A History of English Negation

Book excerpt: This volume traces the history of negation in English from Old and Middle English through to Modern Standard English and other varieties of English. It discusses the developments of negation in the early centuries, which involves looking at the problems of the phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics of Old and Middle English. There is also a chapter on negation in British dialects, non-standard forms, other native forms such as Black English, and non-native varieties such as English-based pidgins and Creoles.