A constraint-based modeling of negative polarity items in result clause constructions in Romanian

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-168
Author(s):  
Monica-Mihaela Rizea ◽  
Manfred Sailer
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Lexical Resource ◽  
Distributional Patterns ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Constraint Based Modeling ◽  
Resource Semantics ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Representational Framework

Summary The paper discusses the occurrence of emphatic negative polarity items (NPIs) in high degree result clause constructions. We will identify four distributional patterns for Romanian emphatic NPIs. These will range from NPIs that only occur occasionally in result constructions to NPIs that are bound to such constructions and even do not show any truth-conditionally relevant semantic contribution. We reformulate a scalar, pragmatic theory of NPIs in a constraint-based, representational framework, Lexical Resource Semantics. We propose a scalar extension of a standard semantics of result clauses in order to capture the high degree, i.e. intensification readings. The constraint-based, representational perspective of this paper allows for an elegant modeling of the data: (i) We can capture the four distributional patterns as a lexical property of the discussed NPIs. (ii) The semantics and pragmatics of Romanian result clause constructions is accounted for by lexical properties of the result clause complementizers. (iii) A scalar analysis of emphatic NPIs can be applied in embedded clauses and even when the NPI itself does not contribute to the at-issue content of the overall utterance.

Introduction: Current perspectives on positive polarity

Linguistics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-300
Author(s):  
Mingya Liu ◽  
Gianina Iordăchioaia
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Different Sources

Abstract Polarity sensitivity has been an established key topic of linguistic research for more than half a century. The study of polarity phenomena can be extremely revealing about the internal structure of a language, as they usually involve an interaction at the interface between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. In the past, most attention was paid to negative polarity items. However, recent years have witnessed a growing interest in positive polarity items. As a continuation of this trend, this issue collects four papers dedicated to positive polarity items, which enrich the empirical domain with novel observations from different languages and appeal to diverse theoretical concepts such as scalarity and presupposition in their modeling of positive polarity. The results show that positive polarity is a distributional phenomenon that has different sources and most likely cannot be modeled in a unifying way, although there may be subsets of positive polarity items that allow unifying accounts.

scholarly journals Focus particles, secondary meanings, and Lexical Resource Semantics: The case of Japanese shika

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akio Hasegawa ◽  
Jean-Pierre Koenig
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Recent Proposal ◽  
Focus Particles ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Lexical Resource ◽  
Logical Negation ◽  
Secondary Meaning ◽  
Downward Entailing ◽  
Resource Semantics ◽  
Semantic Properties

Japanese has two exclusive particles ˋshika' and ˋdake'. Although traditionally, both particles were considered to be exclusive particles like ˋonly', a recent proposal claims that ˋshika' is an exceptive particle like ˋeveryone except' to account for the necessary co-occurrence of the negative suffix ˋna' and ˋshika'. We show that this negative suffix lacks two critical semantic properties of ordinary logical negation: It is not downward entailing, nor does it license negative polarity items. We show that both ˋshika' and ˋdake' are exclusive particles, but that ˋshika' encodes an additional secondary meaning. The negative suffix only contributes to the sentence's secondary meaning when it co-occurs with ˋshika'. We present an HPSG and LRS analysis that models the co-occurrence of ˋshika' and the negative suffix ˋna', and their contribution to the sentence's secondary meaning.

scholarly journals Taboo terms and their grammar

2018 ◽  
pp. 159-179
Author(s):  
Jack Hoeksema
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Verbal Abuse ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Negative Statements ◽  
High Degree

Taboo terms are used for far more than verbal abuse and linguistic mayhem. They may serve to strengthen questions and negative statements, they express high degree, and add negative connotations to otherwise neutral words. They may appear as negative polarity items, but also as positive polarity items. The variety of ways in which they may be employed is quite remarkable, and deserves to be studied from a cross-linguistic perspective. This chapter presents an overview of the main uses of taboo terms and the syntactic constructions they give rise to, and illustrates with material taken largely from English and Dutch, but in addition German, Estonian, Polish, and modern Hebrew.

scholarly journals Representing scales: Degree result clauses and emphaticnegative polarity items in Romanian

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica-Mihaela Rizea ◽  
Manfred Sailer
Keyword(s):  
Distribution Pattern ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Semantic Account ◽  
Lexical Resource ◽  
Npi Licensing ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Resource Semantics ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Standard Semantic

The paper proposes a representational re-encoding of the scalar, pragmatic accounts of NPI licensing within the framework of Lexical Resource Semantics (LRS). The analysis focuses on a less researched distribution pattern: emphatic NPIs occurring in result clause constructions that receive an intensification reading. We will provide a scalar extension of a standard semantic account of result clauses to capture the high degree interpretations. Our investigation will also offer new insights on NPI licensing in embedded clauses. We will primarily consider Romanian data.

