ABSTRACT
Klima assumes that there are two types of negation, one in which the scope of the negation extends over the whole sentence and another one in which the scope of the negation is restricted to one constituent only. He adduces ways for ascertaining which type of negation is which. Klima applies his theory to examples from present-day English; however, it can be shown with examples from historical data that this theory sometimes fails to resolve ambiguous cases. Two types of ambiguity occur in Chaucerian English. The first type is morphological: it is particularly met with in English of that period. It is a product of gradual development in language. The second type of ambiguity is syntactic: it is not restricted to this particular period of the language. On the contrary, it can occur in other periods as well, as is witnessed by the comparison with similar cases of ambiguity in Queen Elizabeth’s English, that is, some two hundred years later.
