LL-L "Negation" 2006.06.01 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
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L O W L A N D S - L * 01 June 2006 * Volume 01
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From: "Malte Battefeld" <maltefeld at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L Negation

Hello/Hoi/Moin,

this is my first participation in this forum, encouraged by a
statement made in one of my university classes (i.e. on historical
grammar of German) while we were discussing the "Jespersen cycle". Our
assistant professor claimed that multiple negation actually exists
more often than not in Germanic languages, and has only been
grammatically outlawed by the Latin speaking elite in their effort to
standardize the languages on a "logical" ground. However, in the past
more than one indicator of negation was the rule, as in Early Middle
English "I ne seye not", Middle High German "Ich enmac niht" or Early
Dutch "en (V) niet", with the original intention of putting a stress
on the fact that something is not true.

According to my personal knowledge I am indeed familiar with multiple
negation, having grown up Bremen were I've accumulated a certain
amount of knowledge of that certain variant of Plattdüütsch
(unfortunately not as a mother tongue), where, while stressing
something it is perfectly normal to say something like "Dat kriggst du
nienich nich trecht". But then, Plattdüütsch has never been
standardized. Our assistant professor who comes from Bavaria gave us
the example of Bavarian (as well non-standardized of course) "...darf
keine alte Frau kein Kind nicht anschauen". And certainly everyone's
familiar with "inproper" English, such as "I don't need nobody..."
etc.
However, while I lived in Amsterdam for a while and learning the
language as well I never came accross anything like "Ik heb nog nooit
niemand gezien" instead of "nooit iemand". Is this perhaps as well due
to the effect of Dutch having been standardized for a couple of
hundred years or have I not being paying enough attention? Especially
since Afrikaans knows such forms as "Hy staan nie op nie".

What seemed interesting to me was the question in how far this did or
did not live on in standard/non-standard varieties of the lowlands
languages (other German dialects would definitely be interesting as
well!), so I thought of putting this up as a little survey. I'd be
more than glad to receive answers!

I hope I've managed to make my point without being to confusing. After
all this is a first time for me.

De groeten uit Berlijn, tschüss, sincerely,

Malte

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Negation

Hello, dear Malte, and welcome to Lowlands-L and our speakers' corner! 
It's lovely to see that you joined the "vocals" after a brief but
apparently thorough observation period.

Although I sincerely hope your inquiry meets with lots of interesting
responses, I need to make you and other newcomers aware that we have
explored the interesting subject area of negation on several occasions,
last time very recently (just before you joined us, if I remember
correctly).  So, in order to avoid for us to reinvent the wheel and in
order to give you and other newcomers a chance to catch up, I suggest
checking under relevant keywords such as "negation" and "negative" in our
archive:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
(Make sure you check the box labeled "Substring search.")

Kind regards,
Reinhard "Ron" Hahn
Founder, Administrator and Chief Editor
Lowlands-L
www.lowlands-l.net
lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net

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