The Negation of haben and sein in the Prose-Lancelot Text
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Abstract
This paper deals with negation in Middle High German, particularly in the first part of the Prose-Lancelot text. In this paper I provide a general overview of negation patterns in OHG, MHG and NHG as well as a discussion of previous research on this topic. Not much has been said about negation patterns with auxiliary verbs, whereas the negation patterns with other verbs have been discussed in more detail. The main goal of this paper is to look at the verbs haben and sein in their functions as auxiliary and full verbs, to determine if there is a tendency to negate them with negative concord (NC), bipartite negation or single negation, and to observe the similarities and differences they display compared to full verbs in the text. This study shows that MHG displays competing negation patterns performed by single negation with nicht and bipartite negation ne…nicht. Previous research on negation has been done by Otto Jespersen (1917) who established a stages of negation. I propose that MHG cannot be assigned to either of Jespersen’s stages of negation, but instead, MHG falls under a different stage, according to Meisner et al (2014) and van der Auwera (2009), which functions as an intermediate stage, that allowed the changes into the next stage of negation. In this intermediate stage the free morpheme (niht), can either be used on its own or in combination with the preverbal clitic (ne/en). While these two strategies are in competition in MHG, they result in the elimination of bipartite negation, which represents the next stage of negation and can be seen in NHG.
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