Negation in Romance languages

Abstract

This is a historical philological study examining variation in negative expressions across five Romance languages.The study aims to explore variation in the expression of negation in a sample of Romance languages. The focus of this paper is on the type of negation particle, the order in which a negative marker appears in a sentence, and the variation across different word classes. The study follows a historical-philological approach in describing negation, examining the variation in negative strategies exhibited by languages descended from a common ancestor language, in this case, Vulgar Latin. The study examines the variation exhibited by standard varieties of the following Romance languages: French, Italian, Spanish, Romansh, and Romanian. Each language is drawn from a different subfamily of Romance. The results of this study are meant to document variation in the expression of negation in contemporary Romance languages and offer insights into possible sources of this variation.Jazan University in Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission in Fairfax V