The Syntax of Negation in Swedish (SweNeg)
The overall aim of this project is to chart and analyze the syntax of negation in Swedish, both synchronically and diachronically. The empirical goal is to provide a coherent description of the great - but mainly unexplored - variation that can be found in Swedish. The theoretical goal is to deepen the syntactic understanding of Germanic negation by developing syntactic analyses that emerge from and relate to earlier research about negation in the Germanic languages (such as Haegeman 1995, Jäger 2008, Østbø 2013, Breitbarth 2013, and Brandtler & Håkansson 2014). The project focuses on language varieties that have been insufficiently studied and that deviate substantially from Standard Swedish, such as for instance Övdalian, Estonian Swedish and Fenno-Swedish. The project is thus both empirical and theoretical in nature. There will be two research teams in the project: one in Sweden (Gothenburg/Uppsala), and one in Belgium (Ghent). The teams will work together on all aspects of the project, and will collaborate on data elicitation as well as on development of syntactic hypotheses and analyses. In Ghent, two experts in the field have agreed to act as advisors to the project (Anne Breitbarth and Liliane Haegeman). Results will be presented at international conferences, and published in international journals; we also expect two Ph.D.-theses to emanate from the project.
Final report
The Syntax of Negations in Swedish (SweNeg)
Background
During the last decades, the syntax of negation has developed into a specific research field, but unlike a number of other Germanic languages, Swedish has not been studied in depth in this particular respect. The goal of this project has been to explore Swedish negations from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, and an empirically important part of the project has been the study of language varieties that substantially deviate from standard Swedish, such as Övdalian and Estonian Swedish.
Aims
The project’s aims has been to map and analyze the syntax of negations in standard Swedish and in deviant variaties such as Övdalian, Estonian Swedish, Nylandic and Ostrobothnian. From an empirical viewpoint, the goal was to provide a better description of the variation that can be found in the Swedish linguistic area. The theoretical part of the project aimed at developing syntactic analyses, emanating from and relating to earlier generative studies of negations in Germanic (such as e.g. Haegeman 1995, Østbø 2013, Breitbarth 2013 and Brandtler & Håkansson 2014). The project has accordingly had both an empirical and a theoretical orientation.
Implementation and development
The project started 2016-09-01. The staff consisted of Johan Brandtler (50%; Gent, David Håkansson (10%; Uppsala) and Henrik Rosenkvist (40 %; Göteborg; project leader). From 2016-12-01 Eric Lander was employed in the project as a two year post-doc, financed by the Department of Swedish, Gothenburg University. 2016-12-06 we met with our project advisors Liliane Haegeman and Anne Breitbarth in Gent, together with Karen de Clercq, a researcher with focus on negations.
During the project period we have met regularly, in Gothenburg, Stockholm or via Skype (cf. the project website).
Johan Brandtler has been employed as lecturer (lector) in Stockholm during the project, and David Håkansson and Henrik Rosenkvist have both become professors. In the spring of 2019, Eric Lander received a post-doc position at Stockholm University, and his new project is a continuation of the research he has focused on in the SweNeg-project.
In September 2018, Karen de Clercq (Gent) visited Gothenburg University as an invited guest researcher, giving lectures about various aspects of negations.
Three research results
In a book chapter, Rosenkvist (2018a) argues that the development of the Estonian Swedish modal verb mike ‘may-not’ indicates that the general process of language change that is known as Jespersen’s Cycle should be amended, since this change shows that an older syntactic negation may be transformed into a morphological element. Earlier research has claimed that obsolete and weakened negations tend to disappear, but this seems to be another possible outcome of this type of linguistic change. Accordingly, the possible status of negations in languages with negative concord is also called in question.
Lander (2018a,b, in progress) and Brandtler, Håkansson & Lander (2017) discuss etymologies to the Old Norse clitic negation -a/-at. The most probable suggestion is that -a/-at has developed from Old Germanic (*ne) aiwa (weht-) ‘not ever (a single thing)’. A new etymology has also been introduced, with some support from the Edda, namely that -a is related to the particle in Old Nordic -ika, eka ‘I’, with an added -t (which originally was a marker for 2sg). In previous studies, Brandtler & Håkansson (2014) have discussed the transfer in Swedish from ej ‘not’ to icke/inte ‘not’, and the following step is to describe and explain how older -a/-at is replaced by eigi/ej ‘not’. The goal of this part of the project is consequently to form a coherent picture of the changes of negation from the oldest Germanic texts to modern Swedish.
The topic of Rosenkvist (2018b,c, in progress) is clause-final negating particles in language varieties around the Baltic sea. This is a phenomenon that is typologically interesting, that has not been described before, and that also demonstrates that some linguistic features typically seem to be restricted to non-standardized linguistic varieties.
New research issues
Eric Lander’s will continue his research during his post-doc in Stockholm, with a nano-syntactic perspective on the development of Old Norse negations. One of the research issues is whether Jespersen’s Cycle has had the same effects on Old West Nordic as on Old East Nordic.
Henrik Rosenkvist is working on a larger study of negations in Övdalian, a language with negative concord and considerable variation in the usage of different negators. The negation itje e.g. occurs only in the initial and final fields of the clause, and never in the middle field.
