Poletto, Cecilia. 2008a. On negation splitting and doubling. Paper presented at the NORMS Workshop on Negation, University of Oslo, 11–12 March 2008; . Poletto, Cecilia. 2008b. On negative doubling. Quaderni di Lavoro ASIt 8:57–84. .

References



Pollock, Jean-Yves. 1989. Verb movement, UG and the structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20:365–424. Poole, Geoffrey. 2009. The syntax-discourse interface and the development of n-words in Spanish. In Current Issues in Linguistic Interfaces, ed. Young-Se Kang, Sze-Wing Tang, Chul Kim, Jong-Yurl Yoon, Yong-Soon Kang, Kyoung-Ae Kim, Hyunkyung Yoo, Youngjun Jang, and Hye-Kyung Kang, 27–48. Seoul: Hankook Munhwasa. Posner, Rebecca. 1985. Post-verbal negation in non-standard French: A historical and comparative view. Romance Philology 39:2:170–197. Postma, Gertjan. 2002. De enkelvoudige clitische negatie in het Middelnederlands en de Jespersen cyclus. Nederlandse Taalkunde 7:44–82. Postma, Gertjan. 2005. On the nature of grammaticalization: Pas and the negative polarity of bare singulars in older French. Workshop on the grammaticalization of heads in the verbal domain. Meertens Institute, 10 November 2005. . Postma, Gertjan. 2010. The impact of failed changes. In Continuity and Change in Grammar, ed. Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts, and David Willis, 269–302. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Postma, Gertjan, and Hans Bennis. 2006. Variatie in negatie: Het gedrag van het negatieve cliticum in het Middeldrents van rond 1400. Taal en Tongval 58:148–166. Rauch, Irmengard. 2000. Syntax des Altniederdeutschen (Altsächsischen). In Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. 2. Teilband, ed. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger, 1263–1269. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. van Reenen, Pieter, and Maaike Mulder. 2000. Un corpus linguistique de 3000 chartes en moyen Néerlandais du 14e siècle. In Corpus: Méthodologie et Applications linguistiques, ed. Mireille Bilger, 209–217. Paris: Champion et Presses Universitaires de Perpignan. Ritter, Elisabeth. 1993. Where’s gender? Linguistic Inquiry 24:795–803. Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of Grammar, ed. Liliane Haegeman, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Rizzi, Luigi. 2005. On some properties of subjects and topics. In Contributions to the Thirtieth Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, ed. Laura Brugè, Giuliana Giusti, Nicola Munaro, Wolfgang Schweikert, and G. Turano, 203–224. Venice: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina. Robbers, Karin. 1992. Properties of negation in Afrikaans and Italian. In Linguistics in the Netherlands 9, ed. Reineke Bok-Bennema and Roeland van Hout, 223–234. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Roberts, Ian. 2007. Diachronic Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roberts, Ian, and Anna Roussou. 2003. Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowlett, Paul. 1992. On the D-Structure position of negative sentence adverbials in French. Journal of French Language Studies 3:39–69. Rowlett, Paul. 1997. Jespersen, negative concord, and A -binding. In Negation and Polarity, ed. Danielle Forget, Paul Hirschbühler, France Martineau, and María-Luisa Rivero, 323–340. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Rowlett, Paul. 1998. Sentential Negation in French. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.



