Yoko Iyeiri, Negative Constructions in Middle English (Kyushu University Press, 2001)

ISBN: 4-87378-694-0
7,000 yen

Negative Constructions in Middle English derives from my Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of St Andrews in 1992 (“Negative Constructions in Selected Middle English Verse Texts”). While the thesis discusses Middle English negation on the basis of selected verse texts, this book explores additional Middle English texts mainly written in prose. The texts studied in this publication are:

Verse
Poema Morale, La3amon’s Brut, The Owl and the Nightingale, King Horn, Havelok, The South English Legendary, English Metrical Homilies, The Middle English Genesis and Exodus, The Poems of William of Shoreham, Cursor Mundi, Sir Ferumbras, Confessio Amantis, Handlyng Synne, Kyng Alisaunder, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Canterbury Tales (verse), The Alliterative Morte Arthure, Alexander and Dindimus, The Destruction of Troy, The York Plays, The Stanzaic Morte Arthur

Prose
The Peterborough Chronicle 1070-1154, History of the Holy Rood-Tree, Twelfth-Century Homilies in MS. Bodley 343, Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt, The Earliest Complete English Prose Psalter, The Northern Prose Version of the Rule of St. Benet, The Canterbury Tales (prose), A Late Middle English Treatise on Horses, English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle de Hampole, Mandeville’s Travels, The Cloud of Unknowing, John Capgrave’s Abbreuiation of Chronicles, Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, The History of Reynard the Fox, Caxton’s Own Prose, Paris and Vienne

Contents

INTRODUCTION

1.1. The aim of the present book
1.2. Previous research into English negative constructions with special reference to ME
1.3. Texts examined

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ME NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

2.1. Negative elements
2.2. Chronological and geographical development of negative adverbs ne and not
2.3. Development of negative clauses with neverno, etc.
2.4. Negative clauses which include negative conjunctions only

SYNTACTIC VARIETIES OF NEGATION

3.1. Word order concerning the adverb ne
3.2. The adverb not preceding the finite verb
3.3. The adverb not which does not directly follow the finite verb

NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS AND THE NATURE OF THE FINITE VERB

4.1. Negative constructions and forms of behavewill, and witen
4.2. Negative constructions and modal auxiliary verbs
4.3. Negative constructions and contracted verbs

NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS AND SYNTACTIC CONDITIONS

5.1. Preliminary remarks
5.2. Negative interrogative clauses
5.3. Conditional clauses
5.4. That-clauses dependent upon a negative clause
5.5. That-clauses dependent upon douten ‘to doubt’, forbeden ‘to forbid’, etc.
5.6. Expletive negation after certain conjunctions
5.7. Clauses with forms of witen followed by an interrogative
5.8. Some other syntactic conditions related to the use of the adverb ne
5.9. Imperative and optative clauses
5.10. Clauses in which the finite verb immediately follows the conjunction ne
5.11. Declarative clauses in which the verb precedes the subject
5.12. Figurative negation
5.13. Existential clauses
5.14. Some idiomatic expressions

MULTIPLE NEGATION

6.1. Some preliminary remarks on multiple negation
6.2. Historical overview of single and multiple negation in ME
6.3. Multiple negation with the negative adverb ne (Type 1)
6.4. Multiple negation with conjunctive ne/nor (Type 2)
6.5. Multiple negation with the combination of notneithernever, no, etc. (Type 3)
6.6. Multiple negation with neither
6.7. Decline of multiple negation and the development of and and or
6.8. Decline of multiple negation and the development of anyever, etc.

NEGATIVE CONTRACTION

7.1. Some preliminary remarks on negative contraction
7.2. Dialectal distribution of negative contraction in ME
7.3. Geographical versus chronological conditions
7.4. Negative contraction and syntactic conditions

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Appendix
Bibliography
Index

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