The History of Low German Negation

Abstract

AbstractWhile the development of negation has in recent years gained an increased interest in linguistic research, as witnessed by a large number of new publications, this development has not yet been thoroughly and diachronically studied for historical Low German, as the historical syntax of Low German more generally is only recently coming out of the shadows. The book investigates quantitatively two empirical domains. First, the development of the expression of standard negation, or Jespersen’s Cycle, and second the changing interaction between the expression of negation and indefinites in its scope, giving rise to different types of negative concord along the way. The entire period of attestation from Old Saxon (Old Low German) to the point when Middle Low German is replaced by High German as the written language, after the completion of Jespersen’s Cycle, is taken into consideration. It is shown that the developments in Low German form a missing link between those in High German, English, and Dutch, which are much better researched. The developments are analysed using a generative account of syntactic change combined with minimalist assumptions concerning the syntax of negation and negative concord.