Nordic Atlas of Language Structures (NALS) Journal, Vol. 1

Copyright © Christine Bjerkan Østbø & Piotr Garbacz 2014

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Doubling of negation

Christine Bjerkan Østbø & Piotr Garbacz

UiT The Arctic University of Norway/University of Oslo

1. Introduction

Doubling of negation, where a declarative is initiated and finished with negation as shown in (1) below, consists of two different structures: clause-initial negation and clause-final negation, and these need not be related. 

(1)	Inte	har	jag	sett	honom	inte.	(Fenno-Swedish)
	not	has	I	seen	him	not
	‘I have certainly not seen him’ (Bergroth 1928: 159)

Clause-initial negation, which contributes with the negative semantics in the clause, can be divided into three subcategories according to Lindström (2009:168): (i) responsive negation, (ii) interrogative negation, and (iii) additive negation. Out of these three subtypes, the responsive negation, which is prosodically unstressed and primarily used in dialogues, is possible with clause-final negation yielding thus doubling of negation. Clause-final negation does not contribute with independent negative semantics and it is as such dependent on the presence of a negative element in the clause proper.

2. Results

2.1 Nordic Syntax Database (NSD)

Clause-final doubling of negation has been tested in the NSD with one sentence for both Swedish (2a) and Norwegian (2b).

(2)	a.	Inte	har	jag	smakat	på	maten	inte.	(#863) (Swedish)
		not	have	I	tasted	on	food.DEF	not
	b.	Ikke	har	jeg	smakt	på	maten	ikke.	(#863) (Norwegian)
		not	have	I	tasted	on	food.DEF	not
		'I haven't tasted the food.'

The Swedish variant (2a) is judged as grammatical in almost all locations in Finland, and, more occasionally in a number of Swedish locations in the northern provinces of Norrbotten (Kalix), Västerbotten (Burträsk and Vilhelmina), in the western proince of Dalarna (Leksand), and in the central and southern provinces of Närke (Viby), Östergötland (St. Anna), Västergötland (Floby), and Småland (Ankarsrum). The Norwegian variant (2b) is always rejected by all Norwegian informants with the exception of two: a younger woman in Trondheim, who judges #863 as possible, and an older woman in Oppdal, who judges it as marginally possible.

Map 1: Acceptance of clause-final doubling of negation.
 (#863: Inte har jag smakat på maten inte. ’I haven’t tasted the food.’)
 (White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score)

2.2 Nordic Dialect Corpus (NDC)

There are no spontaneous examples of clause-final doubling of negation in the NDC; it may however depend on the small size of the Swedish part of the corpus, as such examples are easily found on the Internet, see Section 3.1 below.

3. Discussion

3.1 Theoretical issues

The responsive negation is in particular common in the Northern Swedish and Fenno-Swedish varieties, cf. (3), but it is also known from standard Swedish (4), as well as from Faroese (5) and Icelandic (6) (Lindström 2009:165). Responsive negation is further attested in Norwegian (Faarlund et al. 1997:874), see (7), whereas in Danish it is claimed not to be possible at all (Hulthén 1947:143; Christensen 2005:173).

(3)	int	va	de	nåt	fel	på	di	där	tacosana	(Fenno-Swedish)
	not	was	it	any	foult	on	these	here	tacos.DEF
	‘There is really no problem with these tacos’ (Lindström 2009:168)

 

(4)	Inte	har	Lindgren	skrivit	det	där!	(Swedish)
	not	has	Lindgren	written	it	here
	'I can't belive Lindgren has written this.' (Teleman et al. 1999:IV:175)

 

(5)	Ekki	held	ég	það.	(Icelandic)
	not	think	I	it
	'I don't think so.' (Svavarsdóttir & Jónsdóttir 1993:89)

 

(6)	Ikki	ljóðar	tað	væl.	(Faroese)
	not	sounds	it	well
	'It doesn't sound good.' (Lockwood 1964:155)

 

(7)	Ikkje	kan	ho	skrike	og	bere	seg	for	det!	(Norwegian)
	not	can	she	shout	and	behave	self	for	it
	'She can't shout and behave badly because of that.' (Faarlund et al. 1997:874)

Clause-final negation can be realized with different negative elements such as the negative marker, the negative interjection nej/nei ‘no’ and local varieties such as the element e in the Swedish dialect of Delsbo (Munther 2007). The negative interjection is possible and common in certain varieties of Norwegian, and it is also used in Swedish, see (8). It is occasionally used in Danish (Østbø to appear).

