Negation and Negative Concord

The view from Creoles

Editors

Viviane Déprez | CNRS L2C2, Rutgers University

Fabiola Henri | University of Kentucky, Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle (UMR 7110)

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027201928 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027263155 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

While universally present in languages, negation is well-known to manifest a surprising cross-linguistic diversity of forms. In creole languages, however, negation and negative dependencies have been regarded as largely uniform. Creole languages as Bickerton claims in Roots of Language, generally exhibit negative concord, a construction popularly dubbed ‘double negation’, where several expressions, each negative on its own, come together with a logic-defying single negation interpretation. While this construction – problematic for compositionality if the meaning of sentences emerge from the meaning of their parts – has fostered much research, the fertile data terrain that creole languages offer for its understanding is rarely taken into account. Aiming at bridging this gap, this book offers a wealth of theoretically informed empirical investigations of negative relations in a wide variety of creole languages. Uncovering a far more complex negative landscape than previously assumed, the book reveals the challenging richness that a thorough comparative study of creoles delivers.

[Contact Language Library, 55] 2018. x, 327 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/coll.55

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments | pp. vii–x

Abbreviations and symbols

Negation and negative concord: The view from creoles

Viviane Déprez and Fabiola Henri | pp. 1–8

Part 1. French related Creoles

Sentential negation and negative words in Guadeloupean Creole

Simon Petitjean and Emmanuel Schang | pp. 11–32

What is negative in Haitian Creole? Negative Concord Items, sentential, constituent and expletive negation

Viviane Déprez | pp. 33–68

A lexicalist account of negation and negative concord in Mauritian

Fabiola Henri | pp. 69–100

Part 2. English related Creoles

Negation in Pichi (Equatorial Guinea): The case for areal convergence

Kofi Yakpo | pp. 103–124

Licensing negation and negative concord in Atlantic Creoles: The case of Vincentian

Paula Prescod | pp. 125–152

Negation in Singapore English

Luwen Cao and Zhiming Bao | pp. 153–170

Part 3. Portuguese related Creoles

Negation in Cape Verdean Creole: A parametric account

Marlyse Baptista and Emanuel Correia de Pina | pp. 173–190

Elements of denial in Capeverdean: The negator ka and the properties of n-words

Fernanda Pratas | pp. 191–210

Negation in Korlai Indo-Portuguese

J. Clancy Clements | pp. 211–224

Negation and negative concord in Guinea-Bissau Kriyol (in comparison with Portuguese, substrate-adstrate languages and other Portuguese Creoles)

Alain Kihm | pp. 225–255

Part 4. Other lexifier

Negation in Palenquero: Syntax, pragmatics, and change in progress

Armin Schwegler | pp. 257–288

Cross-linguistic negation contrasts in co-convergent contact languages

Peter Slomanson | pp. 289–311

Conclusions

Viviane Déprez and Fabiola Henri | pp. 313–9

Index

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Déprez, Viviane & Jeremy Daniel Yeaton

2022. On the prosody of French ambiguous multiple negative sentences.. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 7:1

ESPINAL, M. TERESA, ELOI PUIG-MAYENCO, URTZI ETXEBERRIA & SUSAGNA TUBAU

2023. On the status of NCIs: An experimental investigation on so-called Strict NC languages. Journal of Linguistics ► pp. 1 ff.

van der Auwera, Johan

2022. Nominal and pronominal negative concord, through the lens of Belizean and Jamaican Creole. Linguistics 60:2 ► pp. 505 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Erratum

The article Cross-linguistic negation contrasts in co-convergent contact languages by Peter Slomanson is free accessible, since an uncorrected version was printed.

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