Rights statement: This article has been accepted for publication in Studies in language, Volume 45, Issue 3, 2021, pages: 520-556, © 2021 John Benjamins, the publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use the material in any form.
Accepted author manuscript, 433 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - On order and prohibition
AU - Van Olmen, Daniel
N1 - This article has been accepted for publication in Studies in language, Volume 45, Issue 3, 2021, pages: 520-556, © 2021 John Benjamins, the publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use the material in any form.
PY - 2021/11/30
Y1 - 2021/11/30
N2 - The present article examines the claim in the literature that the negative first principle, i.e. the preference for the order negation-verb to verb-negation, is stronger in negative imperatives (or prohibitives) than in negative declaratives. To test this hypothesis, we develop – in contrast to earlier research – a systematic, three-way classification of languages, which is also operationalized as a ranking capturing the overall level of strength of the principle. This classification is applied to a genealogically and geographically balanced sample of 179 languages. In addition, we consider the role of several factors known to correlate with the position of negation – like its form, constituent order and areality. However, no cross-linguistic evidence is found for any difference in negation’s position between negative imperatives and negative declaratives. We therefore conclude that the hypothesis should be rejected.
AB - The present article examines the claim in the literature that the negative first principle, i.e. the preference for the order negation-verb to verb-negation, is stronger in negative imperatives (or prohibitives) than in negative declaratives. To test this hypothesis, we develop – in contrast to earlier research – a systematic, three-way classification of languages, which is also operationalized as a ranking capturing the overall level of strength of the principle. This classification is applied to a genealogically and geographically balanced sample of 179 languages. In addition, we consider the role of several factors known to correlate with the position of negation – like its form, constituent order and areality. However, no cross-linguistic evidence is found for any difference in negation’s position between negative imperatives and negative declaratives. We therefore conclude that the hypothesis should be rejected.
KW - standard negation
KW - world’s languages
KW - imperative negation
KW - negative first principle
U2 - 10.1075/sl.19036.van
DO - 10.1075/sl.19036.van
M3 - Journal article
VL - 45
SP - 520
EP - 556
JO - Studies in Language
JF - Studies in Language
SN - 0378-4177
IS - 3
ER -