A Corpus-based Analysis of Negation in Selected 19th-century American Missionary Documents in Honolulu

Abstract

The present study discusses negation in the Hawaii Corpus, which our research team has compiled by using material left in Hawaii by members of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in the 19th century. Since our project is still at the initial stage, some of the conclusions are inevitably tentative, but this study shows that the establishment of the auxiliary do in negation was still in progress in the Hawaii Corpus and perhaps more generally in 19th-century English. Although it was nearing the completion, there were still some verbs that stayed with do-less negation to a noticeable extent. These exceptional verbs include have, know, and doubt, of which lexical have merits particular attention. While lexical have occurs in do negation in contemporary American English, it illustrates do-less negation fairly extensively in the Hawaii Corpus, suggesting that the establishment of do negation with lexical have was not reached in 19th-century American English. This study also demonstrates that forms of negation differ in the writings by different authors. Clarissa Armstrong’s English is worthy of particular notice in this context, as its relatively informal style is characterized by various aspects of negation, including the frequency of negation itself, the use of do, not, no doubt, and neither . . . or (instead of neither . . . nor).