"No as volgude anar en loch del món": la formació de mots negatius en català antic

Abstract

The article focuses on the origin of negative polarity items in Old Catalan – i.e. words only able to occur in negative environments – on the basis of nominal lexical elements which were originally affirmative items, specifically nominal elements of minimal value (pas, gens etc.). This development in the origin of negative polarity items has a cyclical character, which means that the same tendency can be observed in Latin and later in Catalan, as well as many other – not only Romance – languages and language levels. The article deals with words such as persona and cosa, which were in the midst of a grammaticalization process in Old Catalan, which was not continued later on, and others such as the local adverb enlloc, which can only be read as a negative polarity item today. The conditions for such processes are also examined, including the absence of determiners in nominal phrases which contained these elements of minimal value in Old Catalan.
Keywords: Old Catalan, negation, negative polarity items, postverbal negators, negative emphasizers, nominal elements of minimal value, grammaticalization.