LL-L: "Double negative" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 16.SEP.1999 (01)

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From: Muhammed Suleiman [suleiman at lineone.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Double negative" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 14.SEP.1999 (04)

> As a native Afrikaans speaker, I am have always wondered about the double
> negative in my language. One would think it could have been derived from
> French, the Cape colony, where Afrikaans developed, having had a
substantial
> French speaking population in early colonial times. But the Afrikaans
double
> negative is preposterously different from that of French, or other tongues
> like Welsh or certain forms of American English. I've included these
> examples:
> ek wil nie swem nie (I do not want to swim)
> niemand gaan swem nie (Nobody's going to swim)
> Question : does the double negative occur in any of the European lowland
> dialects ? I once saw it explained in a Museum that it does occur in some
> Dutch dialects.Still, I would like to offer my own explaination to the
> double negative. Again consider the sentence:
> ek wil nie swem nie (Dutch : Ik wil niet schwemmen (spelling ok ?))

I have quite a wealth of information in my notebooks about the Afrikaans
double negative, unfortunately I can't seem to spot the sources of the
information. Here is a summary of what I have, if anyone requires references
I could trace them and supply them later.

This double SPLIT negative has become one of the more outstanding features
of Afrikaans, and the length of clause which can separate the two elements
of the negative can be quite astonishing. Witness, for example:

   _Dit het begin lyk asof die Transvaalse regering GEEN stap
     waarby die belange van die uitlanders, in watter verwynderde
     sin ook al,gemoeid was, sou kan doen sonder om te vra wat
     Britanje te se^ het NIE._

The grammarians say that 'When the clause is so long that the repetition of
nie would be felt as unexpected or unnatural, the second nie may be
dropped!'

The paradox is that the final nie, which is so indispensible in most cases,
carries no stress. The lack of stress, either primary or secondary, is used
as evidence that the penomenon in Afrikaans has not been borrowed from the
French double negatives (where the second element is stressed, and the first
is disappearing in the colloquial).

A.C Bouman notes the existence in Coloureds and whites of all classes, and
even among English-speaking South Africans, of what he terms a _double
hiccup_, which puts negative sentences into relief, and which 'without a
doubt derives from indigenous languages, and specifically from Hottentot.'
The negative answer to the question: _Weet jy waar Langenhoven woon?_ (Do
you know where Langenhoven lives?) is the 'double hiccup' [ He writes this
using an upturned V with two dots below it.], or 'double hiccup'-Ek weet
nie. Bouman says that this glottal sound was disagreeable to 'white ears',
and so it was often replaced by _nee_, thus: _Nee, ek weet NIE_, so that it
is not much of a transition from _NEE, ek se^ dit NIE_ (I don't say) to _Ek
kan (dit) NIE se^ NIE_ (I can't say).

Bouman's thesis was opposed by D.B. Bosman. He points out that constructions
such as:_NEE, ek kan kom NIE_ is a polite form of phraseology found in many
languages, thus Eng. _No, I can't tell you._, Ger. _Nein, das Weiss ich
nicht._ Bosman goes on to say that here one is dealing not with
substitution, but with contamination. He links _nie...nie_ with other
constructions, like _Hij is AL lank AL weg._ (he is long gone.)or _ Hij loop
UIT die huis UIT._ (He goes out of the house.), which, moreover, has near
equivalents in Dutch (Standard and dialectal). Taking the sentence, _Ek sal
NIE gaan NIE_, he analyses it as a fusion of _Ek gaan NIE_ and _Ek sal NIE
gaan._

The Flemish linguist Blancquaert entered the debate in an article, _Over de
dubbele ontkenning en nog wat._ [Handelingen van het 6de Vlaamsche
Philologencongres, Antwerpen, 1923, pp.60-69.], in which he says that
'double negation is not at all specific to Afrikaans, but is equally
European and Dutch, and there is no need to look very far afield to find
it.'

Balcquaert's colleague, Pauwels, in his survey of the dialect of Aarschot in
Belgian Brabant [Het dialekt van Aarschot en omgeving. - Leuven, 1958]
points out the use of an analogous double negative used in that area, this
he calls the 'expletive negative'. The two important differences, however,
are that (1) The Aarschot expletive negative is never obligatory; and (2)
Brabant usage never allows  huge gaps between the elements. The syntactic
usage is, however, the same, and Aarschot usage too never carries the
stress. Examples from Aarschot are: _De dokter is NIET geweest NIE._ (The
doctor has not been.); _Ze heeft er GEEN plezier aan beleefd NIE._ (She got
no pleasure from it.)

Attempts have persisted to demonstrate that the double negative in Afrikaans
originates in Hottentot. The Nama dialect of Hottentot places the negative
almost invariably after the Verb, and in many cases before and after it.
Valkhoff mentions that pidgin Portuguese, which was once a lingua franca of
the Cape, has double negation, thus the reply to the question: _Estas
doente?_ (Are you ill?) would be _NA~O esta NA~O._

On the whole, however, it seems that we need look no further for the origins
of the double negative than Belgium and Holland, as other members of the
list have illustrated.

Groete

M. Suleiman

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