Negative Adverbs Research Articles

Learner uptake and acquisition in three grammar-oriented production activities

This study investigates the effects of three types of production activities on uptake (operationalized as correct suppliance of the target structure during the treatment) and acquisition of negative adverbs in English. It also investigates the relationship between uptake and acquisition. The three production activities included a dictation, an individual reconstruction and a collaborative reconstruction activity. Each of these asked participants to produce the target structure but differed in (1) whether the activity was completed individually or collaboratively; (2) the amount of text participants had to produce; and (3) their degree of complexity and cognitive demand. It was found that all three activities resulted in uptake with the collaborative reconstruction, the dictation activities resulting in greater uptake than the individual reconstruction activity. There was also an effect for the activities on acquisition (of grammatical items only), but no differential effect for any of the three types of activities. It was concluded that a production activity can lead to increased uptake, but not to increased acquisition, and vice versa. The results may help language teachers look beyond immediate performance on an activity as a measure of success, and make better-informed decisions about when to use what type of activities.

Negation Markers in Tangxi (A Wu Dialect in Chinese)

This paper first introduces the main negatives of Tangxi dialect in Wu dialects. Based on this, it compares the negatives of Tangxi dialect with those of some dialects in Mandarin, Wu, Hui, Xiang dialects as well as Pinghua from phonetic, morphemic, and semantic angles. Finally, it discusses the origins and functions of sentence-final negatives. Some conclusions made in the paper follow as: phonetic reduction is one means of grammaticalization of negatives; negative concepts of bu (_??_), wei (_??_), wu (_??_) fall into three categories: trichotomy, diachotomy, and monochotomy in Chinese dialects; it is common that negative verb wu (_??_) extends to negative adverb wei (_??_) in Chinese dialects; sentence-final negatives usually result from positive-negative questions' omitting constituents after negatives; sentence-final negatives tend to change into interrogative modal particles.

Pas rien/Pas aucun en français classique : variation dialectale et historique

We examine the relation between ne...pas rien and ne...pas aucun in 17th and 18th centuries French negative contexts, in Standard French but also in vernacular French. We make the hypothesis that the source of negative concord with pas + Neg Word is not linked to the deletion of ne and the weakening of pas but is rather triggered by changes which affected the value of the negative word itself. We argue that, as in forclusive contexts, the Neg word is analyzed as an polarity item in the context ne...pas rien/aucun. This polarity reading in that context disappears during Classical Standard French with the fixation of the two-terms negation (ne... N-word) and the reanalysis of rien as an negative adverb. However,the polarity item reading has been maintained in vernacular French for rien and aucun, more particularly in contexts where the polarity item is modified.

Les verbes substituts lexicaux de la négation dans le théâtre classique. Le corpus racinien

Françoise Berlan : Les verbes substituts lexicaux de la négation dans le théâtre classique. Le corpus racinien Verbs of negative meaning are as commonly used in French as negative adverbs, and have always been during the different periods of this language models underlying this possibility of substitution appear more clearly using the theory of support verbs and predicative nouns (ex: manquer de courage is almost synonym of ne pas avoir de courage). These lexical resources have been extensively used in french over the XVI Ith century. This phenomenon affects mainly constrained forms of writing such as verses and in particular dramatic alexandrine. It is linked to the large number of sentences with support verbs and rests on preferences and prohibitions. We suggest that this process eventually offers an immediately available solution, because of its obvious conveniency. Although it cannot be said to have affected the linguistic system, its influence still exists nowadays.

Pas rien / Pas aucun en français classique : variation dialectale et historique

France Martineau & Viviane Déprez : Pas rien/Pas aucun en français classique : variation dialectale et historique We examine the relation between ne... pas rien and ne... pas aucun in I7th and I 8th centuries French negative contexts, in Standard French but also in vernacular French. We make the hypothesis that the source of negative concord with pas + Neg Word is not linked to the deletion of ne and the weakening of pas but is rather triggered by changes which affected the value of the negative word itself. We argue that, as in forclusive contexts, the Neg word is analyzed as an polarity item in the context ne... pas rien/aucun. This polarity reading in that context disappears during Classical Standard French with the fixation of the two-terms negation (ne... N-word) and the reanalysis of rien as an negative adverb. However.the polarity item reading has been maintained in vernacular French for rien and aucun, more particularly in contexts where the polarity item is modified.

Clause-final negation

Negation in a number of Austronesian and Papuan languages with SVO order is expressed by a rather rigid clause-final position of the negative adverb. Some typological generalizations for negation are reviewed and the distribution of this trait in languages of different stocks is discussed, arguing that it most likely originates in Papuan languages. Some proposals for different types of negation, such as whether it is a verbal (or VP) operator, a constituent operator or a sentential operator are considered. The problem of determining the scope of negation is discussed, with the conclusion that hard and fast semantic meanings for NEG at different structural levels cannot be posited, suggesting that perhaps a solution can be found in the application of some universal pragmatic principles.

