Syntaktische Negation in Verschwörungstheorien: Eine diskursgrammatische Untersuchung der Inexistenz-Konstruktion [es gibt kein X]
Sören Stumpf
Abstract
This paper examines syntactic negation in conspiracy theories from a discourse and constructionist perspective. A corpus study provides an overview of the use of negation in different conspiracy theories, where it can serve to deny the official version, i.e., the visible plot, in order to present the conspiracy theory (the invisible plot) as more believable. The corpus linguistic approach reveals a syntactic pattern of negation, which can be considered a form-meaning pair in the sense of Construction Grammar and which is analyzed in more detail in two selected conspiracy theories (attack on the Berlin Christmas market 2016 and „climate change lie“): [es Vgeben Negkein XNP] (e.g., es gibt keine Verletzten [engl. there are no injured people], es gibt keinen Zusammenhang zwischen CO2 und Lufttemperatur [engl. there is no correlation between CO2 and air temperature). Based on 229 instances, the paper describes the form, meaning, and especially the discursive function of this so-called inexistence construction. For instance, the construction occurs in the context of a specific pattern of argumentation used to deny evidence of the official version. Overall, the article argues for a more intensive study of grammatical phenomena in discourse linguistics and for a stronger combination of Discourse Grammar and Construction Grammar.
Stumpf, Sören (2025): Syntaktische Negation in Verschwörungstheorien: Eine diskursgrammatische Untersuchung der Inexistenz-Konstruktion [es gibt kein X]. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 53, 1–47.