Introduction

This chapter concentrates on those features of negation in English dialects that are characteristic of individual regions. For this reason, the British English dialects are mainly divided into the ‘Celtic’ Englishes, which are very different, and the English English dialects, which show much fewer distinct developments. The ‘Celtic’ Englishes are those varieties of English spoken in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Here, Celtic languages were still in wide use only recently and influence from this substrate is, at least possibly, a source for idiosyncratic dialect features. For this reason, short historical introductions will be given that concentrate on when English was introduced and by whom, and what the language situation with respect to the Celtic languages is today. Negation in the respective Celtic language will be compared to the non-standard English variety. The English English dialects are much less differentiated and they are therefore grouped together. Individual developments can be discussed in three broad regional groups – the north of England, the English Midlands, and the south of England. As we shall see, this is a sensible three-fold distinction that will also be useful for the following chapters. Most non-standard features of negation, however, are shared by all, or almost all, dialects today, and these – the main body of this book – will be discussed in detail in the following chapters.