Corpus-provoked questions about negation in early Middle English

In early ME negative clauses are usually formed with either (1) the negative adverb ne immediately preceding the verb, continuing Old English usage, or (2) the verb preceded by ne and followed by another negative adverb not. A later construction has not alone after the verb. The first two types give way to the third by late ME. ‘Jack’s Law’ also shows that the construction ne… not does not occur with multiple negation from negative concord. Work towards A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English ( LAEME) is building up a corpus of early ME texts, tagged lexico-grammatically. Tags devised for identification/comparison of lexical and morphological variation may also serve as flags for syntactic investigation. This paper illustrates this by looking at formal variation in early ME negation, considering some rarer constructions and possible syntactic constraints on their use.

The syntax of Welsh negation

Colloquial Welsh negation involves many complexities. Negative sentences require an n‐word in subject or object position or as a post‐subject adverb. The picture is complicated by the fact that the main negative adverb is homophonous with a negative quantifier. Further, there are differences between negative subjects and negative objects, and between different negative adverbs. Non‐finite negation often involves a negative verb, but it seems somewhat simpler than finite negation. It allows, but does not require, an n‐word. The main facts can be accommodated fairly readily within Head‐driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Within this framework non‐finite negation can be analysed in terms of a small number of negative heads, finite negation, in terms of a number of types of negative verb.

Negation and polarity: Syntax and semantics Ed. by Danielle Forget, Paul Hirschbühler, France Martineau, and María-Luisa Rivero (review)

200 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1 (2000) 4, "The realist paradigm' (129-77), explores the role of consciousness-marking devices in the type of novel that came to be called 'realist'. Particularly interesting here is F's discussion of the transition from drama to fiction, with the dramatic scene serving as a precursor to the narrative episode in the novel. Ch. 5, 'Reflectoralization and figuralization' (178-221), develops a new vocabulary for describing phenomena noticed by previous narratologists in their work on the notions of 'voice' and 'perspective' in narrative. Reflectorized tellers have the knowledge of a more or less omniscient narrator but the perspective and speech style of a character in the story; figuralization comes about when a narrator implicitly evokes an observer figure not actually present in the story. Ch. 6, 'Virgin terntories' (222-68), shows how experimental texts use 'odd' personal pronouns to enrich narrative's resources for the presentation of consciousness. For instance, narratives using one and it toy with the category of person, reinforcing F's overall argument that readers must 're-cognize in terms of familiar natural parameters and frames what initially appears to contravene natural or commonsense expectations' (223). Meanwhile, second-person narratives (along with stones using one) create new 'identificationaF potentials for stones, prompting readers to project themselves into the narrated action. Present tense and future tense narratives, as well as stories told in nonindicative moods (e.g. the imperative), present additional challenges for recipients who must sometimes work against all odds to narrativize such odd texts. Ch. 7, 'Games with tellers, telling and told' (269-310), studies narratives purposely designed to be inconsistent. Certain kinds of inconsistencies can be made sense of—i.e. narrativized —by recourse to the hypothesis of an incompetent narrator. Other narrative texts incorporate conflicting discourses harder to interpret by means of basic storytelling frames and parameters. Ch. 8, 'Natural narratology' (311-75), reviews the results of the discussion, compares the author's approach with those developed by previous narrative theorists, and argues for the claim that experiencing constitutes the core parameter for narrativization, subsuming plot- or action-based parameters. [David Herman, North Carolina State University.] Negation and polarity: Syntax and semantics . Selected papers from the colloquium 'Negation: Syntax and Semantics ', Ottawa, 11-13 May 1995. Ed. by Danielle Forget, Paul HirschbUhler , France Martineau, and María-Luisa Rivero. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997. Pp. viii, 367. The editors ofthis book have brought together seventeen papers on syntactic and semantic aspects of negation and polarity. No further attempt has been made to arrange the diverse perspectives that these papers provide under specific sections or to relate or unify the ideas by proffering an introductory chapter. Nonetheless, the topics broadly fall into two categories —negative concord (NC) and negative polarity (NP). NC in relation to «-words is addressed in papers by Joäo Peres and Jacob Hoeksema; to Neg-criterion by Viviane Déprez, Liliane Haegeman, and Daniel Valois; and to A'-binding by Paul Rowlett . NP in relation to long-distance licensing is discussed in a paper by Anastasia Giannakidou and Josep Quer; to scalar models by Michael Israel; to only by Laurence R. Horn; to NP items in Maori by Elizabeth Pearce; and to focus by Eugene Rohrbaugh. The rest of the papers are "The syntax of French negative adverbs' , Anne Abeille and Daniele Godard ; "The syntax of sentential negation in French and English', Denis Bouchard; 'Non-negative negation and Wh-exclamatives', M. Teresa Espinal; 'Negation as a reflex of clause structure', Aafke Hulk and Ans van Kemenade; 'La négation comme expression procédurale', Jacques Moeschler; 'De partitif et la négation', Claude Müller. There are examples from dozens of different languages, and many language families are involved in cross-linguistic studies of these notions. Turning to NC, a conventional wisdom suggests that languages can typically be divided into negative concord languages and double negation languages, according to an appropriate categorization on the behavior of their «-words. This view is extended in JoAO Peres's paper 'Extending the notion of negative concord', where certain parametric variation on the licensing of «-words is seen to give rise to three different dimensions for slicing up languages. No...