References

Sanders, Willy. 1982. Sachsensprache, Hansesprache, Plattdeutsch: Sprachgeschichtliche Grundzüge des Niederdeutschen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Sanders, Willy. 2000. Die Textsorten des Mittelniederdeutschen. In Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. 2. Teilband, ed. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger, 1276–1282. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Sankoff, David. 1988. Variable rules. In Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, ed. Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, and Klaus J. Mattheier, 984–997. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Sankoff, David, and William Labov. 1979. On the uses of variable rules. Language in Society 8:189–222. Sankoff, David, Sali Tagliamonte, and Eric Smith. 2005. Goldvarb x. Computer program. Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, Canada. . Santorini, Beatrice. 1989. The Generalization of the Verb-second Constraint in the History of Yiddish. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. . Santorini, Beatrice. 1992. Variation and change in Yiddish subordinate clause word order. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 10:595–640. Santorini, Beatrice. 1993. The rate of phrase structure change in the history of Yiddish. Language Variation and Change 5:257–283. Schwarzschild, Roger. 2008. The semantics of comparatives and other degree constructions. Language and Linguistics Compass 2:308–331. Schwenter, Scott A. 2005. The pragmatics of negation in Brazilian Portuguese. Lingua 115:1427–1456. Schwenter, Scott A. 2006. Fine-tuning Jespersen’s Cycle. In Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning: Neo-Gricean Studies in Pragmatics and Semantics in Honor of Laurence R. Horn, ed. Betty J. Birner and Gregory Ward, 327–344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. . Schwerdt, Judith. 2000. Die 2. Lautverschiebung: Wege zu ihrer Erforschung. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Sells, Peter. 2000. Negation in Swedish: Where it’s not at. In Proceedings of the LFG00 Conference, ed. Miriam Butt and Tracy H. King, 244–263. Stanford: CSLI Publications. . Seuren, Pieter A. M. 1973. The comparative. In Generative Grammar in Europe, ed. Ferenc Kiefer and Nicolas Ruwet, 528–564. Dordrecht: Reidel. von Stechow, Arnim. 1984. Comparing semantic theories of comparison. Journal of Semantics 3:1–77. Stellmacher, Dieter. 1990. Niederdeutsche Sprache: Eine Einführung. Bern etc.: Peter Lang. Sundquist, John D. 2007. Variable use of negation in Middle Low German. In Historical Linguistics 2005, ed. Joseph Salmons and Shannon Dubenion Smith, 149–166. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. de Swart, Henriette. 2010. Expression and Interpretation of Negation: An OT Typology. Dordrecht: Springer.

References



de Swart, Henriette, and Ivan A. Sag. 2005. Negation and negative concord in French. Linguistics and Philosophy 25:373–417. Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2006. Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tavernier, C. 1959. Over negatie en expletief en in het Gents dialect. Taal en Tongval 11: 245–252. Teyssier, Paul. 1986. La négation dans les créoles portugais. In Morphosyntaxe des langues romanes, ed. Jean-Claude Bouvier, 591–604. Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence. Tiefenbach, Heinrich. 1984. Xanten, Essen, Köln: Untersuchungen zur Nordgrenze des Althochdeutschen an niederrheinischen Personennamen des neunten bis elften Jahrhunderts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Timberlake, Alan. 1977. Reanalysis and actualization in syntactic change. In Mechanisms of Syntactic Change, ed. C. N. Li, 141–177. Austin: University of Texas Press. Tophinke, Doris, and Nadine Wallmeier. 2011. Textverdichtungsprozesse im Spätmittelalter: Syntaktischer Wandel in mittelniederdeutschen Rechtstexten des 13.–16. Jahrhunderts. In Sprachvariation und Sprachwandel in der Stadt der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Stephan Elspaß and Michaela Negele, 97–116. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2004. Exaptation and grammaticalization. In Linguistic Studies Based on Corpora, ed. Minoji Akimoto, 133–156. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo Publishing Co. Travis, Lisa. 1984. Parameters and Effects of Word Order Variation. Doctoral Dissertation, MIT. Trudgill, Peter. 1994. Language contact and dialect contact in linguistic change. In Dialektkontakt, språkkontakt och språkförändring i Norden. Föredrag från ett forskarsymposium, mins 40, ed. U.-B. Kotsinas and J. Helgander, 13–22. Stockholm: Stockholm University, Department of Scandinavian Studies. Trudgill, Peter. 2004. The impact of language contact and social structure on linguistics structure: Focus on the dialects of Modern Greek. In Dialectology meets Typology: Dialect Grammar from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective, ed. Bernd Kortmann, 435–451. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Trudgill, Peter. 2011. Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ura, Hiroyuki. 1996. Multiple Feature Checking. Doctoral Dissertation, MIT. Van Alsenoy, Lauren. 2011. Negative expressions involving indefinites in African languages. In Studies van de BKL/Travaux du CBL/Papers of the LSB Volume 6, ed. Astrid De Wit, Philippe De Brabanter, Louise-Amélie Cougnon, Timothy Colleman, Patrick Dendale, and Evie Coussé. . Vincent, Nigel. 1995. Exaptation and grammaticalization. In Actualization: Linguistic Change in Progress, ed. Henning Andersen, 433–448. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Visconti, Jacqueline. 2009. From ‘textual’ to ‘interpersonal’: On the diachrony of the Italian particle mica. Journal of Pragmatics 41:937–950. Walkden, George. 2012. Against inertia. Lingua 122:891–901. Walkden, George, and Anne Breitbarth. 2013. Sociolinguistic typology and syntactic complexity. Paper presented at the Cambridge Comparative Syntax Conference (CamCoS) 2, Cambridge, 10 May 2013.



