The role of pragmatics in grammatical change: The case of French preverbal non

Abstract

What is the role of pragmatics in the evolution of grammatical paradigms? It is to maintain marked candidates that may become the default expression. This perspective is validated by the Jespersen cycle, where the standard expression of sentential negation is renewed as pragmatically marked negatives achieve default status. How status changes are effected, however, has still to be documented. This is what is achieved in this paper, which looks at the evolution of preverbal negative non in Old and Middle French. The negative, which categorically marks pragmatic activation ( Dryer, 1996) with finite verbs in Old French, loses this value when used with non-finite verbs in Middle French. This process is accompanied by competing semantic reanalyses of the distribution of infinitives negated in this way, and by the co-occurrence with a greater lexical variety of verbs. The absence of pragmatic contribution should lead the marker to take on the role of default, which is already fulfilled by a well-established ne … pas, pushing non into decline. Hard empirical evidence is provided, validating the assumed role of pragmatics in the Jespersen cycle, and thus the general view of pragmatics as supporting alternative candidates that may or may not achieve default status in the evolution of a grammatical paradigm.