Word order patterns in Early Modern English By Bjørg Bækken (review)

222 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1 (2000) that it has finally seen the light ofday. [Marc Pierce, University ofMichigan.] Word order patterns in Early Modern English. By Bjorg Barren. Oslo: Novus Press, 1998. Pp. xviii, 461. Bsekken's book is a corpus-based study of word order in Early Modern English (EME) based on some 3000 pages of text dating between 1480 and 1730. In the history of English there was a major restructuring from Old English to Modern English. While the former had some kind of verb-second constraint, the cunent language has a dominant verb medial SVO order. B's largely descriptive study is a contribution towards answering the questions of when this shift took place and what the contributing factors were. The domain of investigation is thus non-subject-initial declarative main clauses, inverted XVS and noninverted XSV. B's main finding is that during the EME period the language stabilized, leading to dominant XSV order towards the end. B identifies 1680- 1730 as the period during which the most radical decrease in the use of inversion structures took place. The body of the book investigates particular factors which might account for the gradual shift. Ch 5 looks at the effect of text type and individual author on the rate of inversion. In general, the results here are somewhat enatic. For example, B observes that while some authors use inversion quite consistently, others show considerable variation even within texts of the same category. Chs. 6-8 discuss patterns with three particular initial elements: predicates, direct objects , and adverbials. B suggests that numerous factors including textual cohesion, emphasis, the category of the fronted element, the form of the subject , the relative weight of the subject and verb, and a tendency to reserve the postverbal position for focused and heavy elements are relevant for whether or not inversion is present. Ch. 9 documents the behavior of certain adverbs known to have triggered inversion in Old and Middle English (for example here, then, neither, never). B claims that individual adverbs developed differently. For negative adverbs, which require inversion in Modern English, this means that so-called negative preposing was not always a unified phenomenon. For nonnegative adverbs, inversion rates in most cases dropped dramatically over the EME period, converging on the modern situation. Ch. 10 investigates the discourse status, given vs. new information, of the initial elements and subjects. B finds that there is a strong tendency for the subject to be given information but that inversion increases the possibility that the subject will be new information . Initial elements, by contrast, may be either given or new information with roughly equal frequency. Finally, Ch. 1 1 looks at the types of verbs in inversion contexts, finding significantly higher rates of inversion with intransitive verbs, particularly verbs of appearance or existence, over transitive and linking verbs. The work contains numerous illustrative examples , statistical studies, and various cross-classifications of the data. Furthermore, each chapter ends with a useful summary of the observed patterns. Ch. 12 is a fine comprehensive overview of the work's findings and could profitably be read first. Not surprisingly , B concludes that word order in EME is ultimately determined by a complex interplay of syntactic , discourse, and pragmatic factors. [Eric Potsdam , Yale University.] Adverb placement: A case study in antisymmetric syntax. By Artemis Alexiadou . Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997. Pp. x, 256. Cloth $65.00. Adverbs have for a long time challenged linguists in many domains, and there has been a recent revival of interest in their analysis and implications for linguistic theory. In this book, Alexiadou argues for an original, largely syntactic approach to adverb placement . Ch. 1 introduces the vanous puzzles posed by adverbs . A sees the two pnmary facts for syntax to explain as (1) the limited number of adverb classes and (2) their rigid order in the clause. Ch. 2 summarizes the work's theoretical foundation: Noam Chomsky 's minimalist program and Richard Kayne's antisymmetric clause structure. In this framework, adjunction is disallowed, specifiers are licensed via feature checking with a head, and X' projections have strict specifier-head-complement ordenng. These assumptions entail the work's main proposal: individual adverb classes are...

Positively Polar

Positive Polarity Items cannot appear in the scope of a clausemate negation. This statement stands in need of a double qualification. For one thing, not all negative environments are alike, and some PPIs can occur in one type of negative environment but not the other. I argue that indefinite NPs with a are PPIs of the weakest type, and therefore only incompatible with the weakest of negative contexts, basically those instantiated by the negative adverb not. Second, indefinites with a can be found to occur in the syntactic scope of not. This happens under either of two conditions: on the one hand, not may signal metalinguistic negation, which differs substantially from ordinary negation. On the other hand, the indefinite may (in a language like English at least) take semantic scope over not. The latter strategy is unavailable in a scrambling language like Dutch, where the indefinite can move overtly to a syntactic position having scope over the negative adverb.

