Negation in Middle Dutch

 

The most common negation in Middle Dutch is double and consists of the elements en or ne and another negating word such as niet, niemant and geen ["not, nobody, none"], with the first element always immediately preceding the finite verb form. But it is also possible for a sentence to be negated with just one of these elements.

Negation with just the single particle en or ne before the finite verb occurs in Middle Dutch only in specific circumstances but is actually the more original form, and was the only possibility in Old Dutch. However, this negating particle gradually lost its force and acquired an accompanying negative adverb or noun to reinforce itself, which subsequently took over the negative function entirely. A similar development can, in fact, also be seen in other Indogermanic languages.

We can sum up the development of negation in Dutch as follows:

These negative adverbs and pronouns, which are used in modern Dutch to show negation, arose through a proclitic binding with the negating word ne (eg ne + iet > niet, ne + emmer > nemmer, ne + ooit > nooit,...).

In addition to these clearly negative words, other words such as maer ("only"), cume and nauwe (both mean "scarcely") also have a negative value. These can also occur in conjunction with en or ne (eg Die ne had mer één coe ["Who no longer had one cow"]). And a negating word can also appear in subordinate clauses beginning with eer (eg Eer ic noit dit werc bestont ["before I (n)ever started this work"]), which are dependent on a comparative or superlative (eg Die scoonste die nie men sach ["The finest that was (n)ever seen"]), or in sentences which have a negative implication (eg Hoe dul es hi ende wel sot die mannen geloeft nembermere, where the negative implication is "you must never believe men").

To avoid confusion with negation using two elements it seems sensible to reserve the term double negation for sentences in which two or more negative adverbs or pronouns are used alongside each other, as for example in Daerne quam oec nie geen man,... or dan (= dat en) was niewerinc noit vernomen ...which mean literally "there came also never no man" and "that was seen nowhere never". Against the rules of logic these negative elements do not cancel each other out but reinforce each other. In contrast with modern Dutch, where such constructions are only tolerated in the spoken language, this double negation also occurs in the written forms of Middle Dutch dialects.