Introduction
It would be difficult to deny the existence of recurrenttopics and research areas in English linguistics and, even more, in the generallinguistic panorama. They are generally fields of study that stand out fortheir complexity and universality. They normally show relevant implications forthe entire grammatical system and they tend to be susceptible of analysis frommultiple perspectives and approaches. Without doubt, one of these majorlinguistic areas is negation. Several scholars (Jespersen 1917; Poldauf 1979;Horn 1978; Tottie 1991, Wouden 1997) to mention just a few, have alreadyreferred to the linguistic and extralinguistic reasons and factors that justifythe study of negative polarity as it is connected not only with Linguistics butwith a wide range of disciplines. There is such a variety of bibliography ofnegation, mostly bearing on negation in English, and this number has certainlybeen increased in the last two decades with many contributions dealing with thesyntactic and socio-pragmatics of English negation at both the micro and macrolevels of language. However, there are still some areas of this field whichdeserve closer study.
Multiple negation – the use of two or sometimes severalnegative markers in a statement – often provokes disapproval, and is viewed bymany speakers as somehow illogical: two negatives surely do not make apositive? This prescriptive view of language – the notion that linguistic rulesshould apply according to logic or mathematics – stems from eighteenth-centuryattempts by the so-called grammarians to make the English Language conform to acertain set of rules. In many cases these rules applied to the classicallanguages of Ancient Greek and Latin, but not to English, which is after allostensibly a Germanic language. You only have to consider the Frenchconstructions ne… pas or ne… jamais to realize otherlanguages allow multiple negation quite happily and, closer to home theconstruction neither… nor seems to escape disapproval.
Multiple negatives were considered perfectly acceptable inmost forms of Early and Middle English. Although modern Standard Englishspeakers studiously avoid this, multiple negatives thrive in most non-standarddialects of English, often serving to intensify or enhance the negative impactof a statement.
I used many theoretical books to do my course paper, such as:«Negation in English and Other Languages» by Otto Jespersen; «NegativeContexts: Collocation, Polarity, and Multiple Negation» by Ton van der Woudenand others, where I have found all necessary information for my investigation.
The object of the course paper isthe phenomenon of multiple negation through the history of English.
The aim of the course paper liesin investigation multiple negation in different periods of the history ofEnglish and to find and analyze multiple negation in the «Morte Darthur» byThomas Malory.
multiple negation english classification
1. Multiple negation inthe history of English
1.1 Old English and Middle English periods
Multiple negation is a quite common phenomenon in mostEuropean languages (Horn, 1978; Dahl, 1979; Payne, 1985). Structures of thiskind are frequent in the languages of the Slavic family (e.g. Russian,Macedonian, Czech, Bulgarian, Lithuanian) as well as in the Romance languages(e.g. Portuguese, Sardinian, Frulian, Galician, Catalan, Italian, Spanish,French). However, multiple negation does not normally apply to modern Germaniclanguages, such as Danish, German, Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Frisian, as well,of course, as English itself.Surprisingly enough, in the particularcase of English, a survey of its historical development shows that multiplenegation was common in Old, Middle and Early Modern English (cf. Traugott,1992:268; Barber, 1993:119).
The two or more negative words are used to negate thesentence.
(1) Ne they be nat in commune … nor one man hath nat al vertues.(Elyot, Governor)
(2) Withstand not the knowen trueth no longer. (Martin Marprelate)
(3) I haue one heart, one bosome, and one truth,
And that no woman has norneuer none
Shall mistris be of it,saue I alone. (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
These negatives do not cancel one another out, but reinforceone another: the more negatives there are, the more emphatic the negation is.In late Middle English, negation is often achieved by puttingne earlyin the sentence, and nat after the verb. This is still found in theearly sixteenth century, as in example (1). As ne fell into disuse, itbecomes common to negate a sentence with nat (or not alone).Nevertheless, multiple negation continues to be found alongside simple not throughoutthe sixteen century, as in 2 and 3.
Jespersen (1940:426–429) describes the rise of multiplenegation as follows, Originally, sentences were negated with the negativeparticle ne, as in Ic ne secge «I do not say». As ne is arelatively inconspicuous element, being regularly reduced and fused withthe verb, it came to be strengthened with another negative, such as na «'no»,nalles «not at all» or noht, fromnowiht «nothing». Both types,Ic ne secge and Ic ne secge noht occurred during the period ofOld English for which we have written records. The use of the double negativewas normal, less than 35 per cent of the total negative statements occur withmultiple negative particles.
