"No as volgude anar en loch del món": la formació de mots negatius en català antic

Abstract

The article focuses on the origin of negative polarity items in Old Catalan – i.e. words only able to occur in negative environments – on the basis of nominal lexical elements which were originally affirmative items, specifically nominal elements of minimal value (pas, gens etc.). This development in the origin of negative polarity items has a cyclical character, which means that the same tendency can be observed in Latin and later in Catalan, as well as many other – not only Romance – languages and language levels. The article deals with words such as persona and cosa, which were in the midst of a grammaticalization process in Old Catalan, which was not continued later on, and others such as the local adverb enlloc, which can only be read as a negative polarity item today. The conditions for such processes are also examined, including the absence of determiners in nominal phrases which contained these elements of minimal value in Old Catalan.Keywords: Old Catalan, negation, negative polarity items, postverbal negators, negative emphasizers, nominal elements of minimal value, grammaticalization.