Talk:Jespersen's Cycle

French etc
The process is also well documented in French, Welsh and Old English. There was a paper in Transactions of the Philological Society a year or two ago: I'll look it out and expand the article when I get time. --ColinFine (talk) 07:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Cycle?
The article is called Jespersen's *Cycle* but all the examples listed are just one instance of the process. If there is any justification for calling it a cycle, include it and argue why it's common / likely enough, otherwise rename the article to Jespersen's process or something similar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 17:32, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I would like to add that the way the process is currently defined in the article there could be no circle, as at the end of the process the negative particle is post-verbial, whereas at the beginning it is pre-verbial - so the end result does not match the starting condition for the process to happen again. Any examples for an actual circle would be much appreciated! 2A02:8109:9300:CB4:7D96:EBF7:2DAE:C8DD (talk) 22:02, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Does it matter whether the name of the 'process' is logical or not? If it is commonly known as 'Jespersen's Cycle' then that should be the title. There is an article from Dr David Willis, Reader in Historical Linguistics at Cambridge describing the obviously linear process as 'Jespersen's Cycle' and another from Cleo Condoravdi and Paul Kiparsky, both of Stanford, confirming the same. Sotakeit (talk) 16:27, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

"With certain verbs"
The paragraph said "after certain verbs" but gave an example of "ne" *before* a verb; I don't know enough French to be confident in changing that to "before," despite the shape of the example. Someone fluent in French should probably look at this. Vicki Rosenzweig (talk) 13:52, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Page move: "Jespersen's cycle" (small c)
It's not usually, or necessarily, spelled with a capital C on "cycle", any more than (say) "Euler's constant". Should be moved to the small-c form. 2A00:23C5:FE18:2701:98F1:A269:7359:E9CB (talk) 05:17, 2 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The majority of book results use the capital C. –LaundryPizza03 ( d  c̄ ) 01:23, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Portuguese
I removed the Portuguese example, because it had three alleged examples from contemporary Portuguese. These are not examples of Jesperson's cycle through time; they are examples of sentences with different meanings based on double-negation or placing the particle at the beginning or end.

Não vou lá não -- I'm not going to that place (and am emphasizing that I won't, suggesting that it is a really bad place etc.) Não vou lá -- I'm not going to that place (standard) Vou lá não -- I'm not going to that place (colloquial, also highly emphasized like the double negation example)

For a good example, the examples should have a standard meaning and be spread across time or dialect. Equwal (talk) 12:04, 31 March 2024 (UTC)