Cover not available
Part of
The Diachrony of Negation
Edited by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Jacqueline Visconti
[Studies in Language Companion Series 160] 2014
► pp. 47–82

The Jespersen cycles seen from Austronesian

| University of Antwerp
ORCID logo | University of Antwerp

Most work on the so-called ‘Jespersen Cycle’ has been done on the languages of Europe, less on languages of Africa. In this paper the authors look at Austronesian languages, with the aim to determine to what extent Austronesian doubling is compatible with a Jespersen cycle scenario. The properties of the potential Austronesian manifestations of Jespersenian double, triple and even quadruple negation are highlighted, and the role of word order, etyma, emphasis and contact interference are investigated. However difficult it is to discuss a hypothesis about the diachrony of negation on data from 410 languages, most of which do not have a recorded history, still, it is clear that the multiple exponence of negation in Austronesian is in some cases clearly interpretable in terms of the Jespersen cycle hypothesis and in many more cases at least compatible with it, the clearest evidence concerning the partitive negative polysemy, attested in Melanesia.

Published online: 24 October 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.160.03vos
References
Adelaar, Alexander & Himmelmann, Nikolaus P
(eds) 2005 The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bernini, Giuliano & Ramat, Paolo
1992 La frase negativa nelli lingue d’Europa. Bologna: Il Mulino. English revision as 1996. Negative Sentences in the Languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Blancquaert, Edgard
1923 Over de dubbele ontkenning en nog wat. Handelingen van het Vlaamse Filologencongres 6: 60–69.Google Scholar
Blood, Evangeline & Blood Henry F
2009 Vietnam Word List (Revised): Mnong Rolom. Ms.
Blust, Robert
2009 The Austronesian Languages. Canberra: Department of Linguistics, the Australian National University.Google Scholar
Boerger, Brenda H
In preparation Natügu Grammar.Google Scholar
Breál, Michel
1897 Essai de sémantique. Paris: Hachette.Google Scholar
Clark, Ross
2002 Ifira-Mele. In The Oceanic Languages, John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley (eds), 681-693. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Crowley, Terry
1982 The Paamese Language of Vanuatu. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
2006 Nese: A Diminishing Speech Variety of Northwest Malakula (Vanuatu). Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
2002 Southeast Ambrym. In The Oceanic Languages, John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley (eds), 660-670. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen
1979 Typology of sentence negation. Linguistics 17: 79-106. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Swart, Henriëtte
2010 Expression and Interpretation of Negation. An OT Typology. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drabbe, Petrus
1926 Spraakkunst der Fordaatsche Taal. Eerste Stuk. ‘s Gravenhage: M. Nijhoff & Batavia:Albrecht & Co.Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew
1998 Univerals of negative position. In Studies in Syntactic Typology [Typological Studies in Language 17], Michael Hammond, Edith Moravcsik & Jessica Wirth (eds), 93-124.Amsterdam: John Benjamins, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S
2011 Order of negative morpheme and verb. In The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, ch. 143, Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. [URL] (22 December 2012)Google Scholar
du Feu, Veronica
1996 Rapanui. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Early, Robert
1994a Lewo. In Typological Studies in Negation [Typological Studies in Language 29], Peter Kahrel & René van den Berg (eds), 65-92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1994b A Grammar of Lewo, Vanuatu. PhD dissertation, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Fast, Lesley
1990. Tungak grammar essentials. In Two Grammatical Studies, John R. Roberts (ed), 1-72. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. [URL]Google Scholar
Flaming, Rachel
1982 Cohesion in Wandamen narrative. Linguistic Studies in Indonesian and Languages in Indonesia, Vol 15, 41-49. Jakarta: Badan Penuelenggara.Google Scholar
François, Alexandre
2002 Araki. A Disappearing Language of Vanuatu. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
2003 La sémantique du prédicat en Mwotlap (Vanuatu). Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Gregerson, Kenneth
1979 Predicat and Argument in Rengao Grammar. Arlington TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Greninger, David Eugene
2009 Vietnam Word List (Revised): Kơho Chil [čil]. Ms.
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania
2003 On contact-induced grammaticalization. Studies in Language 27: 529-572. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hill, Deborah
2002 Longgu. In The Oceanic Languages, John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley (eds), 538-561. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence
1989 A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hovdhaugen, Even & Ulrike Mosel
(eds) 1999 Negation in Oceanic languages: Typological Studies. München: Lincom.Google Scholar
Ivens, Walter George
1921 Grammar and Vocabulary of the Lau Languages, Solomon Islands. Washington DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto
