부정순환과 고대영어 문장부정

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new schema of the Old English part of the Negative Cycle, first proposed by Jespersen(1917), then elaborated by Kemenade(1999, 2000) and Lee (2003a, b). This paper is distinct from the previous studies in the following. First, Old English is divided into four subperiods, rather than one or two. Second, Beowulf does not reflect the language of the early (8c.) Old English as is claimed by Kemenade and Lee. Third, no is not the earliest sentential negator but ne is. Fourth, no and na are simply phonological variants, and they share syntactic distributions and thus belong to the same grammatical category. Fifth, no and na begin to appear as the second negator in the same period (i.e. OE2) and then as negative head (OE3). Sixth, NOT (e.g. nawiht/nowiht/naht/noht, etc.) first occurs in OE2 as the second negator but much later as the head. All these facts are counter to Kemenade and Lee and contribute to the establishment of the more precise and detailed historical order within the cycle.