Yoko Iyieri PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText - University ...

He ne wisten hwat he niouthen
Ne he ne wisten wat hem douthe--
Per to dwellen to Jenne to gonge (1184-6).
The language of the Laud MS of Flavelok is ascribed to west Norfolk,
and dated to cal300, although the original text may have been
produced in a northerly area, perhaps in Lincolnshire. The situation
which Havelok displays largely coincides with the picture provided
by McIntosh, Samuels, and Benskin (1986, IV: 218-20), who identify
the contracted form nis and contracted present-tense forms of will in
Norfolk. As shown above, the combination of ne and is provides
three examples of the contracted form as opposed to one instance of
the uncontracted form in Havelok. Although Havelok does not
provide any contracted forms of wile, on the other hand, this is not
a strong counter evidence to McIntosh, Samuels, and Benskin, since
there are only two relevant examples in the text. Whether all the
other forms of negative contraction were entirely absent in I'orfolk,
however, is open to question. Since uncontracted forms (as opposed
to contracted forms) have not been systematically recorded in
existing studies, it is difficult to reach ay definitive conclusion. As
far as Havelok is concerned, uncontracted forms are consistent in all
relevant examples except in the combination of ne and is. It is at
least a reasonable conjecture that the phenomenon is rather rare,
though it may not be entirely absent, with relevant forms other than
ne is. Nis may simply be a form which is more common and which
therefore spreads more widely than any other form of negative
contraction. Texts from the border areas in terms of the distribution
of negative contraction, of which Havelok is one, may well provide
only common forms like riis but not other forms. In other words, the
form nis occurs even in the areas where the other contracted
negative forms are not necessarily attested. However, of the three
examples of nis in the present text, two illustrate an existential
clause, and therefore the occurrence of nis may be somehow related
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