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

extent up to a later period than has hitherto been argued, at least
as far as ME verse texts are concerned.
The employment of not, especially of not alone, seems to be still
confined to some specific contexts. Of the 26 examples of not alone,
as many as 20 instances illustrate clauses with the inverted word
order and/or imperative clauses. 6 For example:
Coupe he nouth his hunger mije-- (653)
Slep wel faste and dred 1e nouth-- (662)
Thus the form not is not yet a free alternative to ne and ne ... not.
Another striking feature of Havelok as against PM, O&N, and NH
(see (1), (2), and (3) above) is the development of clauses with
never, no, etc. alone, of which there are 73 examples. That 63
examples of never, no, etc. are accompanied by the adverb ne
suggests that a little more than half of the clauses with never, no,
etc. have already dropped the adverb ne. This may be almost
parallel to the state of the adverb not in this text, about half the
examples of which have developed to not alone with the
disappearance of the adverb ne. alone is almost as frequent as
ne ... not as discussed above, and likewise never, no, etc. occur
alone almost as frequently as they occur with the adverb ne. As in
other ME texts, never, no, etc. do not occur with the adverb not.
(5) The South English Legendary (SEL)
Despite fairly abundant examples of ne ... not, the situation of SEL is
in the main an early one. See the table below:
6 Relevant examples are much less frequent with ne ( ! O/12B) and
ne ... not (10/29).
45