Complexity as L2-difficulty: Implications for syntactic change

Recent work has cast doubt on the idea that all languages are equally complex; however, the notion of syntactic complexity remains underexplored. Taking complexity to equate to difficulty of acquisition for late L2 acquirers, we propose an operationalization of syntactic complexity in terms of uninterpretable features. Trudgill’s sociolinguistic typology predicts that sociohistorical situations involving substantial late L2 acquisition should be conducive to simplification, i.e. loss of such features. We sketch a programme for investigating this prediction. In particular, we suggest that the loss of bipartite negation in the history of Low German and other languages indicates that it may be on the right track.

Issues in the syntax of sentential negation

The three major categories of negative markers found in Southern Levantine, Gulf and Standard Arabic are single negation, bipartite negation and enclitic negation. This chapter introduces these three categories in a descriptive manner, making minimal theoretical reference only when necessary. The distinctions made between these categories are relevant to the organization of the book and its discussion of empirical and theoretical issues. Contrasts in the distribution of these negative markers among the three varieties of Arabic under investigation in this book clearly show that negation in Arabic can occupy various syntactic positions, but that there are word order restrictions that regulate these occurrences. The chapter also introduces the Jespersen Cycle of negation in Arabic.

Distribution of the negation strategies

This chapter explores the explanatory power of the multi-locus analysis of negation in accounting for the distributional contrasts between two negation strategies in JA and Egyptian Arabic. These two strategies are the use of discontinuous negation ma…š and non-discontinuous negation miš. The distribution of these strategies follows from analysing bipartite negation as a low negation occupying a position below TP. Following Benmamoun (2000), the analysis assumes that discontinuous negation is a result of predicate merger with negation via predicate head movement to the negative head for feature checking. The chapter argues that the Person feature of the predicate causes this movement, and departs from Benmamoun’s (2000) idea that with non-discontinuous negation, the subject NP fulfills the checking requirement of the negative head. Instead, the chapter argues that a covert copular head fulfills the checking requirement as a last-resort mechanism when the predicate lacks the person feature. The chapter also argues that Egyptian Arabic does not have this checking requirement and that, aside from with perfective verbs, predicate merger with negation is an optional post-syntactic operation. Assuming that perfective verbs undergo V-to-T movement (Benmamoun 2000; Soltan 2007), the obligatory merger between perfective verbs and negation is due to minimality constraints.

Licensing Negative Sensitive Items

This chapter introduces the key contrasts between two major NSI categories and shows the explanatory adequacy of the multi-locus analysis of negation to account for the mutual exclusivity between certain NSIs on the one hand and bipartite negation in JA and the negative marker maa in SA on the other hand. NSIs’ interaction with negation takes place in at least three different ways. First, negation is (usually) required in simple declarative sentences containing an NSI. Second, certain NSIs have a negative interpretation when used as fragment answers despite the absence of overt negation. Third, certain negative markers are in complementary distribution with certain NSIs. The chapter starts by defining the major NSI types along with their lexical categories. It then lays out the theoretical background of NSI licensing as this is necessary to develop an analysis for NSIs based on the multi-locus analysis of negation. This chapter extends this analysis to the Qatari and SA data giving further evidence that the different positions of negation have different effects on the licensing of NPIs. This chapter also discusses the interaction between higher negation and determiner NCIs (wala-NP) as well as the interaction between maa and NPIs in SA.

An a priori typology of sentential negation from an HPSG perspective

In this paper I explore the logical range of sentential negation types predicted by the theory of HPSG. I find that typological surveys confirm that attested simple negation strategies neatly line up with the types of lexical material given by assuming Lexical Integrity and standard Phrase Structure Grammar dependencies. I then extend the methodology to bipartite negation and derive a space of predicted sentential negation types. I present details of the analysis for each type and relevant examples where possible.

Jespersen's cycle in Slovenian

The paper examines the syntactic status of the negative marker in standard Slovenian and its Pannonian dialects in terms of the grammaticalisation process known as Jespersen's cycle. Assuming that Jespersen's Cycle can be observed synchronically, the paper focusses on the correlation between the morpho-phonological strength of the negative marker and the syntactic derivation of negative clauses. The data analysis identifies at least three different stages of Jespersen's cycle in modern Slovenian: (i) the clitic-likenegation, (ii) the bipartite negation, and (iii) the adverb-like negation, the first occurring in standard Slovenian and the latter two in the Pannonian dialect group. In terms of the generative syntactic derivation, the analysis proposes that the negative marker occupies three different structural positions: (i) the head of the Negation phrase (clitic-like negation), (ii) the specifier of the Negation phrase (adverb-like negation) or (iii) both syntactic positions (bipartite negation). In addition, the paper explores the question whether the syntactic position of the negative marker determines the semantic interpretation of multiple occurrences of negative elements, in particular, the negative concord and the double negation interpretation. The analysis shows that in Slovenian the morpho-phonological properties of the negative marker and its structural position bear no consequences for the semantic interpretation of multiple occurrences of negative elements.

Etymological Opacity, Hybridization, and the Afrikaans Brace Negation

One of the enduring cruxes in Afrikaans historical linguistics has been the origin of the so-called “double” or more properly “brace” negation, specifically with respect to the negative particle nie in sentence-final position. Though bipartite negation is well represented in the Germanic languages, the Afrikaans pattern stands alone. The brace negation is an innovation that came about through the reanalysis of a discourse-dependent (pragmatically conditioned) structure in metropolitan Dutch. The agents of the change were Khoikhoi and enslaved peoples at the Cape in the context of wholesale language shift and basilectalization under the pressure of a socioeconomic order based on caste. Given the intensive mixing between mesolectal and basilectal varieties as part of a shared repertoire, the innovation was accepted by rural, lower-class Europeans living in closest proximity to indigenes and slaves, with stylistic and social variation.