Page 8 - ELG2202 Feb Issue 479

RESEARCH NEWS .

“I ain’t done nothing wrong…”

Where’s the sense in double negatives?

By Gillian Ragsdale
The use of double negation in
English persists despite being
counterintuitive, suggests a study PHOTO SHUTTERSTOCK
by Mora Maldonado and Jennifer
Culbertson at the University of
Edinburgh in Scotland.
English children’s misuse of
double negatives is constantly
corrected, such as “I never said
nothing!”, intended to mean
“I never said anything!”, but in
fact meaning the opposite, as
English follows the rule of double
negation, ie, two negatives make
a positive. Many languages,
however, do not follow this rule
but exhibit negative concord, ie,
two negatives have an overall
negative meaning. For example,
in Serbian, “Niko ne trči” could
be literally translated as “no one
[not] runs” – a double negative
in English, but the meaning in
Serbian is “nobody runs”.
It has been difficult to
establish which pattern is more
natural. Germanic and Romance
languages, for example, have affix or (4) adverb marker leading learning models by implying is actually a more natural
changed back and forth between to negation concord. a cognitive constraint during interpretation of English – as
double negation and negative One hundred and twenty-four language learning. reflected in the common ‘misuse’
concord over time. English speakers, divided into Analysis of the scores from of double negatives by both
One theory proposes that four groups, took part in the session four, however, found that children and adults.
the meaning depends on the experiment, first learning simple whether the negative marker It is difficult to draw a
kind of negative marker, so that affirmative sentences, then was an affix or an adverb did not definitive conclusion regarding
phonologically strong markers, being tested on production and influence accuracy scores, but the influence of affixes vs adverbs
such as “niet” in Dutch show comprehension. In the second scores were significantly higher due to the simple nature of the
double negation, while the weaker session, participants also learned when learning the languages using languages used and the possible
Serbian “ne” shows negative simple negative sentences and negative concord rather than biases of the English-speaking
concord. But this simple model has again were tested. In a third double negation. Learners were participants, but the overall
become increasingly complicated session, the use of quantifiers also slower to comprehend double finding that, like children, adults
by the role of particles, adverbs for ‘all’ or ‘none’ were added negation. It seems that languages prefer negative concord to double
and other items. and tested. Then, in a final using double negation are harder negation begs the question as to
To try to settle the question of fourth session, both simple to learn no matter what kind of why languages like English persist
what determines how negatives sentences and sentences using negative marker is used. in the latter.
are interpreted, Maldonado quantifiers were presented. In Researchers studying natural Perhaps this has more to do
and Culbertson developed four this last session, the acquired language acquisition have with sociology than linguistics,
artificial languages that varied language items made possible proposed that negative concord is as the misuse of double negatives
in two ways. First, they varied by the target sentence forms the default for young learners and is one of the characteristics
type of negative marker, being containing two negatives which this study suggests this may extend of ‘substandard English’ that’s
either an affix (an addition to the participants were asked to into adulthood. Interpreting used to differentiate England’s
stem word, such as the prefix ‘dis’ translate into English. double negation as a positive notorious class system, as
or suffix ‘less’ in English) or an According to the theory requires assessing each negative epitomised by Eliza Doolittle’s “I
adverb (such as the English ‘not’ above, English speakers should element independently and it ain’t done nothing…”.
or ‘never’). learn a language using double seems that learners tend instead
Second, languages varied by negation more easily when the to give a negative meaning to the REFERENCE
having a double negative or negative marker is an adverb overall sentence. n Maldonado, M and Culbertson,
negative concord interpretation. and conversely, using an affix for Certainly, negative sentences J (2021), Nobody Doesn’t Like
Overall, this gives the four negation should lead naturally are generally more cognitive work Negative Concord, Journal of
language types. These are: to negative concord as a general to process and that cost might Psycholinguistic Research 50:
(1) affix or (2) adverb marker rule. If this were true, it might be less for negative concord. It 1401-1416 https://doi.org/10.1007/
leading to double negation; (3) shed further light on language may be that negative concord s10936-021-09816-w
8 February 2022