In diaries covering 1600-1700, comprising 11 collections,26 volumes, more than 2,300 examples of negative declarative sentences, together with 352 varieties of verbs, are encountered. Letters written between 1600-1900, consisting of 22 collections,26 volumes, include more than 5,000 examples with 554 verbs. Based upon this evidence, it is concluded that do-negative, which has been described as the slowest to establish itself of all the functions of do as an auxiliary, must have been regulated as early as in the latter part of the 17th century in the popular syntax of those days; do-negative accounts for no less than 50per cent of all negative declarative sentences in the middle of the 17th century, accelerating during the latter part of the century, and amounting to approximately 80 per cent by the turn of the century.
The regulation is supported not only in terms of the ratio of the total number of the do-negatives to that of do-less negatives and of the ratio of the number of the verbs used with do-negative to that with do-less negative, but from the viewpoint of which category newborn verbs belong to and of when such contracted forms as don't increase in number.

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