Cover not available

Article published In: Functions of Language
Vol. 30:2 (2023) ► pp.209–237

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

The function of extra negation

Insights from the Dutch privative construction

ORCiD logo with link | Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL)
Published online: 4 July 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.21047.for
Abstract
This paper provides insight into the phenomenon of extra negation, also known as non-compositional, expletive, or pleonastic negation. It provides a corpus-based analysis of the Dutch negative privative construction, which consists of zonder ‘without’ and niet ‘not’, in which one negation does not cancel the other. Two basic factors that trigger an extra negation are discussed, and an explanation of why these factors facilitate the use of an extra negation is offered. It is argued that the extra negation has a semantic-pragmatic function that is reminiscent of similar instances of extra negation in Dutch and other languages, specifically sentences consisting of a main clause and a subordinate clause containing a word which expresses implicit negation. It is shown that in complex hypotactic constructions, the extra negation is used to make explicit in the subordinate clause that the presupposition of non-occurrence is rejected.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous work, terminology and possible explanations
  • 3.Data collection
  • 4.Main triggers for the negation
  • 5.Explanation of the triggers for the extra negation
  • 6.Comparison with compositional sentences
  • 7.Relations with other constructions
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Corpora used
  • References
References (39)
Corpora used
Brieven als Buit-corpus. Leiden University. Compiled by Marijke van der Wal (Programme leader), Gijsbert Rutten, Judith Nobels and Tanja Simons, with the assistance of volunteers of the Leiden-based Wikiscripta Neerlandica transcription project, and lemmatised, tagged and provided with search facilities by the Institute for Dutch Lexicology (INL). 3rd release January 2021. [URL]
Corpus Middelnederlands (Version 1.0) (January 2021) [Online service]. Available at the Dutch Language Institute: [URL]
Delpher newspaper corpus. Available at [URL]
Nexis Uni newspaper database (for Dutch). Accessed via the Leiden University Library.
OpenSoNaR [Online service]. Compiled by Oostdijk, Nelleke, Martin Reynaert, Veronique Hoste & Ineke Schuurman. 2018. Available at the Dutch Language Institute: [URL]
Historical Corpus of Dutch. Made available by Gijsbert Rutten. See Van De Voorde, Iris, Gijsbert Rutten, Rik Vosters, Marijke van der Wal & Wim Vandenbussche. In press. Historical Corpus of Dutch: A new multi-genre corpus of Early and Late Modern Dutch. Taal en Tongval 75(1).
References
Clark, Herbert H. 1976. Semantics and comprehension. The Hague: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delfitto, Denis. 2020. Expletive negation. In Viviane Déprez & M. Teresa Espinal (eds.), 255–268. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Déprez, Viviane & M. Teresa Espinal. The Oxford handbook of negation. Oxford: OUP.
Dobrushina, Nina. 2021. Negation in complement clauses of fear-verbs. Functions of Language 28(2). 121–152. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fortuin, Egbert. 2014. Deconstructing a verbal illusion: The ‘no X is too Y to Z’ construction and the rhetoric of negation. Cognitive Linguistics 251. 249–92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fortuin, Egbert & Thom van Hugte. In prep. Convention or error? Expletive negation in Dutch sentences with ‘without’. In Chiara Gianollo & Johan van der Auwera (eds.), A hundred years of negative concord. Berlin: Mouton.
Haspelmath, Martin. Manuscript. Negindefinites and negative concord: Concepts, terms and analyses.
Horn, Laurence. 1991. Duplex negatio affirmat: The economy of double negation. In CLS 27–2: The Parasession on Negation, 78–106. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. Hypernegation, hyponegation, and parole violations. In Ikso Kwon, Hannah Pritchett & Justin Spence (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirty-fifth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 403–423. Berkeley CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and other languages. Copenhagen: A. F. Høst.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jin, Yanwei & Jean-Pierre Koenig. 2020. A cross-linguistic study of expletive negation. Linguistic Typology 25(1). 39–78. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keijsper, Cornelia E. 1985. Information structure. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maldonado, Mora & Jennifer Culbertson. 2021. Nobody doesn’t like negative concord. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 501. 1401–1416. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oostdijk, Nelleke, Martin Reynaert, Veronique Hoste & Ineke Schuurman. 2018. OpenSoNaR [Online service]. Available at the Dutch Language Institute: [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oskolskaya, Sofia A., Natalia M. Zaika, Sergei B. Klimenko & Maksim L. Fedotov. 2020. Opredelenie kartiva kak sravitel’nogo ponjatija. [Defining caritive as a comparative concept]. Voprosy Jazykoznanija 31. 7–25.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paape, Dario, Shravan Vasishth & Titus von der Malsburg. 2020. Quadruplex negatio invertit? The on-line processing of depth charge sentences. Journal of Semantics 37(4). 509–555. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paardekooper, Piet C. 1975. Zonder en zonder dat: twee ontkennende vw’s. De Nieuwe Taalgids 681. [URL]
Reuneker, Alex. 2016. Conditional use of prepositional phrases in Dutch: The case of zonder (‘without’). In Jenny Audring & Sander Lestrade (eds.) Linguistics in the Netherlands 331, 121–134. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan. 2022. Nominal and pronominal negative concord, through the lens of Belizean and Jamaican Creole. Linguistics 601. 505–540. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan & Olga Krasnoukhova. 2020. The typology of negation. In Viviane Déprez and M. Teresa Espinal (eds.), 91–116. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan. & Sepideh Koohkan. 2022. Extending the typology: Negative concord and connective negation in Persian. Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2(1). 1–36.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan & Lauren van Alsenoy. 2018. More ado about nothing: On the typology of negative indefinites. In Ken Turner & Laurence R. Horn (eds.), Pragmatics, truth and underspecification: Towards an atlas of meaning, 107–146. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. On the typology of negative concord. Studies in Language 401. 473–512. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Horst, Joop. 2008. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse syntaxis, Deel 1. Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Wouden, Ton. 2021. 29.4 Meervoudige ontkenningen (versie 3.0). Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst. [URL]
. 2000. Focus on appendices in Dutch. Linguistics in the Netherlands 17(1). 235–246. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van De Voorde, Iris, Gijsbert Rutten, Rik Vosters, Marijke van der Wal & Wim Vandenbussche. In press. Historical Corpus of Dutch: A new multi-genre corpus of Early and Late Modern Dutch. Taal en Tongval 75(1).
Vandeweghe, Willy. 2009. Negatievermenigvuldiging in het West-Vlaams. Studies van de BKL 41. [URL]
Wason, Peter. C. & Shuli S. Reich. 1979. A verbal illusion. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 311. 591–597. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Yuhan, Rachel Ryskin & Edward Gibson. 2023. A noisy-channel approach to depth-charge illusions. Cognition 2321. 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2010. Emphatic multiple negative expressions in Dutch. The Linguistic Review 27(1). 37–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zorikhina Nilsson, Nadezhda. 2012. Peculiarities of expressing the apprehensive in Russian. Oslo Studies in Language 4(1). 53–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Tsiakmakis, Evripidis
2025. On the non-homogeneity of expletive negation in Greek and beyond. Linguistics DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue