<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In this paper we investigate the place of origin of the change from Jespersen’s Cycle stage II – bipartite <italic>ne</italic> + <italic>not</italic> – to stage III, <italic>not</italic> alone. We use the LAEME corpus to investigate the dialectal distribution in more detail, finding that the change must have begun in Northern and Eastern England. A strong effect of region and time period can be clearly observed, with certain linguistic factors also playing a role. We attribute the early onset of the change to contact with Scandinavian: North Germanic is known to have undergone Jespersen’s Cycle earlier in its history, and the geographical distribution of early English stage III fits neatly with the earlier boundaries of the Danelaw.</p></abstract>

In this paper we investigate the place of origin of the change from Jespersen’s Cycle stage II – bipartite ne + not – to stage III, not alone. We use the LAEME corpus to investigate the dialectal distribution in more detail, finding that the change must have begun in Northern and Eastern England. A strong effect of region and time period can be clearly observed, with certain linguistic factors also playing a role. We attribute the early onset of the change to contact with Scandinavian: North Germanic is known to have undergone Jespersen’s Cycle earlier in its history, and the geographical distribution of early English stage III fits neatly with the earlier boundaries of the Danelaw.

Regional Variation in Jespersen’s Cycle in Early Middle English

donald.morrison@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Division of Linguistics and English Language,

Studia Anglica Posnaniensia

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"article-title":"Regional Variation in Jespersen\u2019s Cycle in Early Middle English"}

In this paper we investigate the place of origin of the change from Jespersen’s Cycle stage II – bipartite ne + not – to stage III, not alone. We use the LAEME...

Regional Variation in Jespersen’s Cycle in Early Middle English

Published Online: Dec 29, 2017

Page range: 173 - 201

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/stap-2017-0007

Keywords
Middle English, negation, dialectology, language contact, corpus linguistics

© 2017 George Walkden et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Regional Variation in Jespersen’s Cycle in Early Middle English

Published Online: Dec 29, 2017

Page range: 173 - 201

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/stap-2017-0007

KeywordsMiddle English, negation, dialectology, language contact, corpus linguistics

© 2017 George Walkden et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
Middle English, negation, dialectology, language contact, corpus linguistics