|
Title:
|
The Lexical Reanalysis of N-words and the Loss of Negative Concord in Standard English
|
|
Author:
|
Amel Kallel
|
|
Email:
|
click here to access email
|
|
Degree Awarded:
|
Reading University
, Linguistics
|
|
Degree Date:
|
2005
|
|
Linguistic Subfield(s):
|
Historical Linguistics
Linguistic Theories
Sociolinguistics
Syntax
|
|
Subject Language(s):
|
English
|
|
Director(s):
|
Anthony Warner
Susan Pintzuk
Anthony Kroch
Richard Ingham
|
|
|
Abstract:
|
|
The Loss of Negative Concord (NC) has long been attributed to external
factors. This study re-addresses this issue and provides evidence for the
failure of certain external factors to account for the observed decline and
ultimate disappearance of NC in Standard English. A detailed study of
Negation in Late Middle and Early Modern English reveals that the process
of decline of NC was a case of a natural change, preceded by a period of
variation. Variation existed not only on the level of speech community as a
whole, but also within individual speakers (contra Lightfoot 1991). A close
study of n-indefinites in negative contexts and their ultimate replacement
with Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) in a number of grammatical environments
shows that the decline of NC follows the same pattern across contexts in a
form of parallel curvature, which indicates that the loss of NC is a
natural process. This study reveals that the decline takes place at the
same rate in all observed contexts. A context constancy effect is obtained
across all contexts indicating that the loss of NC is triggered by a change
in a single underlying parameter setting. Accordingly, a theory-internal
explanation is suggested. N-words underwent a lexical reanalysis whereby
they acquired a new grammatical feature [+Neg] and were thus reinterpreted
as negative quantifiers, rather than NPIs. This lexical reanalysis was
triggered by the ambiguous status of N-words between [+Neg] and [-Neg] and
thus between single and double negative meanings. This change is treated as
a case of parameter resetting as this lexical reanalysis affected a whole
set of lexical items and can thus economically account for the different
observed surface changes.
|
|
|
E-mail this message to a friend
