La concordance négative (NC) et la négation explétive (EN) entre renforcement et affaiblissement dans l’évolution du latin aux langues romanes

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This paper focuses on the ‘expletive’ function of the sentence Latin negative particle non, which is closely connected with the semantic role of the ‘N-words’, namely the negative indefinite pronouns or adverbs (e.g. nemo, nihil, numquam). Both aspects are universally interrelated in the distribution of the main types of negation in the word languages, that are the double negation type (DN) and negative concordance (NC).

Generally, the evolutionary path from the former to the latter type is explained referring to either sociolinguistic variation (especially colloquial register) or influence by Greek language, whose tendency toward the NC type is evidenced since antiquity. However, the change of negation type, that takes place in late Latin and the Romance languages, can be analysed in the perspective of the cycle of weakening and reinforcement underlying any linguistic change giving way to idiosyncratic outcome in each language.

Concretely, the starting point of the evolution is the Latin ‘N-words’, whose strictly negative force (at least in the classical language), allowing for the DN system, is progressively weakened. This fact yielded functions as ‘free choice’ quantifiers and/or Negative Polarity Items (NPI), such as English ‘any’ and its compounds, whose usage in negative sentences requires a negative expression. Nevertheless, in late Latin as well as in the Romance languages the evolution of the ‘N-words’ is differentiated according to their semantic role. In the role of ‘Agent’ the ‘N-words’ preserve their negative force, which is weakened in other semantic roles (e.g. patient, experiencer, possessor), as shown by contrasting Italian sentences such as Nessuno è venuto and non ho fatto niente di male a nessuno: in the former one the indefinite pronoun nessuno has a fully negative meaning, in the latter nessuno represents a free choice quantifier. This process is in accordance with the scalar approach of semantic roles: SU>DO>IO>OBL>GEN> OCOMP formulated by Keenan et Comrie (1977, 66).