Some facts on negation: Wode's four-stage developmental theory of negation revisited

Abstract

According to Wode (1977), the development of negation in children's speech goes through four stages.1 Stage I consists of one-word negation, i.e. children using a single nein, 'no', to express negation. Stage II consists of two-word negation, which is developmentally further divided into 11a for anaphoric negation and 116 for non-anaphoric negation. In the former, nein is used correctly in its proper grammatical function, but in the latter, nein stands for adult nicht 'not'. Stage III consists of intrasentential negation wherein non-anaphoric nein of 116 moves from the utterance-initial position to an utterance-medial position and is at the same time replaced by nicht, the non-anaphoric Neg proper (although the position of nicht still does not always live up to the adult model). In Stage IV children finally learn the correct position of nicht.Wode intended to set up a general theory of the development of negation with predictive capacity at a cross-cultural level. Unfortunately, sufficient relevant data were not presented. His theory was based on data which were mainly obtained from one of his two children in naturalistic situations without any fixed time schedule for observations. Questions such as whether nein is used in the anaphoric or non-anaphoric function, whether the former developmentally precedes the latter, and how the replacement of the non-anaphoric nein by nicht takes place can only be reliably answered by a distributional analysis of data. Yet Wode failed to do that. What he presented in support of his theory was limited to a total of 13 example utterances, six for Stage II and seven for Stage III, although there was a strong suggestion that he had abundant data available. It is also unclear how large the size of his sample was, and how many negative constructions were obtained in all. No data could be more fragmentary than these, especially if he intended to formulate a theory based on empirical findings. Readers are simply forced to believe in his statements, without being able to get insight into how the development of negation took place. In fact, there is evidence denying Wode's theory. The evidence stems from longitudinal studies

Opposites attract: the role of predicate dimensionality in preschool children's processing of negations

“…No, that is a tapir) (Wode, 1977;Park, 1977 ;Pea, 1980). The first general change is the production of increasingly sophisticated functions from simple refusals around 1;0 (e.g.…”

“…Is that a horse ? No, that is a tapir) (Wode, 1977;Park, 1977 ;Pea, 1980). However, because Bloom (1970) provided evidence for multiple functions at early ages, this change may reflect differences in the frequency of use for any given function rather than evidence for the acquisition of new functions.…”

The acquisition of the syntax of negation in French and German: contrasting first and second language development

“…Based on these and some further research, Wode (1977: 100) suggested three universal stages in the development of negative structures which can be summarized as in (9). There has been some controversy with respect to IIa and IIb; see Park (1979) and Clahsen (1983). Since I am not concerned with anaphoric negation, this is not relevant.…”

“…As for German, the development of the syntax of negation is also reasonably well studied; see, for example, Wode (1977), Park (1979), Clahsen (1983;1988a), Mills (1985) and Meisel (1997). Once again, one finds that NEG is first placed externally.…”