The second stage in the development ofnegationcontinues into the Middle English period, though with the multiple negativeconstruction becoming increasingly common. Jacobsson (1970:19) even callsbit «the typicalMiddle English form». In the course of the Middle English period a decline setsin, and in the MorteDarthur we find this illustrated.
The multiple negation was already dying out in the Middle ofthe Early Modern period, however. It is rarely found in Standard English afterthe time of Shakespeare, except that it continues to be possible to use asecond negative after initial nor, as a following extract fromCongreve’s Love for Love (1965).
Foresight: Why if I was born to be a Cuckold, there’s nomore to be said –
Sir Sampson: Nor no more to be done,Old Boy.
Gabriella Mazon discussed the nature and acceptability of thephenomenon of multiple negation. After alluding to different elements that mayaccount for the stigmatization of this negative type, she shows that multiplenegation in written English seems to grow less and less frequent than the time whenit was censured by prescriptivist grammarians (Lowth, Campbell, Clarke, andGreenwood) and that very few occurrences appear in the eighteenth century. Fromthis she concludes that «the statement that is often found to the effect thatmultiple negation was excluded from the standard as a consequence of thegrammarians’ attacks is not correct, since the phenomenon had been on its wayout of this variety for some time already» (2004:22–30).
1.2 Decline of multiple negation
In the course of the seventeenth century, however, themultiple negative began to go out of educated use. Undoubtedly, the chief causeof its gradual disappearance was the influence of classical literary Latin,then considered the most nearly perfect language. The fact that Cicero andCaesar did not multiply negatives in the most emphatic statements of negationweighed heavily with those who aspired to write well.
Multiple negation began to disappear rapidly in the firstpars of sixteenth century, but it was not fully completed even by the firsthalf of eighteenth century. In the disappearing of this phenomenon the significantdifferences emerged between the two London localities, i.e. basically betweenthe City and Westminster. It was the court with its professionaladministrations that took the lead in the process. The letter sources suggestthat the rest of London did not catch up with the court until towards the endof the sixteenth century. A passage from letter composed in 1523 by ThomasCromwell, the king’s chief minister, is sited below showing the pattern ofnegation that was later to be codified as part of standard English. It may becontrasted with a passage from the correspondence of Sabine Johnson, a Londonmerchant’s wife, writing to her husband in 1545. The divergent evidence on theloss of multiple negation supports the view that, in the Early Modern Englishperiod, supralocal processes did emanate both «from above» and «from below», interms of social status as well as social awareness.
(Tieken, 1999:295–297)
…and wher as I accordinglye haue not in lyke wise remembridand rescribid it hath bene for that I haue not hade anuthing towryt of to your aduauncement. (Thomas Cromwell; CEEC, Cromwell I, 313)
Har answer was that she would not set har myend to noman tell she was delyvered and choirched (churched), and than as God shallprovyde for har; (Sabine Johnson; CEEC, Johnson, 396)
According to Jespersen's account of the development ofnegation in English, multiple negation disappears simultaneously «thedisappearance of ne precipitates the corrosion of multiple negation». Itis certainly true that multiple negation is no longer a feature of formalstandard English; this must have been the case for some time prior to its usebeing prohibited by the normative grammars of the eighteenth century. Greenwood(1711:160) appears to have been the first grammarian to comment on theuse of double negation, observing that «Two Negatives, or two Adverbs ofDenying do in English affirm», and it first came to be objected to around themiddle of the century. Throughout the eighteenth century multiple negation israrely found in the more formal types of language, such as informative prosestyles and even the less public styles of certain letter writers. Nevertheless,the comments of the eighteenth-century grammarians suggest that multiple negationwas still common in the spoken language of the period (Tieken 1999:281).
Multiple negation may have been banned from the writtenlanguage, but its use in the more informal types of spoken English hardlyappears to have been affected by the grammarians strictures. In the eighteenthcentury it regularly occurs in informal written language, as for example injournals and private letters, and today it is still widely used, though mostlyin different constructions. The use of multiple negation is stigmatised, andmany speakers of standard English, if asked, would deny that they make use ofmultiple negation in their speech. Nevertheless, in the more informal,colloquial registers the use of multiple negation is widespread. Somepresent-day English examples are the following:
(1) «I didn't want to talk female intimacies. Not with her.» (MargaretDrabble, A Summer Birdatge, Penguin, 1963 [1975]:28)
(2) It never did happen to me before, he said, not like that (DavidLodge, Nice Work, Penguin, 1988 [1989]:301)
(3) «Mt Vine's a pretty big operation.»