1917 Negation in English and Other Languages. København: A.F. Høst & Søn.Google Scholar
Klamer, Marian
2005 Kambera. In The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar, Alexander Adelaar & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann (eds), 709-734. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
van Klinken, Catharina Lumien
1999 A Grammar of the Fehan Dialect of Tetun, an Austronesian Language of West Timor. Canberra: the Australian National University.Google Scholar
Larish, Michael D
2005 Moken and Moklen. In The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagasca, Alexander Adelaar & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann (eds), 513-533. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lee, Ernest W
1996 Bipartite negatives in Chamic. Mon-Khmer Studies 26: 291-317.Google Scholar
Lynch, John, Ross, Malcolm & Crowley, Terry
(eds) 2002 The Oceanic Languages. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
2002 Typological overview. In The Oceanic Languages, John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley (eds), 34-53. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, John & Ross, Malcolm
2002 Banoni. In The Oceanic Languages, John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley (eds), 440-455. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Martineau, France & Mougeon, Raymond
2003 A sociolinguistic study of the origins of ne deletion in European and Quebec French. Language 79: 118-172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meillet, Antoine
1912 L'évolution des formes grammaticales. Scientia 12: 384-400. Reprinted in Meillet, Antoine. 1926. Linguistique historique et linguistique générale : 130-148. Paris : H. Champion.Google Scholar
Miestamo, Matti
2005 Standard Negation. The Negation of Declarative Verbal Main Clauses in a Typological Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Muller, Claude
1991 La négation en français. Syntaxe, sémantique et éléments de comparaison avec les autres langues romanes. Genève: Droz.Google Scholar
Pauwels, Jan Lodewijk
1958 Het Dialect van Aarschot en Omstreken. Brussel: Belgisch Interuniversitair Centrumvoor Neerlandistiek.Google Scholar
Payne, John R
1985 Negation. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. I: Clause Structure, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 197–242. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Phillips, Richard L
1973 A Mnong pedagogical grammar: The verb phrase and constructions with two or more verbs. Mon\-Khmer Studies 4: 129-138.Google Scholar
Ross, Malcolm
2002 Kaulong. In The Oceanic Languages, John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley (eds), 387-409. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
2002 Takia. In The Oceanic Languages, John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley (eds), 216-248. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Hans
2002 Rotuman. In The Oceanic Languages, John Lynch, Malcolm Ross, Terry Crowley (eds), 815-832. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Kenneth D
1968 Vietnam Word list (Revised): Sedang. Ms.
van den Berg, René
1989 A Grammar of the Muna Languages. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
van den Heuvel, Wilco
2006 Biak, Description of an Austronesian Language of Papua. Utrecht: Landelijke Onderzoeksschool Taalkunde.Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan
2006 Why languages prefer prohibitives,外国语 (Wai guo yu - Journal of Foreign Languages) 161: 2-25.Google Scholar
2009 The Jespersen cycles. In Cyclical Change [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 146], Elly van Gelderen (ed.), 35-71. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 On the diachrony of negation. In The Expression of Negation, Laurence R. Horn (ed.), 73-101. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan, Vossen, Frens & Devos, Maud
2013 Le cycle de Jespersen à trois ou quatre négations. In La linguistique de la contradiction, Jacques François, Pierre Larrivée, Dominique Legallois & Franck Neveu (eds), 19-30. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Veselinova, Ljuba
2010 Standard and special negators in the Slavonic languages: Synchrony and diachrony. In Diachronic Syntax of the Slavonic Languages, Björn Hansen & Jasmina Grkovic-Major (eds), 197-210. Vienna: Wiener Slawistischen Almanach.Google Scholar
Vossen, Frens
2011 The Jespersen cycle in South-East Asia, Oceania and Australia. Studies van de BKL – Travaux du CBL 6. [URL]Google Scholar
In preparation. Jespersen Cycles Worldwide. PhD dissertation, University of Antwerp.
Willis, David
2013 The history of negation in the Brythonic Celtic languages. In The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, Vol. 1: Case Studies, David Willis, Christopher Lucas & Anne Breitbarth (eds), 239–98. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Wurm, Stephen A
1976 The Reef Islands-Santa Cruz family. In New Guinea Area Languages and Languages Study, Vol 2: Austronesian Languages [Pacific Linguistics Series C-39], Stephen A. Wurm (ed.), 637-664. Canberra: Australia National University.Google Scholar
Zanuttini, Raffaela
1997 Negation and Clausal Structure. A Comparative Study of Romance Languages. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Ethnologue
16th edition, [URL] (2 April 2012).
Cited by

