This paper deals with a type of syntactic constructions where a right dislocated negation inte ‘not’ follows directly after a syntactic-pragmatic complete clause (or other syntactic unit) which in itself has a negative polarity. On the surface this type of utterance is double negated, but functionally it has (still) a negative polarity. The primary data consists of old dialect recordings (interviews) from northeastern Götaland in Sweden. Theoretically and methodologically, the study belongs to the field of interactional dialectology, which I regard as a subdiscipline of interactional linguistics.

The prosodic analysis shows that an inte in a dislocated syntactic position normally is non-prominent and intonationally integrated in the segment that precedes it. The syntactic analysis shows that inte is almost exclusively attached to either negated main clauses or “elliptical” constructions, but not to subordinate clauses. The pragmatic, interactional analysis shows that inte-utterances often occur not only in a TCU- and turn-final position, but also in a final position in larger communicative projects/discourse units (stories etc.). Among the inte-utterance’s typical functions are to contrast, explain or clarify something previous said.