«Not for me he isn't» (J.F. Donleavy,A Fairy Tale of New York, Penguin, 1973 [1975]:64)
(4) We should never have got married, I don't think. (Love Hurts, comedyseries broadcast on BBC, 21/1/91)
In terms of the distinction into logical and non-logicaltypes of multiple negation, examples (4) – (7) should all be characterised asbelonging to the non-logical category; after all the negatives do not canceleach other out. Instead, they usually produce a distinctly emphatic effect, andas emphasis is frequently taken to be one of the functions of multiplenegation, these sentences must be regarded as instances instances of multiplenegation. They are even fairly acceptable from a normative point of view, possibly as aresult of their not being easily recognisable as instances of multiplenegation. In any case, they represent types of multiple negation which are differentfrom those usually found in the eighteenth century and before; the earliertypes survive mostly in non-standard dialects of English, or working-classspeech according to Hughes and Trudgill (1979:14), and they are generallyavoided by speakers of standard English.
Most kinds of double negative are inappropriate inspoken and written Standard English, except in jocular use: Don’t never saythat again. I can’t do nothing about it. Eighteenth-century grammariansdecided that since two negatives made a positive in mathematics and logic, theymust do so in spoken and written English too. This was not always so, however,and the double negative remains one of the best illustrations of whatwas once a perfectly acceptable locution being driven by the decisions ofgrammarians, not out of the language, but out of Standard use. Chaucer used doubleand even triple negatives, and so did Shakespeare: these were simplypowerful, heavily stressed, multiple negatives. And many speakers still usethese constructions today, even though they are now shibboleths that markspeakers of Vulgar English.
Hughes and Trudgill (1990:13) observeshyperbolicallythat «in Vulgar American the double negative is so freely used that the simplenegative appears to be bandoned». Single negatives «appear tobe affectationswhen encountered». Fries, however, seemsto have taken these words moreliterally than they were probably intended, commenting that «such a completeuse of the multiple negative construction as he displays will only be heardfrom those who consciously attempt to caricature Vulgar English'. For adescription of multiple negation in Black English Vernacular, in which it isparticularly common.
Lowth (1762:126) alludes to the phenomenon of double negationin particular, and his rule number 16 specifically states that «two negativesin English, destroy one another, or are equivalent to an affirmative». As canbe gathered from this citation, the foundation of his rules is reason; in otherwords, Language is treated in logical terms. As a consequence, multiplenegation is objected to, since it goes against the rules of Logic, according towhich two negative premises or propositions affirm rather than negate.
Traditional grammar also holds that double negatives combineto form an affirmative. We will therefore interpret the sentence He cannotjust do nothing as an affirmative statement meaning «He must do something» unlesswe are prompted to view it as dialect or nonstandard speech. We will alsoassign an affirmative meaning to constructions that yoke not with anadjective or adverb that begins with a negative prefix such as in – or un-,as in a not infrequent visitor, a not unjust decision. In theseexpressions the double negative conveys a weaker affirmative than would beconveyed by the positive adjective or adverb by itself. Thus, a notinfrequent visitor seems likely to visit less frequently than a frequentvisitor. A double (or more accurately, multiple) negative is consideredunacceptable in Standard English when it is used to convey or reinforce anegative meaning, as in He didn't say nothing (meaning «he said nothing»or «he didn't say anything»). Such constructions are standard in many otherlanguages and in fact were once wholly acceptable in English. Thus, Chaucercould say of the Friar, «Ther nas no man nowher so vertuous». In spiteof this noble history, grammarians since the Renaissance have objected to thedouble negative in English. In their eagerness to make English conform toformal logic, they conceived and promulgated the notion that two negativesdestroy each other and make a positive. This rule, vigorously advocated byteachers of grammar and writing, has become established as a fundamental ofstandard usage. · The ban on multiple negatives also applies to thecombination of negatives with adverbs such as hardly and scarcely.It is therefore regarded as incorrect to say I couldn't hardly do it or Thecar scarcely needs no oil. These adverbs have a minimizing effect on theverb. They mean something like «almost not at all.» They resemble negativeadverbs such as not and never in that they are used with any,anybody, and similar words rather than none, nobody, and othernegatives. Thus, in standard usage one says You barely have any time left,just as one says You don't have any time left, but You barely have notime left is considered an unacceptable double negative. Nevertheless,multiple negatives continue to be widely used in a number of nonstandardvarieties of English and are sometimes used by speakers of all educationallevels when they want to strike a colloquial or popular note, as when PresidentReagan taunted his political opponents by saying «You ain't seen nothingyet.» · The ban on using double negatives to convey emphasis doesnot apply when the second negative appears in a separate phrase or clause, as inI will not surrender, not today, not ever or He does not seek money,no more than he seeks fame. Commas must be used to separate the negativephrases or clauses in these examples. The sentence He does not seek money nomore than he seeks fame is unacceptable, whereas the equivalent sentencewith any is perfectly acceptable and requires no comma: He does notseek money any more than he seeks fame.