References

Wallage, Philipp. 2005. Negation in Early English: Parametric Variation and Grammatical Competition. Doctoral Dissertation, University of York. Wallage, Philipp. 2008. Jespersen’s Cycle in Middle English: Parametric variation and grammatical competition. Lingua 118:643–674. Wallenberg, Joel C. 2010. Antisymmetry and the information structure of heavy NP shift across Germanic. Paper presented at the 25th Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop, Tromsø, 10–12 June 2010. Wegener, Heide. 2002. The evolution of the German modal particle denn. In New Reflections on Grammaticalization, ed. Ilse Wischer and Gabriele Diewald, 379–394. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Weiß, Helmut. 1998. Syntax des Bairischen: Studien zur Grammatik einer natürlichen Sprache. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Weiß, Helmut. 1999. Duplex negatio non semper affirmat: A theory of double negation in Bavarian. Linguistics 37:819–846. Weiß, Helmut. 2002a. A quantifier approach to negation in natural languages, or why negative concord is necessary. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 25:125–153. Weiß, Helmut. 2002b. Indefinite pronouns: Morphology and syntax in crosslinguistic perspective. In Pronouns: Grammar and representation, ed. Horst Simon and Heike Wiese, 85–107. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Weiß, Helmut. 2002c. Three types of negation: A case study in Bavarian. In Syntactic Microvariation, ed. Sjef Barbiers, Leonie Cornips, and Susanne van der Kleij, 305–332. Amsterdam: Meertens Instituut. ISBN: 9070389673, . Whitney, William Dwight. 1867. Language and the Study of Language. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. Willis, David. 2010a. Degrammaticalization and obsolescent morphology: Evidence from Slavonic. In Grammaticalization: Current Views and Issues, ed. Katerina Stathi, Elke Gehweiler, and Ekkehard König, 151–177. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Willis, David. 2010b. Motivating the emergence of new markers of sentential negation: The case of Welsh ddim. Diachronica 27:110–156. Willis, David. 2011a. A minimalist approach to Jespersen’s Cycle in Welsh. In Grammatical Change: Origins, Natures, Outcomes, ed. Dianne Jonas, John Whitman, and Andrew Garrett, 93–119. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Willis, David. 2011b. Negative polarity and the quantifier cycle: Comparative diachronic perspectives from European languages. In The Evolution of Negation: Beyond the Jespersen Cycle, ed. Pierre Larrivée and Richard Ingham, 313–356. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Willis, David. 2013a. Negation in the history of the Brythonic Celtic languages. In The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, Volume 1: Case Studies, ed. David Willis, Christopher Lucas, and Anne Breitbarth, 239–298. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Willis, David. 2013b. Negation in the history of the Slavonic languages. In The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, Volume 1: Case Studies, ed. David Willis, Christopher Lucas, and Anne Breitbarth, 341–398. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wöllstein, Angelika. 2010. Topologisches Satzmodell. Heidelberg: Winter. van der Wouden, Ton. 1994. Negative Contexts. Doctoral Dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

References



van der Wouden, Ton. 1997. Negative Contexts: Collocation, Polarity and Multiple Negation. London/New York: Routledge. Zanuttini, Raffaela. 1991. Syntactic Properties of Sentential Negation. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Zanuttini, Raffaela. 1996. On the relevance of tense for sentential negation. In Parameters and Functional Heads: Essays in Comparative Syntax, ed. Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi, 181–207. New York: Oxford University Press. Zanuttini, Raffaela. 1997. Negation and Clausal Structure: A Comparative Study of Romance Languages. New York: Oxford University Press. Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2004. Sentential Negation and Negative Concord. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Amsterdam. Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2007. Functional structure, formal features and parametric variation: Consequences of conflicting interface conditions. Manuscript, University of Tübingen, . Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2008a. Negative concord is syntactic agreement. Manuscript, University of Amsterdam. Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2008b. On the syntactic flexibility of formal features. In The Limits of Syntactic Variation, ed. Theresa Biberauer, Anders Holmberg, and Ian Roberts, 143–173. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. . Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2009. On French negation. Manuscript, University of Amsterdam, . Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2010. Emphatic multiple negative expressions in Dutch. The Linguistic Review 27:37–73. Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2011. On the syntactically complex status of negative indefinites. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 14:111–138. Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2012. There is only one way to agree. The Linguistic Review 29:491–539. Zwarts, Frans. 1995. Nonveridical contexts. Linguistic Analysis 25:286–312. Zwarts, Frans. 1996. A hierarchy of negative expressions. In Negation: A Notion in Focus, ed. Heinrich Wansing, 169–194. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Zwarts, Frans. 1998. Three types of polarity. In Plurality and Quantification, ed. Fritz Hamm and Erhard Hinrichs, 177–238. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Zwicky, Arnold M., and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 1983. Cliticization vs. inflection: English n’t. Language 59:502–513.

