rationalskepticism.org

katja z wrote:

Corneel wrote:I knew already that they often use double (even multiple) negation in West Flemish (and some other Flemish dialects), but apparently because of several "doubling mechanisms" you can theoretically get up to seven negations in a phrase where Standard Dutch would only get one.
Standard Dutch:
"‘Hij heeft sindsdien nooit1 meer ergens veel plezier met iemand gehad.’
"Since then he's never had much fun anywhere with anyone anymore."
West-Flemish:
Hij en1 heeft sedertdien nooit2 nievers3 me(t) niemand4 nie5 vele geen6 leute nie7 meer g’had."
"Since then he hasn't never had not much no fun nowhere with no one no more"

source (in Dutch apart from the little abstract)
http://webh01.ua.ac.be/linguist/SBKL/sbkl2009/vanw2009.pdf

This does sound rather extreme Very interesting!

In Slovenian we routinely use multiple negatives, but not quite so many at once. Usually you can pile up up to three negatives and still have a perfectly functional sentence:
Nikoli(1) več ne(2) grem nikamor(3). I'm not going anywhere ever again.
Z nikomer(1) več nočem(2) govoriti o ničemer(3). I don't want to talk to anyone about anything.
Four would probably be technically possible, but that would really be pushing it.

Well, West Flemish kept the negative "en" particle that existed in Middle Dutch (which had double negation), but fell out use in Standard Dutch. And doublings like "nooit niemeer" (never no more) or "nergens nie(t)" (nowhere no(t)) are still quite common in West Flemish & Brabantic. So it's not that rare to actually hear double or triple negation (or even quadruple negation) in everyday speech. Seven is pushing it but it doesn't sound really forced.

West Flemish likes doubling apparently, they also often double pronouns as subjec: "'k zal ekik u iet zegg'n" (I shall tell you something)
And you can have up to three times go (as auxiliary) in Flemish: "Ik ga eens gaan gaan eten" (more or less, "I'm going to get going to eat")
Yes...