Курсовая работа: Multiple negation

Multiple negation may have been banned from the written language, but its use in the more informal types of spoken English hardly appears to have been affected by the grammarians strictures. In the eighteenth century it regularly occurs in informal written language, as for example in journals and private letters, and today it is still widely used, though mostly in different constructions. The use of multiple negation is stigmatised, and many speakers of standard English, if asked, would deny that they make use of multiple negation in their speech. Nevertheless, in the more informal, colloquial registers the use of multiple negation is widespread. Some present-day English examples are the following:

(1) «I didn't want to talk female intimacies. Not with her.» (Margaret Drabble, A Summer Birdatge, Penguin, 1963 [1975]:28)

(2) It never did happen to me before, he said, not like that (David Lodge, Nice Work, Penguin, 1988 [1989]:301)

(3) «Mt Vine's a pretty big operation.»

«Not for me he isn't» (J.F. Donleavy, A Fairy Tale of New York, Penguin, 1973 [1975]:64)

(4) We should never have got married, I don't think. (Love Hurts, comedy series broadcast on BBC, 21/1/91)

In terms of the distinction into logical and non-logical types of multiple negation, examples (4) – (7) should all be characterised as belonging to the non-logical category; after all the negatives do not cancel each other out. Instead, they usually produce a distinctly emphatic effect, and as emphasis is frequently taken to be one of the functions of multiple negation, these sentences must be regarded as instances instances of multiple negation. They are even fairly acceptable from a normative point of view, possibly as a result of their not being easily recognisable as instances of multiple negation. In any case, they represent types of multiple negation which are different from those usually found in the eighteenth century and before; the earlier types survive mostly in non-standard dialects of English, or working-class speech according to Hughes and Trudgill (1979:14), and they are generally avoided by speakers of standard English.

Most kinds of double negative are inappropriate in spoken and written Standard English, except in jocular use: Don’t never say that again. I can’t do nothing about it. Eighteenth-century grammarians decided that since two negatives made a positive in mathematics and logic, they must do so in spoken and written English too. This was not always so, however, and the double negative remains one of the best illustrations of what was once a perfectly acceptable locution being driven by the decisions of grammarians, not out of the language, but out of Standard use. Chaucer used double and even triple negatives, and so did Shakespeare: these were simply powerful, heavily stressed, multiple negatives. And many speakers still use these constructions today, even though they are now shibboleths that mark speakers of Vulgar English.

Hughes and Trudgill (1990:13) observeshyperbolically that «in Vulgar American the double negative is so freely used that the simple negative appears to be bandoned». Single negatives «appear tobe affectations when encountered». Fries, however, seemsto have taken these words more literally than they were probably intended, commenting that «such a complete use of the multiple negative construction as he displays will only be heard from those who consciously attempt to caricature Vulgar English'. For a description of multiple negation in Black English Vernacular, in which it is particularly common.

Lowth (1762:126) alludes to the phenomenon of double negation in particular, and his rule number 16 specifically states that «two negatives in English, destroy one another, or are equivalent to an affirmative». As can be gathered from this citation, the foundation of his rules is reason; in other words, Language is treated in logical terms. As a consequence, multiple negation is objected to, since it goes against the rules of Logic, according to which two negative premises or propositions affirm rather than negate.

Traditional grammar also holds that double negatives combine to form an affirmative. We will therefore interpret the sentence He cannot just do nothing as an affirmative statement meaning «He must do something» unless we are prompted to view it as dialect or nonstandard speech. We will also assign an affirmative meaning to constructions that yoke not with an adjective or adverb that begins with a negative prefix such as in – or un-, as in a not infrequent visitor, a not unjust decision. In these expressions the double negative conveys a weaker affirmative than would be conveyed by the positive adjective or adverb by itself. Thus, a not infrequent visitor seems likely to visit less frequently than a frequent visitor. A double (or more accurately, multiple) negative is considered unacceptable in Standard English when it is used to convey or reinforce a negative meaning, as in He didn't say nothing (meaning «he said nothing» or «he didn't say anything»). Such constructions are standard in many other languages and in fact were once wholly acceptable in English. Thus, Chaucer could say of the Friar, «Ther nas no man nowher so vertuous» . In spite of this noble history, grammarians since the Renaissance have objected to the double negative in English. In their eagerness to make English conform to formal logic, they conceived and promulgated the notion that two negatives destroy each other and make a positive. This rule, vigorously advocated by teachers of grammar and writing, has become established as a fundamental of standard usage. · The ban on multiple negatives also applies to the combination of negatives with adverbs such as hardly and scarcely. It is therefore regarded as incorrect to say I couldn't hardly do it or The car scarcely needs no oil. These adverbs have a minimizing effect on the verb. They mean something like «almost not at all.» They resemble negative adverbs such as not and never in that they are used with any, anybody, and similar words rather than none, nobody, and other negatives. Thus, in standard usage one says You barely have any time left, just as one says You don't have any time left, but You barely have no time left is considered an unacceptable double negative. Nevertheless, multiple negatives continue to be widely used in a number of nonstandard varieties of English and are sometimes used by speakers of all educational levels when they want to strike a colloquial or popular note, as when President Reagan taunted his political opponents by saying «You ain't seen nothing yet.» · The ban on using double negatives to convey emphasis does not apply when the second negative appears in a separate phrase or clause, as in I will not surrender, not today, not ever or He does not seek money, no more than he seeks fame. Commas must be used to separate the negative phrases or clauses in these examples. The sentence He does not seek money no more than he seeks fame is unacceptable, whereas the equivalent sentence with any is perfectly acceptable and requires no comma: He does not seek money any more than he seeks fame.