(8)	a.	e	ha	itj	aktivt	dativbruk	e	hell	næi	(Norwegian)
		I	have	not	active	dative.use	I	either	no
		‘I don’t use dative actively’ (oppdal_03gm)
	b.	men	inte	fann	de	björn	nej	(Swedish)
		but	not	found	they	bear	no
		‘But they didn’t find a bear’ (indal_om3)

The realization of clause-final negation as the negative marker is in contemporary North Germanic restricted to Swedish, and Huldén (1995) suggests that it enforces the negative reading. Important to note is that its presence is not obligatory in the sense that it yields ungrammaticality, if absent. According to Teleman et al. (1999) the clause-final negation can be present in declaratives, imperatives and interrogatives, see thee imperative example in (9).

(9)	Forsök	inte	med	mig,	inte.	(Swedish)
	try	not	with	me	not
	‘Don’t try with me’ (Teleman et al. 1999:IV:451)

Such doubling of negation was also possible in the 19th century varieties of Afrikaans (Roberge 2000), see (10a) below. The doubled negative element was later reanalyzed as an obligatory element of a negated clause, (10b), such that contemporary Afrikaans displays Negative Concord (Biberauer 2008).

(10)

a.

O

ik

is

nie

bang

voor

zoo

een

kat

nie,

sieur.

(Cape Dutch 1832)

Oh

I

am

not

afraid

for

so

a

cat

not

sir

‘Oh, I am not afraid of such a cat, no sir!’ (Roberge 2000: 148)

 

	b.	Ek	keen	nie	daardie	man	nie.	(Afrikaans)
		I	know	not	that	man	not
		‘I don’t know that man’ (Biberauer 2008: 236)

It seems that the clause-final replication of the negative marker is dependent on a clause-initial negation in certain Scandinavian varieties, for instance in the Nyland dialect in Finland as described by Lundström (1939). The examples with a clause-final negation found in her work, begin with a clause-initial negation, cf. (11).

(11)	it	va	e	bara	dom	där	andelsmändren	där	it	(Swedish)
	not	was	it	only	they	there	co-operation.men	there	not
	‘It wasn’t only the two co-operation men there, wasn’t it.’ (Lundström 1939:144)

 

3.1. Other data sources

The examples of clause final negation doubling are easily found on the Internet, as a number of examples in (12) show. This is not surprising, as the construction is known from both literary and colloquial Swedish, cf. section 1 above.

(12)

a.

Inte

ska

jag

sova,

inte.[1]

(Swedish)

not

shall

I

smoke

not

‘I shall certainly not smoke.”

b.

Inte

ska

jag

det,

inte.[2]

(Swedish)

not

shall

I

it

not

‘I shall certainly not do it.”

c.

Inte

vill

jag

det,

inte.[3]

(Swedish)

not

want.to

I

it

not

‘I certainly don’t want it.”

d.

Inte

vill

jag

sova,

inte.[4]

(Swedish)

not

want.to

I

sleep

not

‘I certainly don’t want to sleep.”

3.2 Age variation

There is a certain differences in acceptance of clause-final negation doubling between younger and older informants in the NSD. Older informants are more likely to accept the construction compared to the younger informants. This is shown in Map 2 and Map 3.

Map 2: Acceptance of clause-final doubling of negation among older informants.
(#863: Inte har jag smakat på maten inte. ’I haven’t tasted the food.’)
 (White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score)

Map 3: Acceptance of clause-final doubling of negation among younger informants.
(#863: Inte har jag smakat på maten inte. ’I haven’t tasted the food.’)
 (White = high score, grey = medium score, black = low score)

On the other hand, one finds places like Våxtorp in the Western Swedish province of Halland, where the construction is accepted by younger, but not by older informants, see Map 3 above.

3.3 Historical development

Clause-initial and clause-final negation was previously more widespread across the Scandinavian varieties than the contemporary picture shows. They seem to occur independently of each other. Clause-initial negation is well known from Old Norse, and an example of this is given in (13). However, Old Norse is not known to have clause-final negation of the modern North-Germanic type.

(13)	Eigi	vil	ek	drepa	börn	þín.	(Old Norse)
	not	want.to	I	kill	children	your
	'I don't want to kill your childern.' (Völsunga saga)

According to Lindström (2009) clause-initial negation was more common in Swedish spoken in Sweden around 1900 than today. It could also be the case of Norwegian dialects, cf. Aasen (1864), and see the examples taken from Heggstad (1931:202), (14), and Haugen (1982:155), (15). Teinnæs (1929:49f) gives examples of it for the traditional Bornholm dialect, cf. (16)

(14)

Ikkje

er

den

mannen

so

fatig

som

han

er

fillut

til

(Norwegian)

not

is

that

man

so

poor

that

he

is

ragged

to

‘That man is not as poor as he looks like’ (Heggstad 1931:202)

 

(15)	Itj	kjennje	annj	o.	(Norwegian)
	not	knows	he	her
	‘He doesn’t know her’ (Haugen 1982:155)