Brandtler & Rosenkvist intend to initiate a diachronic study of the negating prefix o-, taking an interesting but seemingly forgotten dissertation by Rosell (1942) and previous works as a starting point.
A more general result of the project, that will affect our coming research initiatives, is that the present theoretical description and understanding, which is based on other (European) languages, probably need to be updated in order to encompass the data from the language variteies that we have studied.
National and international collaboration
We have taken part of national and international conferences, and we have collaborated and published with researchers from e.g. Hungary and Belgium. A research project has a long tail, and in our case this infers that we will continue taking part in international collaborations.
Background
During the last decades, the syntax of negation has developed into a specific research field, but unlike a number of other Germanic languages, Swedish has not been studied in depth in this particular respect. The goal of this project has been to explore Swedish negations from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, and an empirically important part of the project has been the study of language varieties that substantially deviate from standard Swedish, such as Övdalian and Estonian Swedish.
Aims
The project’s aims has been to map and analyze the syntax of negations in standard Swedish and in deviant variaties such as Övdalian, Estonian Swedish, Nylandic and Ostrobothnian. From an empirical viewpoint, the goal was to provide a better description of the variation that can be found in the Swedish linguistic area. The theoretical part of the project aimed at developing syntactic analyses, emanating from and relating to earlier generative studies of negations in Germanic (such as e.g. Haegeman 1995, Østbø 2013, Breitbarth 2013 and Brandtler & Håkansson 2014). The project has accordingly had both an empirical and a theoretical orientation.
Implementation and development
The project started 2016-09-01. The staff consisted of Johan Brandtler (50%; Gent, David Håkansson (10%; Uppsala) and Henrik Rosenkvist (40 %; Göteborg; project leader). From 2016-12-01 Eric Lander was employed in the project as a two year post-doc, financed by the Department of Swedish, Gothenburg University. 2016-12-06 we met with our project advisors Liliane Haegeman and Anne Breitbarth in Gent, together with Karen de Clercq, a researcher with focus on negations.
During the project period we have met regularly, in Gothenburg, Stockholm or via Skype (cf. the project website).
Johan Brandtler has been employed as lecturer (lector) in Stockholm during the project, and David Håkansson and Henrik Rosenkvist have both become professors. In the spring of 2019, Eric Lander received a post-doc position at Stockholm University, and his new project is a continuation of the research he has focused on in the SweNeg-project.
In September 2018, Karen de Clercq (Gent) visited Gothenburg University as an invited guest researcher, giving lectures about various aspects of negations.
Three research results
In a book chapter, Rosenkvist (2018a) argues that the development of the Estonian Swedish modal verb mike ‘may-not’ indicates that the general process of language change that is known as Jespersen’s Cycle should be amended, since this change shows that an older syntactic negation may be transformed into a morphological element. Earlier research has claimed that obsolete and weakened negations tend to disappear, but this seems to be another possible outcome of this type of linguistic change. Accordingly, the possible status of negations in languages with negative concord is also called in question.
Lander (2018a,b, in progress) and Brandtler, Håkansson & Lander (2017) discuss etymologies to the Old Norse clitic negation -a/-at. The most probable suggestion is that -a/-at has developed from Old Germanic (*ne) aiwa (weht-) ‘not ever (a single thing)’. A new etymology has also been introduced, with some support from the Edda, namely that -a is related to the particle in Old Nordic -ika, eka ‘I’, with an added -t (which originally was a marker for 2sg). In previous studies, Brandtler & Håkansson (2014) have discussed the transfer in Swedish from ej ‘not’ to icke/inte ‘not’, and the following step is to describe and explain how older -a/-at is replaced by eigi/ej ‘not’. The goal of this part of the project is consequently to form a coherent picture of the changes of negation from the oldest Germanic texts to modern Swedish.
The topic of Rosenkvist (2018b,c, in progress) is clause-final negating particles in language varieties around the Baltic sea. This is a phenomenon that is typologically interesting, that has not been described before, and that also demonstrates that some linguistic features typically seem to be restricted to non-standardized linguistic varieties.
New research issues
Eric Lander’s will continue his research during his post-doc in Stockholm, with a nano-syntactic perspective on the development of Old Norse negations. One of the research issues is whether Jespersen’s Cycle has had the same effects on Old West Nordic as on Old East Nordic.
Henrik Rosenkvist is working on a larger study of negations in Övdalian, a language with negative concord and considerable variation in the usage of different negators. The negation itje e.g. occurs only in the initial and final fields of the clause, and never in the middle field.
Brandtler & Rosenkvist intend to initiate a diachronic study of the negating prefix o-, taking an interesting but seemingly forgotten dissertation by Rosell (1942) and previous works as a starting point.
A more general result of the project, that will affect our coming research initiatives, is that the present theoretical description and understanding, which is based on other (European) languages, probably need to be updated in order to encompass the data from the language variteies that we have studied.
National and international collaboration
We have taken part of national and international conferences, and we have collaborated and published with researchers from e.g. Hungary and Belgium. A research project has a long tail, and in our case this infers that we will continue taking part in international collaborations.