2. Approaches to the multiple negationclassification
According to Palacios Martinez (2001:480), different studieson the expression of negation in several non-standard varieties of English alsodraw our attention to multiple negative structures. Crystal (1995:326), forexample, records the existence of treble and quadruple negatives in the Englishspoken in Farnworth, a municipal borough in the Greater Bolton area, north ofManchester. Trudgill (1990:13) also mentions that many non-standard dialects ofBritish English such as Cockney have retained the old negative form, so that itis possible to come across expressions such as I don 't want no dinner.We also learn that in general Scottish English, multiple negation seems to beexcluded from the system; however, in the Glasgow dialect, multiple negation isquite common. Finally, Labov (1972a, 1972b) and Baugh (1983) among othersexplain in great detail the expression of multiple negation in Black EnglishVernacular. Fascinating examples like the following are recorded: It ain'tno cat can't get in no coop; Back in them times, there ain'tno kid around that ain't-wasn't even thinkin' about smokin' no reefers(Labov, 1972:130); It ain't no way no girl can't wear noplatforms to no amusement park (Baugh, 1983:83).
The rise and decline of multiple negation has been one of thecentral issues in the study of English negation and called forth activediscussions, but there seems to be no agreement about the date when the declineof multiple negation begins to take place. This is mainly because thedefinitions of multiple negation vary from one scholar to another depending onthe period(s) under discussion.
From all the studies available on multiple negation,Jespersen's account is no doubt the most complete, thorough and illustrative. Hefirst refers to cases where negation expresses a positive meaning (e.g. notwithout some doubt), and then he explains what he calls «cumulativenegation» or structures of double negatives as they are found in present-daynon-standard English (such as He didn't find nothing). In hisview, the existence of these constructions may be explained by the emotionalcharacter of repeated negation. As a separate variety of multiple negation hetreated what might be called «resumptive negation». This is especially frequentwhen not is followed by a disjunctive combination with neither…nor ora restrictive addition with not even: «he cannot sleep neither at nightnor in the daytime» or «he cannot sleep, not even after taking an opiate». Aspecial case of «resumptive negation» is seen when not is softened downby an added hardly, which in itself would have been sufficient toexpress the idea: «He wasn’t changed at all hardly» (R. Kipling).
Closely connected with «resumptive negation» is paratacticnegation: a negative is placed in a clause dependant on a verb of negativeimport, e.g «deny, forbid, hinder, doubt», as if the clause had been anindependent sentence, or as if the corresponding positive verb had been used inthe main sentence, e.g. «It never occurred to me to doubt thatyour work… would not advance our common object in the highest degree».
Tospeak about «resumptive negation», it is a second class of emphaticnegation comprises, the characteristic of which is that after a negativesentence has been completed, something is added in a negative form with theobvious result that the negative result is heightened….In its pure form, thesupplementary negative is added outside the frame of the first sentence,generally as an afterthought, as in ‘I shall never do it, not under anycircumstances, not on any condition, neither at home nor abroad’, etc.
This type of negation can be divided into three categories:
TypeI:
(1) a.He cannot sleep, neither at night nor in the daytime.
b.He cannot sleep, not even after taking an opiate.
c.He has no money, not so much as a dime
d.Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
TypeII
Thesecond type is not cited by Jespersen or Van der Wouden (as a separate type),nor elsewhere, except among a listing of types of «multiple negations’ in(Lawler 1977):
(2) a.I can’t go to the party, not with my clothes looking like this.
b.No, you may not borrow the car, not without doing your homework first.
c.You won’t be offered the job, not if I have anything to do with it.
d.I don’t have time to meet with you, not this afternoon anyway.
e.Would you use a shotgun to kill an elephant? Not and live to tell about it.
f.Can linguists study negation? Not and stay sane they can’t. (Lawler)
TypeIII
(3) That isn’t really legal, I don’t believe.
TypeIII is different from types I and II in that the second negated phrase containsa propositional attitude verb, and the proposition expressed by the main clauseplays the role, semantically, of the object of that verb. Types I and II haveno propositional attitude verb in the second phrase; rather, that phrase mostresembles an adjunct to the main clause. (Dowty, 2008)
Jespersen(1940:451), referring to the double (or treble) attraction, states that «inElizabethan English this particular kind of repeated negation is comparativelyrare, while the «resumptive accumulation» is frequent».
