The history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean : volume II : patterns and processes

The book constitutes the second volume of the two-volume work The history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. While the first volume united a rich collection of ten case studies, the current second volume turns to the patterns and processes in the historical development of the expression of negation, and its interaction with indefinites from a more general theoretical perspective. The volume is subdivided into two parts, one dealing with Jespersen's cycle and one dealing with developments affecting indefinites in the scope of negation (the quantifier and free-choice cycles), including the diachronic development of negative concord. In each case, the relevant empirical observations across the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. We consider both language-internal and language-contact motivations for the changes observed, developing a generative account of the developments in terms of semantic change, reanalysis and child-language acquisition, integrating insights from functionalist approaches that invoke language use as a motivation behind these cycles. Language contact is shown to have played a significant role in the spread of negation systems. The result is a holistic account of language change in the domain of negation, developed from comparing the diachronies of languages across Europe and incorporating insights from a wide range of theoretical perspectives.

ISBN:9780191810947

Jaar van publicatie:2020

Toegankelijkheid:Closed