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

in his writings in formal style (Burnley 1983: 61; Iyeiri 1989a: 66-8).
Multiple negation is stifi met with even in early MnE. Sugden
(1936: 439) comments that it is of a considerable frequency in
Spensers Faerie Queene. The existence of the phenomenon in
Shakespeares English is also noted by Abbott (1872: 295), Brook
(1976: 65), and Blake (1988: 106-7). After the time of Shakespeare,
however, the employment of multiple negation comes to be much
rarer, and as Barber (1976: 283) and Austin (1984: 142) note, the
usage becomes substandard during the seventeenth century, although
the phenomenon was not entirely exceptional until the latter half of
the seventeenth century (Partridge 1969: 88). Nevertheless, Blake
(1981: 123) argues that multiple negation is not wholly unacceptable
in the eighteenth century, while Curme (1931: 139) even gives an
example from Coleridge. Even in PE the phenomenon has not ceased
to exist as Kerkhof (1982: 406) mentions as far as non-standard
varieties of English are concerned. Multiple negation as hitherto
discussed has often been regarded as a means of emphasis (Poutsma
1904-26, I: 91; Brook 1958: 146; Miyabe 1968: 92; E1]iott 1974: 401;
Brook 1976: 65; Burnley 1983: 66).
The decline of multiple negation has commonly been thought to
have taken place through the influence of Latin grammar (Sweet
1892-8, I: 1520; Curme 1931: 139-40; Jespersen 1909-49, V: 451;
Kisbye 1971-2, I: 204; Leith 1983: 111). More recently, however, it
came to be analyzed in relation to the development of non-assertive
forms in negative clauses (e.g. y and ever), 1 which perhaps took
over the role of redundant negative elements in multiple negation
(Labov 1972; Jack 1978c: 70; Burnley 1983: 60; Blake 1988: 106;
Fischer 1992: 283-4). Namely, never, no, etc., which occur by the
side of the adverbs ne and not in early English, gradually come to
be replaced by their corresponding non-assertive forms such as ever
1 For a definition of non-assertive forms, see 1.4.(8) above.
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