Browsing by Author "Ingham, Richard"
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Item Contact with Scandinavian and late Middle English negative concord(Adam Mickiewicz University, 2008) Ingham, RichardEarly Modern English saw negative concord disappear from the mainstream textual record (Nevalainen 1998; Kallel 2005), which may embody natural language change rather than prescriptivist pressure (Mazzon 1994). This study examines whether there is evidence that the change began in some Northern varieties of English, and if so whether it is attributable to Scandinavian influence. Data from 14th century verse show some weakening of NC in Northern verse, but not in corresponding southern variety texts, supporting the findings of Ingham (2006a) for late Middle English prose, contra Iyeiri (2002). Early Scandinavian verse data are shown to present a similar weakening of NC. These results are interpreted in terns of Jespersen’s (1917) negation cycle, to the effect that Scandinavian varieties were in advance of early English on the negation cycle, were losing NC at the time of the Scandinavian ingressions into England, and that their influence on Northern Middle English contributed to the weakening of NC earlier in the North than in the rest of England.Item Negative concord and the loss of the negative particle ne in Late Middle English(Adam Mickiewicz University, 2006) Ingham, RichardThe 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 Nego 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/northerninfluenced 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 of ne did not exert a direct influence on the grammar of NC in English, but that NC co-existed with the absence of a Neg head for a substantial period of time. This finding of a temporal disjunction is discussed in relation to the notion of cluster effects in parametrised syntax.