Abstract
The Negative Cycle may be one of the most pervasive of cyclical changes. This chapter provides examples of (partial) negative cycles from a variety of languages and show that there are two grammaticalization paths, one involving an indefinite phrase and one a verbal head. Old Norse provides a good instance of the first cycle and Chinese of the second. Other languages mix the two, e.g. those in the Uralic, Afro-Asiatic, and Athabascan families. Compared to the agreement cycle, the negative cycle (and technically it is not one cycle but two) is a minor one since no language will be characterized as synthetic or analytic just on the basis of the negative.
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