Domains of Polarity Items

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Homer
Keyword(s):  
Unified Theory ◽  
Semantic Property ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Flip Flop ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Monotonicity Properties ◽  
Semantic Component ◽  
Semantic Dimension

Abstract This article offers a unified theory of the licensing of Negative and Positive Polarity Items (PIs), focusing on the acceptability conditions of PPIs of the some-type, and NPIs of the any-type. It argues that licensing has both a syntactic and a semantic component. On the syntactic side, the acceptability of PIs is checked in constituents; in fact, for any given PI, only some constituents, referred to as `domains', are eligible for the evaluation of that PI. The semantic dimension of licensing consists in the sensitivity of PIs to the monotonicity properties of the syntactic environments they find themselves in. Two pieces of evidence support the semantic dimension of what I call the ‘environment-based’ approach defended here: (i.) PIs are subject to flip-flop and (ii.) certain inferences affect their acceptability by modifying the monotonicity of their environment. A third property, called ‘entanglement’ and so far unnoticed, is described: the acceptability of PIs depends on the acceptability of other PIs in the same syntactic environment. The latter property is exploited to determine what semantic property some is sensitive to: it turns out that, contrary to the consensus among researchers, some is acceptable in the complement of the set of environments in which any is acceptable, and vice versa.

scholarly journals Bipolar Items

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Sumiyo Nishiguchi
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Simple Sentences

Abstract This article asserts that the Japanese wide-scope mo ‘even’ in simple sentences are bipolar items (BPIs) antilicensed or forbidden by negation and licensed in a non-monotonic (NM) environment. BPIs share the features of negative polarity items (NPIs) as well as positive polarity items (PPIs). The Dutch ooit ‘ever’, the Serbo-Croatian i-series ‘and/even’, and the Hungarian is-series ‘and/even’ are antilicensed by clausemate negation and licensed by extraclausal negation (van der Wouden, 1997; Progovac, 1994; Szabolcsi, 2002) or non-monotonic negative (and positive, for Serbo-Croatian) emotive predicates. Adding an NPI rescues BPIs in uncomfortable clausemate negation.

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 Positive polarity predicates

Linguistics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Hoeksema
Keyword(s):  
Binary Classification ◽  
Complex Interaction ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Recent Proposal ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Negative Quantifiers ◽  
High Degree

Abstract This paper presents Dutch and English predicates that behave as positive polarity items and provides a partial, semantically-grounded classification of this group of PPIs. The items are studied from the perspective of anti-licensing behavior (by negation, either locally or long-distance, in questions, and by weakly negative quantifiers such as little and few). Predicates, unlike quantifiers, do not have wide scope readings (which allow quantificational PPIs such as somebody to appear in the syntactic scope of negation). Using a mixture of corpus data and introspective judgments, we show that anti-licensing among PPIs is not uniform (mirroring earlier results on NPIs which likewise show considerable variation). Rescuing contexts are likewise shown to differ among PPIs. Some of the PPI predicates show complex interaction with illocutionary force (especially mandative force), and others with differences between presupposed and asserted propositions. High degree predicates, finally, point toward the existence of connections between the marking of degree and positive polarity. PPI status is argued to be the result of a complex interaction between the effects of negation and other nonveridical operators, and other semantic factors, which differ among subclasses of PPIs. Anti-licensing by weak negation correlates fairly well with anti-licensing by long-distance negation, a finding which is (partly) in line with a recent proposal by Spector (2014, Global positive polarity items and obligatory exhaustivity. Semantics and Pragmatics 7(11). 1–61) concerning global PPIs. However, we find there to be more variation among the PPIs studied here than the classification of Spector (2014) or any binary classification stipulates.

scholarly journals Exclamative Wh-Phrases as Positive Polarity Items

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel González Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Polarity Items

scholarly journals Sentiment Analysis of Imran Khan’s Tweets

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-494
Author(s):  
Sadia Saeed ◽  
Tehseen Zahra ◽  
Asim Ali Fayyaz
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Computer Scientists ◽  
The Face ◽  
Negative Face

In the recent past, sentiment analysis has been an area of interests of psychologists, sociologists, neurologists, computer scientists, and linguists including corpus linguists and computational linguists. Interdisciplinary approaches to researching various issues especially the analysis of social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are becoming popular nowadays. The availability of data on social media has made it easier to analyse the opinion or sentiments of its users. Analysis of these sentiments could reveal the face of users and it could help in various decision-making processes. Sentiment analysis is a system of knowing polarity (positive, negative, and neutral) in discourse. Moreover, sentiments can enable and disable certain functions of discourse and can divert the attention of the audience from important to a less important issue or otherwise, hence, there is a need to analyse the sentiments. In this research, sentiments (Polarity) of Imran Khan’s tweets are analysed with the help of R studio. Data for this study is collected from Imran Khan’s one-year’s tweets, tweeted from 1st January 2018 to 20th November 2018. Later we saved the data in. csv files. The results of the polarity check revealed that he has used all three types of sentiments that is positive, negative, and neutral. However, he mostly used neutral or free polarity items (FPIs) that is 67.41% in his tweets. Among positive and negative polarity items the number of negative polarity items (NPIs) is higher that is 23.21% as compared to positive polarity items (PPIs) which are only 9.40%. The manual analysis of results revealed that only software is not enough and there is a need to check the accuracy of the results manually. The use of negative polarity/negative face reveals that he tries to be independent and autonomous in his decisions (Goffman, 1967). The use of positive polarity items shows he tries to show his positive face to others. Moreover, sentiment analysis demonstrates the presence of themes propagated through the use of various lexical items.

The interpretation of disjunction in VP ellipsis: The case of Mandarin Chinese

2021 ◽  
pp. 014272372110209
Author(s):  
Na Gao ◽  
Peng Zhou ◽  
Rosalind Thornton ◽  
Stephen Crain
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
The Other ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Recent Proposal ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Vp Ellipsis ◽  
Default Setting

It has long been noted that verb phrase (VP) ellipsis cancels the polarity sensitivity of the English Positive Polarity Items (PPIs). In recent work, it has been proposed that words for disjunction are governed by a parameter. On one value of the parameter, disjunction is a PPI for adult speakers of many languages including Mandarin Chinese. On the other value, disjunction is interpreted in situ. It has also been proposed that child language learners, across languages, initially interpret disjunction in situ, not as a PPI. Taken together, these proposals predict that child and adult speakers of Mandarin will assign the same interpretation to disjunction in sentences with VP ellipsis, but will assign a different interpretation in sentences without VP ellipsis. This study assessed these predictions. In sentences with a full VP, the adult participants analyzed disjunction as a PPI, but they interpreted disjunction in situ in sentences with VP ellipsis. The child participants interpreted disjunction in situ in sentences of both kinds. Together, the findings support the recent proposal that disjunction is governed by a lexical parameter, with a default setting.

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