Onthe other hand, Iyeiri (2001:128, 138, 142), whose major concern is MiddleEnglish, classifies multiple negation into the following three types:
TypeI multiple negation with the negative adverb ne (ne…not)
Nare noman ellsdead ne sic ne unsele (Poema Morale, 201)
TypeII multiple negation with conjunctive ne/nor
Neƥu ne cumest noʒt in Scotlonde (The Owl and the Nightingale, 908)
TypeIII multiple negation with the combination of not, neither, never, no,ets.
Neneuer shal none be/born fairer than she (Reynard the Fox, 79/8)
As an overall conclusion, Iyeiri (2001:155) remarks that «muchof the declining process of multiple negation, in fact, takes place duringthe Middle English period».
Seright's(1966) study is much more restricted thanJespersen's. He confines himself to the analysis of standard double negativeconstructions, such as It is not inconceivable or It is notimpossible. These sentences contain a negative verb or clause negationfollowed by a case of local negation, inconceivable and impossible, whichconstitute two examples of morphological or affixal negation. Inhis view, numerous instances of such standard double-negative constructions canbe found and, in contrast to the examples typical of non-standard English suchas They don't do nothing, they are generally «limited to thespeech of the educated» (Seright, 1966:123). Mention is also made of sequencessuch as Not to mash nor break the grains, which contain anegative correlative conjunctive. Seright(1966) insists that the use of doublenegatives of this type is quite wide. (Palacios Martinez, 2001:480)
Rissanen (1999:272) observes that multiple negation wascommon in the sixteenth century. It must be noted here that Rissanen'sdefinition of multiple negation is broad, as is evident from the four exampleshe gives:
(1) They cowd not fynd no londe at iiij score fadom(Torkington, 62)
(2) that the Capper nor none other persone shalnot takeby hym self or any other persone to his use… (Statutes, III 34)
(3) I am not asham'd of my Name–nor my Face neither.(Vanbrugh, II.III)
(4) that no woman has; nor neuer none Shall mistris beof it, (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, III.I)
Baker (1970) analyses what he calls «logical double sentences».From the perspective of the generative theory of that time, he formulates a polarity-reversalrule to explain the grammaticality of sentences such as There isn 't anyonein this camp who wouldn't rather be in Montpelier. The polarity-reversalrule operates on the cycle of the subordinate clause as it changes thederivational feature associated with would rather to [+ negative]. Itsoperation on the cycle of the main clause changes the polarity of would ratherfrom [+ negative] to [– negative] and the polarity of anyone from [– negative]to [+ negative]. Attention is also paid to what he defines as pseudo-negativesentences, that is, verbal complements found with predicates such as surprised,disappointed, relieved, glad, sorry, lucky, odd or strange, whichprovide suitable environments for any, ever, and other elements normallyrequired in negative contexts (e.g. We're surprised that anyone boughtanything at all; John is sorry that anything happened; It's strangethat anyone could solve the mystery in such short order). (PalaciosMartinez, 2001:481)
Horn(1991), for his part, discusses the expression of litotes by means of doublenegative constructions. By litotes is meant the «a two-component structure inwhich two negations are joined to give a positive evaluation. Thus «notunkindly» actually means «kindly», though the positive effect is weakened andsome lack of the speaker's confidence in his statement is implied. The firstcomponent of a litotes is always the negative particle «not», while the second,always negative in semantics, varies in form from a negatively affixed word (asabove) to a negative phrase.
Litotesis especially expressive when the semantic centre of the whole structure isstylistically or/and emotionally coloured, as in the case of the followingoccasional creations: «Her face was not unhandsome» (A.H.) or «Her facewas not unpretty».
Thefunction of litotes has much in common with that of understatement – bothweaken the effect of the utterance. The uniqueness of litotes lies in itsspecific «double negative» structure and in its weakening only the positiveevaluation.
Pragmatically,the use of double negatives as in «It's not impossible» may bejustified, according to Horn, by a series of motivations: politeness (thespeaker does not want to commit oneself to a particular option), irony (thespeaker acts as if hesitant or unsure on purpose), weight or impressiveness ofstyle (the speaker intends to convey formality to the interlocutor), absence ofcorresponding positive (there is no word to refer to the opposite term),parallelism of structure (a similar construction was used before), quality (thespeaker is neither sure nor unsure about what is being said) and minimisationof processing (in contexts of direct rebuttal or contradiction as a reply to aprevious assertion).
