Conferenza / Incontro
Image
Didascalia
Banner Conversazioni Linguistiche
Jespersens Cycle in German: “iht” vs. “niht”
30 Gennaio 2026 , ore 12:00 - 13:30
Palazzo Paolo Prodi, Via Tommaso Gar 14, Trento
Aula Piscopia 4° piano e online
Ingresso libero, Online su prenotazione
Organizzato da: Ermenegildo Bidese, Marco Magnani, Fabiana Rosi, Katharina Salzmann
Destinatari: Tutti/e
Referente: Marco Segata (marco.segata@unitn.it) e Paolo Valentinelli (paolo.valentinelli@unitn.it)
Contatti:
Staff del Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia
Image
Didascalia
Banner Conversazioni Linguistiche
Speaker: Helmut Weiß & Farbod Khouzani (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main)
The Jespersen Cycle (JC) is a language change process during which a preverbal standard sentential negation particle is strengthened by a secondary postverbal element, which becomes the new standard sentential negation particle while the former negation marker disappears. The standard German negation particle nicht ‘not’ is claimed to be the result of the JC having replaced the original Old High German preverbal negation particle ni (cf. e.g. Jäger 2008).
Keywords: Historical linguistics, Jespersen Cycle, Middle High German, Language Change, Negative Polarity Item, Indefinite Pronoun, iht