Mayan negation cycles

The Jespersen Cycle (1917) remains the definitive example of the linguistic cycle. A reconstruction of the history of negation marking in the Mayan languages shows that while some Mayan languages exhibit the beginning of a typical Jespersen Cycle, the majority of Mayan languages evidence different types of negation cycles. Differences in the domain of negation strengthening and the absence of postverbal negation strengthening provide evidence of the unique structure of Mayan languages. This evidence suggests that constraints on negation cycles are just as important as the cycles themselves in examining cross-linguistic variation in the structure of negation.

Published online: 09 March 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.227.08pye