Stages of development for negation
The following stages of development for negation in English and German have been found among learners from different language backgrounds and different learning contexts (Ellis, R 1994: 99-101):
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Stage 1 External negation
Stage 2 Internal preverbal
negation At this point, learners of English and German have to face some grammatical complexity. In English, the negator not is placed after an auxiliary verb do and in front of the lexical verb: I do not (don't) like cats. Learners of English initially simplify the problem of the auxiliary by treating don't as an alternative to no and not, producing utterances such as He don't like it, I don't can do it. Learners of German have to work out the distinction between the negator nicht, for verbal negation, and kein for negation of noun phrases. At the internal preverbal stage, nein ceases to be used so frequently, but learners simplify their new task by using nicht and kein randomly at first. Stage 3 Postverbal
negation |
External and preverbal negation occur consistently in the early interlanguage, as well as in early child language, suggesting that they may be inherently 'easier' to acquire than postverbal negation (see Cook, 1993: 43). However, the learner's L1 may still have some influence. Those who have preverbal negation in their first language (eg Spanish and Italian speakers) are likely to take longer to move on to postverbal negation. It is as if their L1 knowledge is reinforcing a natural stategy. (For extended discussion, see Braidi, 1999: 25-28; Cook, 1993: 36-43 and Ellis, R, 1994: 99-101).