Finally, Wouden (1997) devotes part three of his book onnegative contexts to the study of multiple negation in different languages. Forthis scholar the addition of a negative to an already negative construction maylead to the following possibilities: (I) the structure containing variousnegatives may be
equivalent to a single one as in some varieties ofsub-standard English, e.g. I didn 't see nobody nowhere; (II) thetwo negatives may weaken each other as in the case of litotes above, e.g. She'snot an unattractive woman; (III) the two negatives cancel eachother out as in logic, giving as result no negation, e.g. Neighboursshould not be uncooperative; and (IV) the two negatives intensifyeach other, e.g. He never stops working, not even at Christmas.As can be easily gathered from the previous account, Wouden's analysis ofmultiple negation is mainly semantic rather than syntactic; the followingtaxonomy of multiple negation is derived from each of the four possibilitiesexplained above: (I) negative concord, (II) litotes, (III) denial and (IV)emphatic negation. (Palacios Martinez, 2001:481–482)
3. Analysis of Maylory’s Morte Darthur
The term «multiple negation» or «double negation» are oftenused ambiguously. Thus, for example they may be taken to refer to sentenceslike Not many of the boys didn’t talk to John, as in McCawley(1973:206). Though this is unmistakably a negative sentence, its effect isquite the opposite, the force for the assertion having been somewhat weakenedby the use of two negatives instead of a straightforward affirmative (cf.Jespersen 1940:449). In popular terms, the negative in this sentence «canceleach other out» and are interpreted as a resulting positive, as in logic ormathematics. Seright (1966:124) suggested that the use of this tipe of multiplenegation, which included constructions like it is not unlikely that…, ischaracteristic of educated usage; according to Patridge (1971:88) it is a typeof construction peculiar to literary English.
Alternatively, the terms are used to describe negativesentences with more than one negative in which the negatives do not cancel eachother out. For this type of negation Joly adopts the term «compound negation»,as opposed to «simple negation».
Such sentences as example of which might be I ain’t got notime for no liquor (J.D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye 1975:88,Penguin), are negative in meaning irrespective of the actual number ofnegatives they contain, because the negatives together serve to negate thesentences in which they occur. In contrast to the first type of multiplenegation, which is often referred to as «logical», Seright observes that thesecond type is found only in «the uncultivated speech» ofthe uneducated(1966:123). «Hie same point of view is found in Quirk et al, (1985:799),who distinguish between the two types of double negation by identifying thefirst type with Standard English and the second with non-standard English. Thoughdouble negation is undeniably a feature of non-standard English, of bothBritish and American English dialects,it also occurs in certainforms of the standard. Both types of multiple negation occur in the Morte Dathur,though the former is considerably less frequent than the latter. Here are theexamples of the logical type of multiple negation:
(1) For I dere say there is no knight in this contrey that isnat in Arthures court that dare do batayle wyth sir Blamour de Ganys (220.3–4)
(2) Had nat ye bene, we had nat loste sir Trystram (282.17–18)
(3)… they founde nother man, nother woman that he ne was dedeby the vengeaunce of Oure Lorde (493.37)
It goes without saying that the two types of construction donot happily coexist, particularly in a written text. After all, they eachrequire a completely different interpretation, the one with a positive the otherwith a negative result. In the spoken language, no such problems exist AsLabov (l972a:146) remarks: «When anunderlying double negative [i.e.with a positive meaning] is intended, speakers of nonstandard dialects use thesame device as speakers of standard English: heavy stress on both negatives»,Naturally, such a disambiguating device is not available in the writtenlanguage. While the second type of multiple negation has been found since theOld English period, the rareness in the Morte Darthur of the first typeof construction suggests that the logical type of multiple negation is a laterdevelopment in the system of English negation.
To begin with, this definition lacks precision in that itcovert a number of negative constructions which are not strictly speakinginstances of multiple negation. To illustrate this point the following examplesmay be cited from the Morte Darthur
(4) for there was nother kynge, cayser, nother knyghtthat day (C 216.21:22)
(5) and ye shall have no shame nor velony (C 140.22)
(6) and woldyst never be made neyssh nother by watirnother by fyre (C 446.25–26)
Strictly speaking, all three instances would be covered byBarber’s definition – «two or more negative words are used to negate thesentence; these negatives do not cancel each other out». Even so, in amodernised form (4) would be fully acceptable in formal standard English today.It might be paraphrased as «for there was neither king, emperor nor knight thatday…» (cf. Quirk et al. 1985:763 and 938).
