(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 in narrative passages of the Mort Darthur. This fact, combined with the frequency with which multiple negation is attested in the text, suggests that at the time it must still have been regarded as a perfectly acceptable device which could be employed in most contexts and registers. In his own prose, mostly prologues and epilogues to the books he printed and therefore written in a highly 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 than during the Old English period, and in the text itself the disappearing process is very much in evidence.
The definition does not cover negative sentence with correlative pairs or triplets, such as neither… nor or neither… nor … nor, asthese negatives do not function independently but only in conjunction with each other, offering alternatives within the sentence. Sentence with a negative such as not, never or no followed be the negative conjunction nor are similarly excluded. Such sentences are to be interpreted as containing elliptical phrases or clauses, which offer alternatives to the negative statement made in the preceding clause. 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 (or any of its Middle English equivalents) precedes any negative words in the sentences covered bythe definition. The reason for this is the following. As inEnglish a negative is generally found as early in the sentence as possible (Jespersen 1940:426), a sentence which only has the negative conjunction nor or even a correlative construction like neither…nor as part of one of its opening constituents would already from its very beginning be interpreted as negative, irrespective of whether or not the negative is part ofan elliptical construction with nor or with neither…nor. Any additional negatives further on in the sentence would therefore turn the sentence into an instance of multiple negation. Another example is the following sentence:
(13) for nother sir Bleoberys nother yett sir Palomydes woll not fyght with me on foote (C 244,4–5).
This sentence and all others like it will therefore be treated as instances of double negation, even though the actual number of negatives is more than two: (nother…nother)… not.
Most instances in the Morte Darthur with more than one negative are fairly straightforward cases either of multiple negation or of simple negation but with more than one negative (neither… nor, or sentences with nor such as example (5)).
Nevertheless there are a number of problematical cases, each of which will have to be analysed in detail in order to decide whether or not they are to be included in the corpus and if so, how. One example is the following sentence:
(14) I charge yow to saye to them that I commaunde them vpon payne 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 negative coordinator ne; the first introduces an elliptical clause which may be expanded as «nor to demand any taxes». The second ne isa different matter, as a modem English paraphrase of the sentence bears out most dearly: «I command them… never to demand any tribute nor to demand any taxes, either of me or ofmy subjects». In this paraphrase the second negative has to be rendered by or as part of the coordinate phrase either…or. If neither…nor had been used, the sentence would have been an example of double negation, viz. of resumptive negation. In other words, never holds only the second ne within its scope, the first ne introducing by means of coordination an elliptical alternative (5).
In the language of the Morte Darthur as well as in many forms of English spoken today multiple negation usually serves a strengthening, rather than emphatic function.
Conclusion
A double negative occurs when two forms of negation are used in the same clause. In some languages (or varieties of a language), negative forms are consistently used 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 a positive. In the former case, triple and quadruple negation can also be seen, which leads to the terms multiple negation or negative concord.
Double negatives are generally not used in written varieties of Standard English. Consider the phrase «I do not want nothing!» the intended meaning would be expressed as «I do not want anything!» in Standard English, according to prescriptive rules. However, if there is very heavy stress on «do not» or a specific plaintive stress on «nothing,» Standard English can utilize the form «I do not want nothing» as a way of emphasizing that the speaker would rather have «something» than «nothing» at all.
Although they are not used in Standard English, double negatives are used in various dialects of English, including Southern American English, African American Vernacular English, and most British regional dialects, most notably the East London (Cockney) and East Anglian dialects. This is similar to negative concord found in other languages. Often double negatives are considered incorrect grammatical usages; however, dialects which utilize double negatives do so consistently and follow a different set of descriptive linguistic rules.
Many linguistic scientists for many years investigate the phenomenon of multiple negation in the different periods of history of English language as well as in the Modern English.
In Old English and Early Middle English, there was a variety and diversity of Old English negative forms and some specific phenomena and rules of Old English negation, but in the course of time the situation has been changed.
To sum up, I would like to say, that the decline of multiple negation is a process in the history of English that resulted in diminution of using negation constructions in Modern English, especially in written. Nevertheless, it have not disappeared at all, and continues to exist in non-standard spoken English in many fields of life.
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