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Title: Kanttekening bij de zinsnegatie in het Nederlands
Author(s): LEYS, O.
Journal: Leuvense Bijdragen - Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology
Volume: 98    Date: 2012   
Pages: 188-200
DOI: 10.2143/LB.98.0.2990724

Abstract :
In Dutch, sentential negation is realized by mainly three morphemes, the free morpheme niet 'not' and the morphemes n- and geen. The latter two are combined with indefinites, used in a nonspecific way (n-ooit 'never', n-ergens 'nowhere', n-iemand 'nobody', n-iets 'nothing'; geen boeken 'no books', geen geld 'no money'). Negative indefinites are local negations, that imply sentential negation (what never happens doesn't happen!). Historically the free negator niet originates as a negative indefinite as well. Like the other negative indefinites it was brought about by attraction of the original preverbal sentential negator ne. Attraction was made possible by the fact that sentential negation was preserved in the originating negative indefinites.
Dutch ist characterized by single negation. In the unmarked sentence it occurs postverbally and as soon as possible. Thus, as a consequence of canonical word order a negative indefinite gets a chance before the free negation niet. Flemish dialects and substandard language varieties are characterized by multiple sentential negation (e.g. nooit niets 'never nothing'). Multiple sentential negation consists primarily of a growing chain of redundant negative indefinites. This chain arises by concord, an implicit negation being made explicit (n-ooit ergens iemand > n-ooit n-ergens iemand > n-ooit n-ergens n-iemand). To this chain of negative indefinites the free negator niet may be added, as a redundant confirmation of the negative force of the sentence (n-ooit n-ergens n-iemand niet). Multiple negation is in principle not confined to sentential negation; it may occur in local negations as well, or in combinations of a local and sentential negation. Negative prefixes such as on- in e.g. on-mogelijk 'impossible' do not constitute sentential negation, and consequently do not show up in multiple sentential negations. Therefore, the bound negative morpheme n- cannot be considered a prefix, as it is a regular element in multiple negation.

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