On the use of negative na and ne in the Regius Psalter

An introductory Old English grammar says that ne is a negative adverb when it precedes a finite verb but a conjunction when it occurs elsewhere. The negative adverb na generally precedes an element other than a verb. In this paper I pick out Old English glosses which correspond to the 'Latin negative + verb' construction in the thirteen Psalter versions (PsG1A to M) and try to show how often the Regius Psalter (PsG1D) uses the 'na + (Pron +) V' construction in contrast with the preference for the '(Pron +) ne + V' construction found in the Vespasian Pssalter (PsG1A) and even in the D-type Stowe Psalter (PsG1F) and Vitellius Psalter (PsG1G). My investigation will show not only the peculiarity of PsG1D but the morphological confusion of na and ne – which reflects the phonological indistinctness and leads to structural variety – in late West Saxon Psalter glosses.

Movement of negative adverbs in French infinitival clauses

AbstractThis paper examines the position of negative adverbs such as mie, pas, point and jamais in Middle and Classical French infinitival clauses. Instead of linking the movement of the infinitival verb to the strength of functional categories such as AGRℴ, I propose to link it to a parametric change of NEGP from strong to weak. Up to Classical French, the infinitival verb can move to AGRℴ because NEGP is strong; this movement of the infinitival verb to AGRℴ allows the movement of negative adverbs, which are base-generated in VP initial position. At the beginning of Classical French, a parametric change affected the strength of NEGP, from strong to weak. As a result of this parametric change, movement of the infinitival verb to AGRℴ becomes more limited. Moreover, the difference between pas and other negative adverbs is due to a change in the nature of pas, from an adverb base-generated in VP initial position which can move, to a fixed adverb base-generated in the specifier position of NEGP.

Negative adverbs in early Middle English

(1978). Negative adverbs in early Middle English. English Studies: Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 295-309.

Some Aspects of the History of Modern Hindi Nahîn “No”, “Not”

In an examination of word-phrases A. Meillet stated long ago: “Des mots comme oui, non représentent le plus haut degré d'abstraction que puisse atteindre ainsi une réponse consistant en un seul mot.” As has been repeatedly pointed out, the classical Indo-European languages did not have any exact equivalent of this abstract method of expression. The majority of the modern languages on the other hand have arrived at these convenient “special expletive interjections”. Hindi nahîn, like the cognate Marathi nâhĩ, Gujerati nahi(m), etc. typifies this development of most modern Indo-European languages both syntactically and formally: it is used as an equivalent of “no” (though it may serve also as negative adverb), and it represents an enlargement of the old Indo-European negative particle, Sanskrit na. This formal and syntactic transformation of Sanskrit na into modern nahîn has been variously explained. The standard theories involve the addition to the negative particle of some part of a substantive verb, a development by no means isolated in the Indo-European languages. They may be summarized as follows:—I. Theories in which parts of the verb as- “to be” are added.(a) Kellogg stated: “The common negative nahîn, Braj nâhi has arisen from the combination of the negative na with the 3rd singular âhi of the substantive verb.(b) S. K. Chatterji thinks that *asati based on Sanskrit asti may have been added to na.(c) Dwijendranath Basu believes that only a derivation from na + âsit can account for the Bengali forms. Similar explanations were given also by Sen and others.

Hell in American Speech

WE have come far from the day when bold people spoke of the infernal realm as Hades, timid ones, as the other place, and Mark Twain invented the facetious euphemism hot as the hereafter. Today hell fills so large a place in the American vulgate that it will probably be worn out in a few years more, and will become obsolescent. Clerical circles should take it upon themselves, as a public duty, to invest some other theological term with a shuddering fearsomeness that will qualify it as the successor to hell, when the lamentable decease of the latter actually takes place. From the original noun have developed verbal, adjectival, and interjectional uses, and if we count its use in phrases, adverbial. The latter is, perhaps, the most frequent use. For instance, it is used, in phrases, as the equivalent of negative adverbs, and as an intensifier of negative adverbs. The hell you say! (= You don't say!) Like hell I will! (or) I will like hell! (= I will not!) Among other adverbial expressions, a common one is the as-than hell combination. It is used with such adjectives as pleased, mad (i. e., angry), peeved, hot, cold, busy, wild, black, and others, sometimes in the positive degree and sometimes in the comparative. It's colder'n hell on them prairies. You're crazier'n hell, Kid. (= You are mistaken.) That White Center pitcher is wild as hell to-day. The phrase like hell, previously mentioned, serves in a similar adverbial capacity in such forms as: Run like hell, or he'll ketch yuh. I hate like hell to do this.