Negative Concord

[anheropl0x]

Hello, all! Do you think that Gothic might have been a negative Concord language? I know a few old Germanic languages were, and there exist several today that are.

Negative concord, for those who do not know, is the use of multiple negatives in a single clause that do not cancel each other out.

In English and German, we do not have negative concord, so the negatives cancel each other out ("I have not seen him" vs "I have never not seen him")

So far, I have only found one possible example of negative concord in Gothic: Matt 27:14 "jah ni andhof imma wiþra ni ainhun waurde..." (And not answered to him not any/none/no of words) "And he answered to him not a word..."

Negative concord was common in Old English, and existed in a specific form in OHG. Do you think that Gothic could have had negative concord as well?

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