Example (5) would likewise be acceptable in present-day standardEnglish, though instead of no, neither would normally be used: «and youwill have neither shame nor villainy» (cf. Quirk et al. 1985:938).According to Seright (1966:125), the construction would have to be rephrased as«and you will not have either shame or villainy» in order to befully acceptable.
Example (6) is belonging to the category of resumptivenegation. The negative effect in sentences like this is heightened, and thefunction of the tag seems to that of an afterthought which simultaneouslyemphasises the negation.
(7) that by no meany I can nat put her fro me (C 525.37–38)
(8) that he sholde never do none inchauntemente upponhir (C 93.18)
(9) and horse ne harneyse gettvst thou none of myne (C 164.24–25)
(10) but in no wyse he wolde nat juste no more (C 303.17–18)
(11) yette woll I nat wyghte my lady to be in no joupardye (C94.35–36)
(12) they had no joye to receyve no yeftes of a berdles boy(C 40. 10–11)
These examples were found in direct speech as well as innarrative passages of the Mort Darthur. This fact, combined with thefrequency with which multiple negation is attested in the text, suggests thatat the time it must still have been regarded as a perfectly acceptable devicewhich could be employed in most contexts and registers. In his own prose, mostlyprologues and epilogues to the books he printed and therefore written in ahighly formal style, Caxton lokiwise used multiple negation. In this respect,usage has clearly undergone aconsiderable change in the course of time.Multiple negation occurs much less frequently in the Morte Darthur thanduring the Old English period, and in the text itself the disappearing processis very much in evidence.
The definition does not cover negative sentence withcorrelative pairs or triplets, such as neither… nor or neither…nor … nor, asthese negatives do not function independentlybut only in conjunction with each other, offering alternatives within thesentence. Sentence with a negative such as not, never or nofollowed be the negative conjunction nor are similarly excluded. Suchsentences are to be interpreted as containing elliptical phrases or clauses,which offer alternatives to the negative statement made in the precedingclause. Thus, (5) may be expanded as follows: and you will have no shame,nor will you have any villainy. Sentence like (9), in which nor (orany of its Middle English equivalents) precedes any negative words in thesentences covered bythe definition. The reason for this is thefollowing. As inEnglish a negative is generally found as early in thesentence as possible (Jespersen 1940:426), a sentence which only has thenegative conjunction nor or even a correlative construction like neither…noras part of one of its opening constituents would already from its verybeginning be interpreted as negative, irrespective of whether or not thenegative is part ofan elliptical construction with nor or with neither…nor.Any additional negatives further on in the sentence would therefore turnthe sentence into an instance of multiple negation. Another example is thefollowing sentence:
(13) for nother sir Bleoberys nother yett sir Palomydeswoll not fyght with me on foote (C 244,4–5).
This sentence and all others like it will therefore betreated as instances of double negation, even though the actual number ofnegatives is more than two: (nother…nother)… not.
Most instances in the Morte Darthur with more than onenegative are fairly straightforward cases either of multiple negation or ofsimple negation but with more than one negative (neither… nor, orsentences with nor such as example (5)).
Nevertheless there are a number of problematical cases, eachof which will have to be analysed in detail in order to decide whether or notthey are to be included in the corpus and if so, how. One example is thefollowing sentence:
(14) I charge yow to saye to them that I commaunde them vponpayne of theyre hedes neuer to demaunde trybute ne taxe of me ne of my londes(C 131.7–9)
This sentence contains two instances of the negativecoordinator ne; the first introduces an elliptical clause which may beexpanded as «nor to demand any taxes». The second ne isadifferent matter, as a modem English paraphrase of the sentence bears out mostdearly: «I command them… never to demand any tribute nor to demand any taxes,either of me or ofmy subjects». In this paraphrase the second negativehas to be rendered by or as part of the coordinate phrase either…or.If neither…nor had been used, the sentence would have been anexample of double negation, viz. of resumptive negation. In other words, neverholds only the second ne within its scope, the first ne introducingby means of coordination an elliptical alternative (5).
In the language of the Morte Darthur as well as in many formsof English spoken today multiple negation usually serves a strengthening,rather than emphatic function.
Conclusion
A doublenegative occurs when two forms of negation are used in the same clause. Insome languages (or varieties of a language), negative forms are consistentlyused throughout the sentence to express a single negation. In other languages,a double negative is used to negate a negation, and therefore, it resolves to apositive. In the former case, triple and quadruple negation can also be seen,which leads to the terms multiple negation or negative concord.
