Abstract
AbstractThis overview article discusses several important diachronic developments in the domain of negation. Every natural language has some device at its disposal to express that the truth‐value of the propositional contents of a sentence is reversed. Languages vary not only synchronically with respect to the way they express negation but also diachronically. However, languages do not undergo arbitrary changes in the domain of negation but rather follow particular diachronic pathways that leave little room for language‐specific variation. Consequently, the study of these diachronic developments may shed more light on the nature of negation in natural language than synchronic studies already do. Why is it that negation may only change along particular pathways and what does this tell us about the (special) status of negation as a functional category? This article aims to pave the way for everybody interested in the answers to these questions. I provide a brief overview of the major diachronic developments in the domain of negation that have been discovered thus far and the explanations that have been provided for these patterns. I also discuss some of the consequences of the existence of these attested patterns.
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