scholarly journals Ouk ´Ismen Oudén: Negative Concord and Negative Polarity in the History of Greek

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Horrocks
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
Negative Marker ◽  
Existential Quantification ◽  
Single Set

In Ancient Greek a single set of indefinite enclitic pronouns was used indifferently in both negative/affective environments (i.e. like negative polarity items (NPI)) and in positive ones (i.e. like positive polarity items (PPI)). At the same time the negative pronouns used as negative quantifiers (NQ) were also employed as emphatic NPIs, with negative concord. The two functions of each class (i.e. PPI-like vs NPI-like, NQ vs NPI) were determined by syntactic distribution. In the specific case of negative sentences, an indefinite before a sentential negative marker (NM) functioned like a PPI but after a NM like an NPI, while a negative pronoun before a NM was an NQ but after an NM an NPI. This pattern was at odds with the canonical VSO clause structure that evolved in later antiquity, in which focal constituents were contrastively stressed and fronted to the left periphery: neither indefinite nor negative pronouns could be focalised because of the prosodic and/or semantic restrictions on their distribution. This deficiency was eventually remedied by formal/prosodic recharacterisation, the loss of NQs and the generalisation of NPIs to all syntactic positions available to DPs, including the focus position, a process that triggered their reinterpretation as involving universal quantification over negation rather than, as before, existential quantification under negation. The Modern Greek PPI kápjos and NPI kanís are traced from their origins in Ancient Greek and their role in the evolution of the system is explored. The final outcome is typologically to be expected in so far as NQs are redundant in a system in which NPIs appear freely both before and after NMs.

On the Subject of Negative Auxiliary Inversion

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Blanchette ◽  
Chris Collins
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
West Texas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Scope Freezing

AbstractThis article presents a novel analysis ofNegative Auxiliary Inversion(NAI) constructions such asdidn't many people eat, in which a negated auxiliary appears in pre-subject position. NAI, found in varieties including Appalachian, African American, and West Texas English, has a word order identical to a yes/no question, but is pronounced and interpreted as a declarative. We propose that NAI subjects are negative DPs, and that the negation raises from the subject DP to adjoin to Fin (a functional head in the left periphery). Three properties of NAI motivate this analysis: (i) scope freezing effects, (ii) the various possible and impossible NAI subject types, and (iii) the incompatibility of NAI constructions with true Double-Negation interpretations. Implications for theories of Negative Concord, Negative Polarity Items, and the representation of negation are discussed.

scholarly journals Exploring negation in Awing

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-107
Author(s):  
NYOMY Cyrine Cyrine
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
West Region ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
Universal Category ◽  
Negative Marker

Negation is a universal category and languages differ in many respects in the way they express the latter (see Klima 1964). In this regards, some languages express sentential negation (a subcategorization of negation) with one marker (Dutch, German, English, etc.) while others like French uses two markers. Alongside markers used to express sentential negation, other items, among which Negative Polarity Items, mark negation and tight a particular element within its domain. In this paper, I aim at providing a picture of the expression of negation in Awing (a Bantu Grassfield langue of the Ngemba Group spoken in the North West region of Cameroon). Accordingly, sentential negation is expressed with two discontinuous markers kě…pô. One fact important to the presence of this negative marker is the movement of postverbal elements to a preverbal position turning the SVO structure in non-negative clause to an SOV pattern in negative clauses. In addition, the study describes other negative elements and negation subcategories. In last, the study of negative concord reveals that Awing belongs to the group of Strict Negative Concord (SNC) languages in which n-words must co-occur with negative marker to yield negation.

Indefinites and negation in the history of Latin

2018 ◽  
pp. 137-201
Author(s):  
Chiara Gianollo
Keyword(s):  
Major Change ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Extreme Dependence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Negative Indefinites

This chapter is a study of Latin indefinites in direct-negation contexts. These indefinites are interesting from a theoretical point of view because of their extreme dependence on the surrounding structural conditions, and because of the variety of their instantiations in different linguistic systems. Two phenomena of Latin grammar with wide-ranging implications for the development of Romance indefinites are discussed: the syntax of negation and the diachronic pathways followed by indefinites interacting with it. Latin is a Double Negation language, whereas Early Romance exhibits Negative Concord. The study proposes that this typological shift is linked to another major change from Latin to Romance, namely the change from OV to VO. Late Latin is analyzed as a ‘concealed’ nonstrict Negative Concord language, in which restrictions in the use of the ‘old’ negative indefinites emerge, as well as new patterns with (new) negative-polarity items.

scholarly journals AN OVERVIEW OF NEGATIVE MARKERS IN ENGLISH AND ALBANIAN

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1677-1682
Author(s):  
Arta Bekteshi
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Negative Particle ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Subjunctive Conditional ◽  
Negative Marker ◽  
Imperative Mood

