Grammatical change in the use of 'never'

The linguistic variable : 

• Never vs. didn’t in past tense contexts (= Type 2 'window of opportunity' and Type 3 'non-standard') 

Data coding by pragmatic discourse function

• contradiction: e.g.  A: You broke that! B: No I never broke/didn’t break it!

• counter-expectation: e.g. I waited up all night but he never came/didn’t come home.

• no counter-expectation: e.g. We never wanted/didn’t want to go  [single occasion]

Data coding by predicate type

• stative e.g. have, need, want

• activity (dynamic event over unbounded time period) e.g. walk, swim, read

• accomplishment (dynamic event completed within a specific timeframe) e.g. painting a picture, watching a programme, building something 

• achievement (instant dynamic event) e.g. ask, take, go, hit

The word never has undergone two types of change in British English: 

• Semantic/Grammatical change – changing from “not ever” to “not” (broadening) 

• Pragmatic change – development of a ‘contradiction’ function

Even in dialects which frequently use never in its non-standard Type 3 'not' meaning show a hint of the older Type 2 'window of opportunity' meaning. We can see this in the preference to use Type 3 never in contexts in which the lexical aspect relates to a short timeframe or one-off event, and in broadening of the Type 2 discourse function of counter-expectation to a more general function of contradiction. 

Restrictions on the use of linguistic items can persist for a very long time, even when their meanings and contexts of use have changed.  

“Standardness” or acceptability of grammatical constructions is highly context-dependent.