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Points of Convergence in Romance Linguistics: Papers selected from the 48th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL 48), Toronto, 25-28 April 2018
Edited by Gabriela Alboiu and Ruth King
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 360] 2022
► pp. 225–242

Chapter 13
Cyclical change in affixal negation

| Universitat Rovira i Virgili
This chapter offers a contrastive analysis of the negative prefix iN- in Latin and Romance that shows that this element has undergone a reanalysis throughout the evolution. In particular, it is proposed that iN- has evolved from an adjunct to a categorizing affix, a change that partially fits the negative cycle ‘adjunct > specifier > head > affix’ (van Gelderen 2011). The proposed analysis builds, on the one hand, on Newell’s (2008) morphophonological approach to English negative prefixes; and, on the other hand, on De Clercq’s (2013) and De Clercq & Vanden Wyngaerd’s (2017) work on affixal negation. Alongside, the paper endeavors to show the advantages of using the Nanosyntax model when dealing with diachronic variation at the syntax-lexicon interface.
Keywords: affixal negation, prefix iN-, negative cycle, Nanosyntax, Latin, Romance languages
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Latin vs. Romance iN-
  • 3.A nanosyntactic approach to the syntax-lexicon interface
  • 4.Proposal
    • 4.1Nanosyntax of Romance iN-
    • 4.2Nanosyntax of Latin iN-
    • 4.3From Latin to Romance iN-
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.360.13gib
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