A Corpus-based Analysis of Negation in Selected 19th-century American Missionary Documents in Honolulu

Abstract

The present study discusses negation in the Hawaii Corpus, which ourresearch team has compiled by using material left in Hawaii by members of theAmerican Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in the 19th century.Since our project is still at the initial stage, some of the conclusions are inevitablytentative, but this study shows that the establishment of the auxiliarydoin nega-tion was still in progress in the Hawaii Corpus and perhaps more generally in19th-century English. Although it was nearing the completion, there were stillsome verbs that stayed withdo-less negation to a noticeable extent. These excep-tional verbs includehave, know, anddoubt, ofwhichlexicalhavemerits particularattention. While lexicalhaveoccurs indonegation in contemporary AmericanEnglish, it illustratesdo-less negation fairly extensively in the Hawaii Corpus, sug-gesting that the establishment ofdonegation with lexicalhavewas not reachedin 19th-century American English. This study also demonstrates that forms of ne-gation differ in the writings by different authors. Clarissa Armstrong's English isworthy of particular notice in this context, as its relatively informal style is charac-terized by various aspects of negation, including the frequency of negation itself, the use ofdo, not, no doubt, andneither . . . or(instead ofneither . . . nor).