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

(c) Not
For we ne li3the noht our lif wi!) no luthur dede (400).
For 3if men sal!) bi 30w so!) !)e sawe !)at y hirde,
Of more meruaiouse men mi3hte i nouht kenne (209-10)
For er!)e is nouht our eritage J'at euere schal laste
(981).
(d) Without the adverbs ne and not
For what richesse, rink . vs mi3ht !)ou bi-reue
Whan no wordliche wele is wi]7 us founde? (31-2)
ful is he neuere (801).
The approximate date of 1450 has been given to the manuscript of
A&D. With respect to the usage of negation, the text provides
copious examples of ne, most of which, however, also include never,
no, etc. As concerns clauses without never, no, etc., however, the
employment of the adverb ne is limited to some small number of
examples as is typical of late ME. Especially the fact that not alone
is far more common than ne ... not reveals one of the typical late ME
features of this text.
It is curious, however, that the co-existence of never, no, etc.
and ne is fairly common. The extent to which ne has declined from
clauses with never, no, etc. is much smaller than the exLent to which
ne ... not has shifted to not alone. The discrepancy of this kind has
thus far been attested with WS, Ferumbras, and KA, all of which are
relatively conservative for their dates. The situation in A&D, in fact,
reflects a less advanced stage than in AMA (see (15) above), which is
another fifteenth century text, the manuscript of which is dated a
little earlier than A&D. This may partly be related to the fact that
the composition of the original text of A&D was probably in the
middle of the fourteenth century. In addition, dialectal differences
may have to be considered. AMA is from a northern part of the East
Midlands whereas A&D is broadly from south-westerly areas.
Furthermore, the fact that A&D is a translation may also be relevant
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