The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean

David Willis is University Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge. He specializes in theoretical diachronic syntax and the historical linguistics of the Celtic and Slavonic languages. His publications include Syntactic Change in Welsh (OUP 1998) and The Syntax of Welsh (CUP 2007) and Continuity and Change in Grammar (Benjamins 2010), co-edited with Anne Breitbarth, Christopher Lucas, and Sheila Watts.Christopher Lucas is Lecturer in Arabic Linguistics in the Departments of Linguistics and the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East at SOAS, University of London. He was previously a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the same institution, and prior to that a Research Associate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge, where he obtained his PhD on the development of negation in Arabic and Afro-Asiatic in 2010. His publications include Continuity and Change in Grammar (Benjamins 2010), co-edited with Anne Breitbarth, Sheila Watts, and David Willis. Anne Breitbarth is a postdoctoral researcher in Linguistics at the University of Ghent. Her research focusses on Germanic historical syntax. She has previously held posts at Cambridge and Tilburg, where she completed her PhD on auxiliary ellipsis in Early Modern German in 2005. She is currently preparing a monograph on the development of negation in the history of Low German. Her publications include Continuity and Change in Grammar (Benjamins 2010), co-edited with Anne Breitbarth, Sheila Watts, and David Willis.

an excellent contribution towards encouraging the systematic comparison of recurrent dimensions of language change through the diachronic study of the grammar of negation in European languages. It offers solid coverage of the languages of Europe and of the evolution of negation. Most specialists of language change will want their library to have a copy, and many will be waiting for the second volume.

• 1. Comparing Diachronies of Negation ; 2. Negation in the History of French ; 3. Negation in the History of Italo-Romance ; 4. Negation in the History of English ; 5. Negation in the History of High German ; 6. Negation in the History of Low German and Dutch ; 7. Negation in the History of the Brythonic Celtic Languages ; 8. Negation in the History of Greek ; 9. Negation in the History of the Slavonic Languages ; 10. Negation in the History of Arabic and Afro-Asiatic ; 11. Negation in the History of the Mordvin Languages ; References ; Index of Subjects ; Index of Languages