Negative Polarity Items

2020 ◽  
pp. 390-406
Author(s):  
Lucia M. Tovena
Keyword(s):  
Special Form ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Sensitivity ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Distributional Patterns ◽  
Semantic Notion ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter investigates the phenomenon of negative polarity sensitivity. The term negative polarity items (NPIs) has been introduced in the literature to refer to forms whose distribution was observed to polarize in negative contexts. NPIs can vary from indefinites that take a special form when they occur in the scope of negation, e.g. any in English, to DPs functioning as minimizers, e.g. a drop, verbal idiomatic expressions such as lift a finger, and more. NPIs are often characterized indirectly by analyzing their distribution in terms of licensing contexts. Sentential negation is a typical licensor that is required to c-command an NPI. A weaker but more inclusive semantic notion of negativity shared by many licensing environments is provided by downward monotonicity. Distributional patterns also led to distinguishing between weak NPIs and stronger NPIs, the latter being restricted to a subset of contexts from the broad selection of licensing environments.

scholarly journals NPI licensing in Jordanian Arabic: An argument for downward entailment and syntax-semantics interface

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-35
Author(s):  
Eman Al Khalaf
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Jordanian Arabic ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Semantic Domain ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Npi Licensing ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Right

AbstractRecent work shows that downward entailment (DE) cannot be the right semantic domain that licenses negative polarity items (NPIs). Zwarts (1995), Giannakidou (1998), among others, argue that NPIs are licensed in non-veridical domains, those that do not entail or presuppose the truth of the propositions they embed. In this paper, based on empirical facts, I argue that DE theory is the right analysis for Jordanian Arabic. I propose an analysis of NPI licensing in which three components of grammar interface: syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Semantics defines the class of NPI licensors, pragmatics forces quantificational closure of NPIs, and syntax executes the licensing via AGREE between a phasal head and the NPI. The analysis contributes to the debate on what components of grammar are responsible for NPI licensing and provides a new perspective on the interface between different components of grammar.

scholarly journals Spotting, collecting and documenting negative polarity items

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 931-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Philipp Soehn ◽  
Beata Trawiński ◽  
Timm Lichte
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items

How Antisymmetric Is Syntax?

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuji Takano
Keyword(s):  
Linear Order ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
The Right

Since the emergence of Kayne's (1994) stimulating proposal for an antisymmetric theory of phrase structure and linear order, much work has been devoted to arguing for or against his theory as well as discussing its empirical predictions. As a result, for a number of phenomena involving rightward positioning, such as rightward adjuncts, heavy NP shift, extraposition, postverbal subjects, and postverbal constituents in OV languages, there now exist both an approach consistent with Kayne's theory (the antisymmetric approach) and another not consistent with it (the symmetric approach). In such a situation, it is often difficult to show on empirical grounds that one approach is superior to the other (see Rochemont and Culicover 1997). In what follows, I describe this situation with respect to two well-known phenomena in English: rightward positioning of adjuncts and heavy NP shift. For each of these phenomena, the symmetric and antisymmetric approaches have been proposed, and both approaches can correctly account for the data discussed in previous studies. Here, I examine the approaches from a novel point of view, showing that data involving the licensing of negative polarity items allow us to differentiate them and to decide which is the right one for each of the two empirical domains. Interestingly, the relevant facts lead to different conclusions for the two phenomena. The results have important implications for the antisymmetric view of syntax.

scholarly journals The Interpretation of Disjunction in the Scope of Dou in Child Mandarin

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shasha An ◽  
Peng Zhou ◽  
Stephen Crain
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Downward Entailing ◽  
The Right

A recent theory provides a unified cross-linguistic analysis of the interpretations that are assigned to expressions for disjunction, Negative Polarity Items, Free Choice Items, and the non-interrogative uses of wh-phrases in languages such as Mandarin Chinese. If this approach is on the right track, children should be expected to demonstrate similar patterns in the acquisition of these linguistic expressions. Previous research has found that, by age four, children have acquired the knowledge that both the existential indefinite renhe “any” and wh-words in Mandarin Chinese are interpreted as Negative Polarity Items when they are bound by downward entailing operators, but the same expressions are interpreted as Free Choice Items (with a conjunctive interpretation) when they are bound by deontic modals (Mandarin keyi) or by the Mandarin adverbial quantifier dou “all”. The present study extends this line of research to the Mandarin disjunction word huozhe. A Truth Value Judgment Task was used to investigate the possibility that disjunction phrases that are bound by the adverbial quantifier dou generate a conjunctive interpretation in the grammars of Mandarin-speaking 4-year-old children. The findings confirmed this prediction. We discuss the implications of the findings for linguistic theory and for language learnability.

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