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Article: Negative concord and the loss of the negative particle ne in Late Middle English (1).(LINGUISTICS)
- Article from:
- Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
- Author:
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ABSTRACT
The presence of Negative Concord (NC) and the sentential negative particle ne is investigated in northern, southern, and mixed later Middle English prose texts from around 1400. The typology of negation proposed in Rowlett (1998) is taken as the basis for an examination of whether the loss of an overt Neg [degrees] head element is associated with the loss of NC. It is found that NC, though almost categorical in southern varieties, was showing signs of weakening in northern/northern-influenced texts. In these texts, the decline of NC was usually associated with the absence of ne. However, the converse relationship was not supported. It appears that loss ...