Re: Volcae and Volsci

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
>
> > The verb system of Afrikaans definitely resembles
> > that of English Creoles, so does the use of double
> > negatives vis-a-vis a parent language that doesn't.
>
> The English double negative, apparently inherited from Old English, is
> alive and healthy even though deprecated. Has it truly been
> extirpated in other Germanic languages? Was it an Old English
> innovation?

No trace of it in any variety of Scandinavian languages I've heard of.

I think the Afrikaans double negative can be explained from Dutch alone.

Dutch places the negation adverb after the verb + obj + adv complex
whether the verb is aux or not. So:

Ik zie dit zo niet "I don't see this so", and
Ik kan dit niet zo zien "I can't see this so"

hence Afrikaans
Ek sien dit nie so nie
Ek kan dit nie so sien nie


Torsten