Cited by 48 other publications

Beaver, David & Kristin Denlinger
2020. Negation and Presupposition. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 369 ff. DOI logo
Bohn, Manuel, Josep Call & Christoph J. Völter
2020. Evolutionary Precursors of Negation in Non-Human Reasoning. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 577 ff. DOI logo
Breitbarth, Anne
2020. The Negative Cycle and Beyond. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 530 ff. DOI logo
Christensen, Ken Ramshøj
2020. The Neurology of Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 725 ff. DOI logo
De Clercq, Karen
2020. Types of Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 58 ff. DOI logo
de Swart, Henriëtte
2020. Double Negation Readings. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 479 ff. DOI logo
Delfitto, Denis
2020. Expletive Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo
Deo, Ashwini
2015. Diachronic Semantics. Annual Review of Linguistics 1:1 ► pp. 179 ff. DOI logo
Dwivedi, Veena D.
2020. Individual Differences in Processing of Negative Operators. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 713 ff. DOI logo
Viviane Déprez & M. Teresa Espinal
2020. The Oxford Handbook of Negation, DOI logo
Fleisher, Nicholas
2020. Calculating the Scope of Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 269 ff. DOI logo
Francis, Naomi & Sabine Iatridou
2020. Modals and Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 285 ff. DOI logo
Fălăuş, Anamaria
2020. Negation and Alternatives. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 333 ff. DOI logo
Giannakidou, Anastasia
2020. Negative Concord and the Nature of Negative Concord Items. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 458 ff. DOI logo
Gianollo, Chiara
2020. The Morpho-Syntactic Nature of the Negative Marker. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 117 ff. DOI logo
Gianollo, Chiara
2020. Evolution of Negative Dependencies. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 546 ff. DOI logo
Grodzinsky, Yosef, Virginia Jaichenco, Isabelle Deschamps, María Elina Sánchez, Martín Fuchs, Peter Pieperhoff, Yonatan Loewenstein & Katrin Amunts
2020. Negation and the Brain. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 694 ff. DOI logo
Hochmann, Jean-Rémy
2020. Cognitive Precursors of Negation in Preverbal Infants. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 589 ff. DOI logo
Horn, Laurence R.
2020. Negation and Opposition. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 7 ff. DOI logo
Horn, Laurence R.
2020. Neg-raising. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 199 ff. DOI logo
Joshi, Shrikant
2020. Affixal Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 75 ff. DOI logo
Kaup, Barbara & Carolin Dudschig
2020. Understanding Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 635 ff. DOI logo
Krasnoukhova, Olga, Johan van der Auwera & Mily Crevels
2021. Postverbal negation. Studies in Language 45:3 ► pp. 499 ff. DOI logo
Larrivée, Pierre
2020. The Role of Pragmatics in Negation Change. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 563 ff. DOI logo
Martins, Ana Maria
2020. Metalinguistic Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 349 ff. DOI logo
Mayr, Clemens
2020. Intervention Effects with Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 216 ff. DOI logo
Moeschler, Jacques
2020. Negative Predicates. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 26 ff. DOI logo
Muller, Hanna & Colin Phillips
2020. Negative Polarity Illusions. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 656 ff. DOI logo
Papeo, Liuba & Manuel de Vega
2020. The Neurobiology of Lexical and Sentential Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 740 ff. DOI logo
Pearce, Elizabeth
2020. Negation and Constituent Ordering. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 152 ff. DOI logo
Poletto, Cecilia
2020. The Possible Positioning of Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Prieto, Pilar & M. Teresa Espinal
2020. Negation, Prosody, and Gesture. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 677 ff. DOI logo
Quer, Josep
2020. The Expression of Negation in Sign Languages. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo
Ripley, David
2020. Denial. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
Romero, Maribel
2020. Form and Function of Negative, Tag, and Rhetorical Questions. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
Schein, Barry
2020. Negation in Event Semantics. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 301 ff. DOI logo
Sánchez, Liliana & Jennifer Austin
2020. Negation in L2 Acquisition and Beyond. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 615 ff. DOI logo
Thornton, Rosalind
2020. Negation and First Language Acquisition. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 599 ff. DOI logo
Tortora, Christina & Frances Blanchette
2020. Negation in Non-Standard Varieties. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 515 ff. DOI logo
Tovena, Lucia M.
2020. Negative Polarity Items. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 391 ff. DOI logo
Tubau, Susagna
2020. Minimizers and Maximizers as Different Types of Polarity Items. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 407 ff. DOI logo
van der Auwera, Johan & Olga Krasnoukhova
2020. The Typology of Negation. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 91 ff. DOI logo
Wallage, Phillip
2020. Quantitative Studies of the Use of Negative (Dependent) Expressions. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 499 ff. DOI logo
Weir, Andrew
2020. Negative Fragment Answers. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 441 ff. DOI logo
Zeijlstra, Hedde
2020. Negative Quantifiers. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 426 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Abbreviations. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. xi ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Introduction. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Copyright Page. In The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ► pp. iv ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. 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.