Published Article

ABSTRACT

Negation in English is surely one of the most careful and complete syntactic analyses ever attempted. It is a grammatical construction that contradicts all or part of the meaning of a sentence. The history of negation in English has been recorded for over 1200 years. However, English has been a language in which the syntactic expression of negation appears remarkably unstable. Negation is a function that has been universally grammaticalized in the world’s languages. Data in various languages give many significant inferences about the underlying structural principles of negation. Jespersen’s cycle of negation modelled changes in the syntax of negation in various European languages, provides five stages for English, whereas the other languages that have undergone cyclical change in negation typically needed no more than three. Despite the simplicity of the semantic core meaning of negation, the domain of negation appears to be complex and fascinating knowing the multiple ways negation is expressed in languages and how it interacts with other domains of grammar.

KEYWORDS: Negation, English Language, Origin, Incidence and History