Index abductive change 112–13 actualization 111 actuation 111 adverbial negation strengthener 19, 22–4, 98 Afrikaans 139 Agree 109 Multiple 139 Pairwise 137, 139 alliterative verse 9 Arabic 21, 158 Maltese 67 Bavarian 116–17 Borer–Chomsky Conjecture 112 cartography 117 comparative 56, 59–60, 69, 164 particle in exceptive clauses 33–4 Czech 138 Danish 20 Defective Intervention Constraint 140 Dutch 2, 4, 41, 156 Middle Dutch 47, 49, 164 agreement weakening 79–81 Early New High German 8 Eastphalian 12, 43–7 emphatic multiple negative expression 153 emphatic reinforcer, see adverbial negation strengthener English 2, 4, 19–21, 56, 60, 62, 133, 162–3 Middle English 61 Old English 22 exceptive clauses 18, 32–6, 166–70 Feature Economy 125–6, 129 fragment answer 62, 156 French 2, 61, 66, 129–30

generalizer 19, 23–4, 128, 176 Genesis, Old Low German 9, 146 GoldVarb X 13, 48–9 grammar competition 114, 158, 161, 170–3 Constant Rate Hypothesis 162, 171–2 Double-Base Hypothesis 114 grammaticalization 19, 21, 29, 90, 119, 125, 128, 133, 136, 157–8 divergence 133 Head Preference Principle 125–6 Heliand 8–9, 146 Cottonianus/Monacensis manuscripts 9, 158 High German 2, 4, 5 indefinites diachronic development 55, 60–1 licensing contexts 56, 69 morphological negative marking of 3, 18, 64–5, 95, 145, 146 n-free, see indefinites, morphological negative marking n-marked, see indefinites, morphological negative marking scalarity 19, 28, 55, 119, 176 semantic map of 56, 68–9 series of 55–8, 61–2, 68–70, 92–93, 144, 146–7 system of 56–7, 60, 68–9, 92 indirect negation 56, 57 inertia 112, 136 Italian 20, 56, 61, 111, 118–21, 135, 137 Jespersen’s Cycle 1–3, 123, 157, 173–4 incipient 21, 54, 158–61 stages 16–18, 36–7 transition stage II to III 42–53, 99–107, 163–4



Index

language change 111 gradualness 113–14 Late Merge Principle 125–6 maximizer 19, 56 Middle High German 8, 29–30, 47, 49 Middle Low German 3–5, 8, 16–28, 30–53, 68–9, 92–5, 154 Minimalism 109, 117, 123, 152 Minimize Structure 128, 131, 136 minimizer 19–21, 26, 119, 128, 159 Modern Low German 155–6 negation reinforcer, see adverbial negation strengthener negation strengthener, see adverbial negation strengthener negative concord 64, 144, 151 negative doubling 3, 65, 72–4, 95, 152 negative spread 66, 72, 99, 153 strict/non-strict 65, 73 negative conjuncts 17 negative polarity item (NPI) 57 licensing contexts for 57–9 61, 69, 93 NPI indefinite 62, 159 strength of 56–7, 58, 62, 127 strong NPIs, see NPI, strength of weak NPIs, see NPI, strength of negative quantifier 147 Neg-First Principle 64, 82–3 NegP-hypothesis 115–21, 123–4 North Low Saxon 12, 43–7 East Elbian 12, 43–7 Norwegian 20, 134 n-word 62, 151, 156

Old High German 20, 29, 74–5, 77 Old Low German 2–3, 5, 7, 16–28, 68–9, 72–4, 154 Old Norse 2 Old Saxon, see Old Low German paratactic negation 35 Portuguese 63, 66, 110 Portuguese-based Creole 22 Present-day German 77, 110, 131–2, 135 pseudo argument 17–18, 22, 24, 27 extent argument 26, 28, 98, 157–8, 160 Reuter, Fritz 13 Spanish 61 split scope (quantifiers) 147, 149 standard negation 3, 19–20, 97, 174 structural deficiency, see Minimize Structure Swedish 20, 138 syntactic features 109 interpretability 109, 126–7, 137–41, 152, 154, 163–4, 173–4 valuation 109–10 third factors 111–12 third factor principle 125–6, 128, 174 transmission 111 Uniformitarian Principle 111 Welsh 56, 157 Westphalian 12, 43–7