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

Common to be mentioned in these studies: Sweet (1892-8, I: 1520),
Curme (1931: 139-40), Roseborough (1938: 82), Jespersen (1909-49, V:
451-5), Mossé (1952: 112), Brook (1958), Strang (1970: 152), Kisbye
(1971-2, I: 183, 195, and 204), Traugott (1992: 268-9), and Fischer
(1992: 283-5). While most of them simply refer to the existence of the
phenomenon of multiple negation in early English with some
illustrative examples, it is noticeable that Roseborough refers to the
earlier decline of the phenomenon in the North. A reference to the
Latin influence as a possible reason for the decline of the
phenomenon is also common (e.g. Sweet, Jespersen, and Curme).
Apart ft om multiple negation, issues such as negative contraction,
pleonastic negation, and figurative negation are sporadically
mentioned, but on the whole their accounts extend no more than to
point out the phenomena themselves and provide some ifiustrative
examples again. Histories of the English language usually make some
reference to the overall development of negative constructions, but it
tends to be a fairly sketchy account of ne, ne ... not, and not.
It is clear from the above survey of previous research that ME
negative constructions leave much room for further investigation, and
this is particularly the case with verse texts. Existing studies of ME
verse are virtually confined to Chaucer. The state of affairs of ME
prose, by contrast, has been investigated to a much greater extent in
existing studies, but the middle period of ME where prose works
suitable for investigation are relatively sparse should be
supplemented by a study of verse. As for each aspect of negation,
the overall development of the usages of ne and not is the most
frequent to be dealt with in previous studies. The general
frequencies of ne, ne ... not, and not are commonly mentioned in
existing studies, for example, and also the relationship between these
constructions and syntactic conditions has been studied. The
account of never, no, etc. is, however, limited. For example, the
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