Doublenegatives are generally not used in written varieties of Standard English.Consider the phrase «I do not want nothing!» the intended meaning would beexpressed as «I do not want anything!» in Standard English, according toprescriptive rules. However, if there is very heavy stress on «do not» or a specificplaintive stress on «nothing,» Standard English can utilize the form «I do notwant nothing» as a way of emphasizing that the speaker would rather have «something»than «nothing» at all.
Althoughthey are not used in Standard English, double negatives are used in variousdialects of English, including Southern American English, African AmericanVernacular English, and most British regional dialects, most notably the EastLondon (Cockney) and East Anglian dialects. This is similar to negative concordfound in other languages. Often double negatives are considered incorrectgrammatical usages; however, dialects which utilize double negatives do soconsistently and follow a different set of descriptive linguistic rules.
Manylinguistic scientists for many years investigate the phenomenon of multiplenegation in the different periods of history of English language as well as inthe Modern English.
In Old English and Early Middle English, there was a varietyand diversity of Old English negative forms and some specific phenomena andrules of Old English negation, but in the course of time the situation has beenchanged.
Tosum up, I would like to say, that the decline of multiple negation is a processin the history of English that resulted in diminution of usingnegation constructions in Modern English, especially in written. Nevertheless,it have not disappeared at all, and continues to exist in non-standard spokenEnglish in many fields of life.
References
1. Baker, C.L. 1970. Double Negatives. Linguistic Inquiry 1/2:169–186
2. Barber, Charles. 1993. The English Language. A HistoricalIntroduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Baugh, John. 1983. Black Street Speech. Austin: University ofTexas Press.
4. Horn Laurence, R. 1978. Some Aspects of Negation. Universals ofHuman Language, vol.IV. eds. Joseph H. Greenberg, et al., 127–210. Stanford,California: Stanford University Press.
5. Horn, Laurence R. 1991. Duplex negation affirmat… The Economy of DoubleNegation. CLS 27:80–106.
6. Iyeiri, Yoko. 2001. Multiple Negation in Early Modern English:Bulletin des Anglicistes Medievistes. L’Association de Medievistes Anglicistesde l’Enseignement Superier. Paris. 47:69–86
7. Jacobsson, B.1970. English Pronouns and Feature Analysis. Modernaspråk
8. Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and Other Languages. DeKgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Histprisk-Filologiske Meddelelser I, 5.Copenhagen. Reprinted in 1962 in Selected Writing of Otto Jespersen. London:Allen and Unwin.
9. Jespersen, Otto. 1940. A Modern English Grammar on HistoricalPrinciples, Part V: Syntax, Fourth Volume. Copenhahen: Ejnar Munksgaard.
10. Klima, Eward S. 1964: «Negation in English.» The Structure of Language. Ed. J.A. Fodorand J.J. Katz. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. 264–323.
11. Labov, William. 1972a. Language in the Inner City: Studies in theBlack English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
12. Labov, William. 1972b. Negative Attrection and Negative Concord inEnglish Grammar. Language 48/4: 773–818.
13. Lowth, Robert. 1762. A short introduction of the English language.London: A. Millar, R. and J. Dodsley
14. Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d'Arthur, printed by WilliamCaxton, 1485. Ed. Needham, Paul (1976). London.
15. McCawley J.D. 1973 – Grammar and meaning: Papers on syntactic andsemantic topics. – Tokyo: Taishukan, 1973.
16. Payne, John. 1985. Negation. Language Typology and SyntacticDescription. Vol. 1. Clause Structure, ed. Timothy Shopen, 197–242. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
17. Quirk, Radolf, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey, and Svartvik,Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of English. London & New York:Longman.
18. Rissanen, Matti. 1999. Syntax. The Cambridge History ofthe English Language, vol. 3: 1476–1776, ed. Robert Lass, 187–331. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
19. Seright, Orin Dale. 1966. Double Negation in Standart ModernEnglish. American Speech 41: 123–126.
20. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid, Gunnel Tottie, and Wim van derWurff, eds. 1999: Negation in theHistory of English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
21. Tottie, Gunnel 1991: Negationin English Speech and Writing: A Study in Variation. San Diego: Academic Press.
22. Traugott, Elithabeth Closs. 1992. Syntax, The Cambridge History ofthe English Language, vol.I, The Beginnings to 1066, ed. Richard M. Hogg, 168–289.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23. Trudgill, Peter. 1990. The Dialects of England. Oxford: Blackwell.
24. Wouden, Ton van der 1997: NegativeContexts. London: Routledge.