Negation in Germanic languages : A micro-typological study on negation
Abstract: Traditionally, typological classifications have been done in a macro-typological perspective; that is,they have been based on balanced world-wide samples of languages, which often avoid includingclosely related languages, since these are supposed to act alike with respect to their typologicalfeatures and structures. However, attention has recently been drawn to the idea that even closelyrelated languages, as well as dialects within languages, may differ on their typological features. Theintention of this thesis is to give an overview of and study how the Germanic languages differ fromeach other in regards to their negative word orders and negation strategies. Mainly their negativeadverbs (English equivalent not), but also their negative indefinite quantifiers, are analyzed in mainclauses, subordinate clauses, and (negative) imperative structures. The focus lies on the standardlanguage varieties, but some of their non-standard varieties are included, in order to be able to give amore detailed description of the variation within the family. The expected result that the ratherhomogeneous described area of the Germanic languages will turn out to be much more complex, withrespect to negation aspects, is confirmed. The results show that the standard language varieties behavedifferently than the non-standard ones, which are less "rare" cross-linguistically. In addition, the nonstandardNorth-Germanic varieties show that multiple negation occurs in the North-Germanic branch,which is traditionally claimed to not occur.
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