 

(16)	inte	ska	hajnj	få	nâd	å	vidda	uda	maj	(Bornholm dialect of Danish)
	not	shall	he	get	anything	to	know	out	me
	(Teinnæs 1929:49)

Although the initial negation could have been more common in Scandinavian dialects in the past, there are just a few examples in these traditional dialects of the clause-final doubling of negation. Still, the phenomenon is reported to exist in traditional Danish and Norwegian dialects. Haislund (1933:131ff) reports that it existed in the traditional dialects of Bornholm, cf. an example in Teinnæs (1929) in (17), as well as in Zeeland and Middle Schleswig (now a part of Germany) in the 1930's. Heggstad (1931:151) notes that negation can appear in clause-final position, and so does Haugen (1982:153). The online dictionary Norsk ordbok gives examples of the clause-final doubling for other traditional Norwegian dialects such as the ones of Nordmøre (18) and Telemark (19), but also in the dialects in Trøndelag and Gudbrandsdalen, according to Leiv Inge Aa (p.c.).

(17)	di	få	inte	lâu	å	gå	å	driva	inte	(Bornholm dialect of Danish)
	they	get	not	permission	to	got	to	loaf	not
	'They are not allowed to wander around' (Teinnæs 1929:50)

 

(18)	Han	var	så	gud	ingen	tosk,	ikkje	(Norwegian)
	he	was	so	god	no	fool	not
	'God, he was certainly not a fool.' (Norsk Ordbok)

 

(19)

Du

plar

kje

vera

den

som

ligg

på

latesida

du

ikkje

(Norwegian)

you

use

not

be

that

who

lays

on

lazy.side

you

not

'You are not the one that is lazy.' (Norsk Ordbok)

References

Aasen, Ivar. 1864. Norsk Grammatik, Malling, Kristiania

Biberauer, Theresa. 2008. ‘Doubling vs. Omission: Insights from Afrikaans Negation’ in S. Barbiers, O. Koeneman, M. Lekakou and M. van der Ham (eds.), Microvariation in Syntactic Doubling, Emerald, Bingley, 103-140.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj. 2005. Interfaces. Negation - Syntax - Brain. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Aarhus, Aarhus.

Faarlund, Jan Terje, Svein Lie and Kjell Ivar Vannebo. 1997. Norsk referansegrammatikk, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo.     

Haislund, Niels. 1933. ‘Nogle bemærkninger om negation i rigsmaal og folkemaal.’ Danske Folkemaal 7, 105-138.

Haugen, Einar. 1982. Oppdalsmålet : innføring i et sørtrøndsk fjellbygdmål, Tanum-Norli, Oslo.

Heggstad, Leif. 1931. Norsk grammatikk. større utgåve, Norlis forlag, Oslo.

Huldén, Lars. 1995. 'Österbottnisk negationslära,' in Maj Reinhammar (ed.) Mål i sikte. Studier tillägnade Lennart Elmevik, The institute of dialect and folklore research, Uppsala, 175-186.

Hulthén, Lage. 1947. Studier i jämförande nunordisk syntax II, Wettergren & Kebers förlag, Göteborg.

Lindström, Jan. 2009. ‘Negationen inte i satsens spets - Int e du ju rimlit.’ in C. Wide and B. Lyngfeldt (eds), Konstruktioner i finlandssvensk syntax. Skriftspråk, samtal och dialekter, Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, Helsingfors.

Lundström, Gudrun. 1939. Studier i nyländsk syntax, Norstedt, Stockhom.

Munther, Magdalena. 2007. Inte vet jag vad jag håller på med e’ En beskrivning av partikel-e i dellboskan i två delar. Distribution och funktion. MA-thesis, Institutionen för humaniora, Mittuniversitetet.

Norsk ordbok: ordbok over the norske folkemålet og det nynorske skriftmålet, vol. 5. 2005. O. Almenningen et al. (eds), Samlaget, Oslo.

Roberge, Paul T. 2000. ‘Etymological opacity, hybridization, and the Afrikaans brace negation.’ American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures 12, 101-176.

Teinnæs, Carl Vilhelm Theodor. 1929. 'Et par bemærkninger om nægtelsesordene i bornholmsk,' Danske Folkemaal 48-52.

Teleman, Ulf, Staffan Hellberg, and Erik Andersson. 1999. Svenska akademiens grammatik. Svenska Akademien, Stockholm.

Østbø, Christine Bjerkan. To appear. North Germanic negation. A microcomparative perspective. University of Tromsø, Tromsø.

 

Web sites:

Nordic Atlas of Language Structures (NALS) Journal: http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nals

Nordic Dialect Corpus: http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nota/scandiasyn/index.html

Nordic Syntax Database: http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/nota/scandiasyn/index.html