Negation with sceal+infinitive

As noted in 3.3.3, sceal emerges as a verb of necessity which, unlike agan and þearf, generally steers clear of negative contexts (cf. Table 16). Left with the group of 33 negative instances of sceal+infinitive, one can still elicit some quite clear cut formulas. First of all, one far-reaching parallel between the negation of sceal and PDE must is cast into view. Much like must, sceal is a modal of PE necessity which has got the proposition under negation, not the modality. The change that such a mode of negation brings to the table is noticeable in, for example, the following sentence culled from the Benedictine Rule, which is, quite matter-of-factly, the seat of a great majority of the negative examples of sceal in my sample:

(3.3.27) Ne sceal mon yfel mid yfele gyldan, ne nanum men nænne not shall man evil with evil pay, nor to-no men no teonan ne don,

calumny not do

‘One cannot return evil for evil or cause any calumny to anyone.’

(COBENRUL 4.19) (3.3.27), being one of the rules prescribed for a good abbot to observe, is best conceivable as a necessity not to act, rather than lack of necessity. None of the negative examples in my sample admits modality negation as a more feasible or likely option when interpreted, an index to the verb’s consistent behavior with respect to negation. This consistency seems to continue till Present-Day English as PALMER (1979: 64) concludes that “must not (mustn’t) and shall not (shan’t) negate the event, i.e. they lay an obligation or give an undertaking that the act will not take place” and that “there is no way of negating modality with SHALL.”

Negation of the proposition seems to have little, if any, effect upon the overall force of necessity of a pre-modal in a given sentence. It is because with negation of the proposition, the status quo between a particular Antagonist and Agonist is preserved in that the Antagonist persists in imposing a necessity upon the Agonist, the only difference being that it is a necessity not to act in a given way.

Observe that modality negation brings about a considerable change in the involvement of the Antagonist and Agonist. In 3.2.4.2 the withdrawal of a potential necessity by the Antagonist, a fact associated with the sense of no-necessity-to in the case of þearf, is seen as a direct consequence of modality negation. Sceal, being susceptible to negation of the proposition, carries the same force of necessity regardless of whether it is in a positive or negative clause.

There is then no obstacle to some negative examples being included among the sentences illustrating the cline of the deontic necessity of sceal+infinitive in 3.3.4.1. Nevertheless, I find it more plausible to illustrate and analyze negative examples here so that it would not escape anyone’s notice that the continuum of deontic necessity embraced by the negative examples of sceal+infinitive is not as extensive as that in the case of the positive examples. Consider the following:

(3.3.28) Swelce he openlice cwæðe: Ne sculon ge no eallunga to also he openly said: not shall you not entirely too swiðe lufian ðisne middangeard,

much love this middleyard

‘He also openly said, »You should not have too much affection for this world whatsoever.«’

(COCURA 51.395.27)

(3.3.29) Ne sceal mon manslean, ne on unriht hæman, ne not shall man man-slay, nor on sin have-intercourse, nor stelan, ne unalyfedlice gelustfullian,

steal, nor unlawfully desire

‘One shall not kill, commit adultery, steal, unlawfully desire’

(COBENRUL 4.4) (3.3.30) Ond eac cuæð Salomonn ðæt [...] ure gesuinc ne scolde and also said Salomon that [...] our labor not should beon on oðres monnes anwalde.

be on another man’s power

‘And Salomon also said that our labor should not lie within someone else’s power.’

(COCURA 36.249.25) Example (3.3.27), with the second person pronoun, the speaker’s involvement and authority, stakes a claim to the core, which seems reasonable even despite the non-activity main verb. Otherwise, the core remains empty as the remaining instances fail to meet the criteria for core inclusion. 27 out of the 33 negative examples have a profile illustrated in (3.3.27) and (3.3.29), namely a generic third person subject and no overt mark of the speaker’s involvement. All such instances having a form of a rule or regulation reminiscent of the biblical commandments, the actual force of the necessity is felt as rather strong and can be paraphrased as ‘it is obligatory/absolutely essential that not.’ Still, they reside in the skirt of the cline. The periphery of the cline is as poorly represented as the core since (3.3.30) is the sole instance eligible for relegation to the periphery on the grounds of the inanimate/non-controller subject and state verb beon.

On the whole, allowing for a very small number of negative instances of sceal+infinitive in the total number of all the occurrences of the structure in the sample, I conclude that negative sceal appears to suffer from a syndrome of a relatively young form used to express deontic necessity. The differences between the clines of the necessity of positive and negative sceal are striking.

While the deontic necessity of positive sceal is endowed with a strong and subjective core as well as a weaker and blurred periphery, the core and periphery of the deontic necessity of negative sceal are virtually non-existent, barring the two solitary examples (3.3.28) and (3.3.30). The lack of a fully-fledged core is a feature that the deontic necessity of negative sceal shares with that of agan (to) infinitive, a verb whose obligative semantics is in a state of emergence. It is also of importance that the negative instances of sceal are more amenable to non-activity verbs as infinitival complements than

all the instances of deontic sceal+infinitive when taken cumulatively irrespective of a clause type (cf. Table 19 and Table 18).

This outline of negation with sceal+infinitive leads me to argue that the rarity of the structure has as its basis a strong association with formal and/or official prohibition. Reliance on third person generic subjects and high percentage of non-activity verbs following the pre-modal render the deontic necessity conveyed by negative sceal regulation-like in character. Negative sceal seems somewhat fossilized in those formal contexts and, unlike its positive counterpart, fails to filter through to more subjective and performative discourse.