Jespersen's cycle

proper noun

A process in historical linguistics by which negation is expressed first by a simple preverbal marker, then by a discontinuous marker (with elements both before and after the verb, as in the French ne ... pas) and in some cases through subsequent loss of the original preverbal marker, and so on.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

proper noun
  1. human sciencesA process in historical linguistics by which negation is expressed first by a simple preverbal marker, then by a discontinuous marker (with elements both before and after the verb, as in the French ne ... pas) and in some cases through subsequent loss of the original preverbal marker, and so on.

Origin

Described in 1917 by linguist Otto Jespersen, and named after him in Swedish linguist Östen Dahl's 1979 article Typology of Sentence Negation.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Jespersen's cycle. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Jespersen's%20cycle

MLA

“Jespersen's cycle.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Jespersen's%20cycle. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Jespersen's cycle,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Jespersen's%20cycle.

Source: Jespersen's cycle on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.