2 . Approaches to the multiple negation classification

According to Palacios Martinez (2001:480), different studies on the expression of negation in several non-standard varieties of English also draw our attention to multiple negative structures. Crystal (1995:326), for example, records the existence of treble and quadruple negatives in the English spoken in Farnworth, a municipal borough in the Greater Bolton area, north of Manchester. Trudgill (1990:13) also mentions that many non-standard dialects of British English such as Cockney have retained the old negative form, so that it is possible to come across expressions such as I don 't want no dinner. We also learn that in general Scottish English, multiple negation seems to be excluded from the system; however, in the Glasgow dialect, multiple negation is quite common. Finally, Labov (1972a, 1972b) and Baugh (1983) among others explain in great detail the expression of multiple negation in Black English Vernacular. Fascinating examples like the following are recorded: It ain't no cat can't get in no coop; Back in them times, there ain't no kid around that ain't-wasn't even thinkin' about smokin' no reefers (Labov, 1972:130); It ain't no way no girl can't wear no platforms to no amusement park (Baugh, 1983:83).

The rise and decline of multiple negation has been one of the central issues in the study of English negation and called forth active discussions, but there seems to be no agreement about the date when the decline of multiple negation begins to take place. This is mainly because the definitions of multiple negation vary from one scholar to another depending on the period(s) under discussion.

From all the studies available on multiple negation, Jespersen's account is no doubt the most complete, thorough and illustrative. He first refers to cases where negation expresses a positive meaning (e.g. not without some doubt), and then he explains what he calls «cumulative negation» or structures of double negatives as they are found in present-day non-standard English (such as He didn't find nothing). In his view, the existence of these constructions may be explained by the emotional character of repeated negation. As a separate variety of multiple negation he treated what might be called «resumptive negation». This is especially frequent when not is followed by a disjunctive combination with neither…nor or a restrictive addition with not even : «he cannot sleep neither at night nor in the daytime» or «he cannot sleep, not even after taking an opiate». A special case of «resumptive negation» is seen when not is softened down by an added hardly , which in itself would have been sufficient to express the idea: «He wasn’t changed at all hardly» (R. Kipling).

Closely connected with «resumptive negation» is paratactic negation: a negative is placed in a clause dependant on a verb of negative import, e.g «deny, forbid, hinder, doubt», as if the clause had been an independent sentence, or as if the corresponding positive verb had been used in the main sentence, e.g. «It never occurred to me to doubt that your work… would not advance our common object in the highest degree».

To speak about «resumptive negation», it is a second class of emphatic negation comprises, the characteristic of which is that after a negative sentence has been completed, something is added in a negative form with the obvious result that the negative result is heightened….In its pure form, the supplementary negative is added outside the frame of the first sentence, generally as an afterthought, as in ‘I shall never do it, not under any circumstances, not on any condition, neither at home nor abroad’, etc.

This type of negation can be divided into three categories:

Type I:

(1) a. He cannot sleep, neither at night nor in the daytime.

b. He cannot sleep, not even after taking an opiate.

c. He has no money, not so much as a dime

d. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Type II

The second type is not cited by Jespersen or Van der Wouden (as a separate type), nor elsewhere, except among a listing of types of «multiple negations’ in (Lawler 1977):

(2) a. I can’t go to the party, not with my clothes looking like this.

b. No, you may not borrow the car, not without doing your homework first.

c. You won’t be offered the job, not if I have anything to do with it.

d. I don’t have time to meet with you, not this afternoon anyway.