Jespersen cycles on Malekula
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Citation
Export citationBarbour, J. R. (2015). Jespersen cycles on Malekula. Linguistic Typology, 19(3), 425–462. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2015-0013
Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12692
Abstract
In the indigenous languages of Malekula Island, members of Oceanic, diverse standard negation strategies have been identified, including double negation, simple preverbal negators, and simple postverbal negators. Individual languages may display more than one strategy. In this article, evidence from Malekula is considered for the typological hypothesis known as the Jespersen Cycle(s). Six standard negation strategies are described in detail and illustrated using data from a sample of Malekula languages. Here, the Jespersen Cycle hypothesis is employed to understand diversity in the synchronic patterning of standard negation in a comparative analysis of the sample: the diverse standard negation strategies found both language-internally and comparatively can be understood as iterations of the Jespersen Cycle(s).
Date
2015Type
Publisher
De Gruyter Mouton
Rights
© 2015 De Gruyter.