Celtic negation in historical and crosslinguistic perspective

该项目将调查的方式，否定，无论是间接否定（“不”）和其他负面和不确定的元素（“无/任何”，“无处/任何地方”），是在凯尔特语言表达的变化，检查语言变化的经常性模式的背景下的变化一般。威尔士语和布雷东语创造了新的动词后否定标记，挑战了现有的动词前标记，这一变化在其他一些西欧语言中得到了证实（“杰斯珀森循环”）。威尔士语还创新地将不定代词（“任何”）转换为否定量词（“无”）的功能。其他凯尔特语言（爱尔兰语、苏格兰盖尔语、康沃尔语）虽然保守，但在否定系统中创新相对较少。该项目将记录和分析这些变化，并调查这些变化在语言接触（英语和法语的影响）或语言内部儿童语言习得方面的影响程度。这些结果将丰富我们对语言变化的循环路径、基于儿童的语言变化模型以及语言接触引起的变化机制的理解。

The project will investigate changes in the way that negation, both sentential negation ('not') and other negative and indefinite elements ('nothing / anything', 'nowhere / anywhere'), is expressed in the Celtic languages, examining the changes in the context of recurrent patterns of language change generally. Welsh and Breton have created new postverbal negative markers that have challenged existing preverbal markers, a change attested in a number of other western European languages ('Jespersen's Cycle). Welsh has also been innovative in shifting indefinite pronouns ('anything') into the function of negative quantifiers ('nothing'). Other Celtic languages (Irish, Scots Gaelic, Cornish) though have been conservative, innovating relatively little in their negation systems. The project will document and analyse the changes, and investigate the extent to which they can be accounted for in terms of language contact (influence of English and French) or language-internally in terms of language acquisition by children. The results will enrich our understanding of recurrent pathways of change, of child-based models of language change, and of the mechanisms of change induced by language contact.