On the typology of the Jespersen cycles
Frens Vossen2016
Abstract - English The term ‘Jespersen Cycle’ refers to the renewal of negative markers in languages. When a language is involved in a Jespersen Cycle, the original negative marker gets replaced over time by a new negative. Characteristic for the cycle is that there is a period of time in which both negatives are used. In this stage two forms are used to express a single negative meaning. The textbook example is French, in which the original preverbal negative ne became strengthened by postverbal pas, which lost its lexical meaning ‘step’ in the negative construction and was gradually felt as the real negative by the speakers of French. The preverbal ne is still used in written French and in formal spoken language, but has disappeared in informal spoken language. This development can be followed in French because the language has a long history of written language and language descriptions. A Jespersen Cycle has reached its final stage, with a single postverbal negative, in Scandinavian languages and in German, Dutch and English. Similar developments were attested in Old Egyptian, African Arabic, Berber and Bantu languages in earlier studies. Before the start of the present work, it was already known that there were several variants on the French cycle. The need for strong, emphatic, negation next to neutral negation can be the cause of starting a Jespersen Cycle. But a second element can come into use as a second negative without ever being emphatic. Also, the original negative can be copied at the other side of the verb, as emphatic or non-emphatic second negative. In all types it may be the case that the old negative does not disappear and that a third or even a fourth negative comes into play. Therefore it is more appropriate to speak of Jespersen Cycles in the plural rather than Jespersen Cycle. The goal of this work was to find out if similar cycles could be found worldwide and if so, which type or types exist in less well studied language families. The result of this work was that all these types of the Jespersen Cycles do indeed have worldwide spread, though not in all language families and also not in all regions. Jespersen Cycles tend to cluster together, also across language families. The cycles of the Germanic languages and French turned out to continue in the dialects of northern Italy and southern Switzerland. Jespersen Cycles were abundant in South- East Asia and in the Americas. For most languages in this work historic material is scarce or inexistent, and in these cases I relied on a synchronic comparison of related and/or neighbouring languages. New were indications that the Jespersen Cycles could ix x happen in a reversed direction. In earlier studies, the cycle went from left to right in the clause. Preverbal negatives are replaced by postverbal negative. However, it proved to be possible that the postverbal negative was the older of the two and that it got replaced by a new and preverbal negative. There are two possibilities. Firstly, the reversion took place after a ‘classical’ Jespersen Cycle. Secondly, because of the verb-final nature of a language, the natural position of negatives was postverbal and a Jespersen Cycle therefore started naturally from right to left.