Negative sentences are the opposite of positive ones; they negate the action expressed in positive clauses by using negative markers and/or negative words. English and Albanian are two languages in which negation is structured and expressed in different ways, although the negative markers are more or less the same. However, even though they may seem similar and corresponding to each other in both languages, they are used in different structures and have different scope. This paper gives a description and comparison of negative markers in English and Albanian. Their use and structure is illustrated by various examples to support the description. Based on this overview, it can be concluded that both English and Albanian have negative particles functioning as negative markers, as well as negative words. However, these negative markers and negative words do not express negation in the same way in these two languages. The simplest difference is that English has only one negative marker of verbal negation – not; while Albanian has several negative markers: nuk/s’ to mark primary as well as secondary verbal negation, mos to mark verbal negation in the indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative mood; jo is used to mark both sentential and constituent negation; as- as a negative particle marks both sentential and constituent negation and can be accompanied by one of the verbal negative markers nuk /s’. Even though there is a correspondence of not and nuk /s’ to mark verbal negation, there is a misbalance of negative markers and their uses in both languages. A further difference, and a greater one is the use of n-words or negative polarity items (NPIs). English as a single negation language forms negation by using negative verbs with NPI, or by using n-words as absolute negators. For instance, (1) Ben didn’t see anybody vs. (2) Ben saw nobody. In sentence (1) there is a negative verb which cannot be followed or preceded by an n-word, therefore the NPI anybody is used, while in sentence (2) there is a positive verb which allows the use of an n-word such as nobody. On the other hand, in Albanian, n-words such as negative adverbs and negative pronouns are only used accompanied by the verbal marker nuk/s’, thus creating negative concord as in the example: Askush nuk tha asgjë. In this sentence there are three negative words – askush, nuk, asgjë- which contribute to one semantic meaning. As far as conjunctions are concerned, most of them correspond in both languages in both structure and meaning. Similarly, prefixes share similar properties in English and Albanian, they are attached to adjectives, verbs or nouns to express negation, opposition, reversative or removing ideas. English also has a negative suffix –less, while Albanian has no negative suffixes, which could be considered as a slight difference.

Modern-Hebrew lama-še Interrogatives and Their Judeo-Spanish Origins

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 104-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itamar Francez
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Opposite Polarity ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Probable Source ◽  
Modern Hebrew

This article describes a Modern Hebrew interrogative construction, not found in earlier varieties of the language, in which awh-word is followed by a clause headed by the complementizerše‘that.’ When that clause contains negation, the resulting sentence has the illocutionary force of a suggestion, with the opposite polarity to that of the complementizer clause. In this case, negation fails to license negative concord and negative polarity items. The main properties of the construction are described, an analysis is sketched, and evidence is given indicating Judeo-Spanish as the probable source for the construction.

Minimizers and Maximizers as Different Types of Polarity Items

2020 ◽  
pp. 406-425
Author(s):  
Susagna Tubau
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Item ◽  
Taboo Word ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Negative Quantifiers ◽  
Maximal Extent

This chapter examines the properties of minimizers and maximizers (i.e. minimal and maximal extent- or quantity-denoting expressions) in English, Catalan, and Spanish. Special emphasis is put on (i) establishing which type of polarity item these expressions align with, and (ii) identifying connections between them and other elements of the polarity landscape such as negative quantifiers and Negative Concord Items. It is shown that different minimizers and maximizers pattern with Affective Polarity Items, Negative Polarity Items, or Positive Polarity Items in the three studied languages, and that English minimizers behave similarly to negative quantifiers when negation is adjacent to them, while in Catalan and Spanish they behave like Negative Concord Items when headed by the particle ni ‘not even’. Vulgar (taboo word) minimizers, which have been argued to carry an incorporated zero numeral in the literature, are claimed to be lexically ambiguous between zero-incorporated structures and Affective Polarity Items.

scholarly journals How speakers interpret the negative markers no and no…pas in Catalan

Probus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susagna Tubau ◽  
Viviane Déprez ◽  
Joan Borràs-Comes ◽  
M.Teresa Espinal
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Metalinguistic Negation ◽  
The Status

AbstractThis paper reports the results of an experimental investigation designed to test the interpretation of the optional doubling of the negative markersnoandpasin Expletive Negation (EN) contexts and in preverbal Negative Concord Items (NCI) contexts in Catalan. We show that in EN contexts a negative interpretation ofnois preferred to an expletive one, with non-negative readings being less widespread than expected from what is described in traditional grammars. In NCI contexts the overt presence ofnobasically contributes to a single negation interpretation, thus confirming the status of Catalan as a Negative Concord language. We also show that, in the absence of discourse environments,pasin both EN and NCI contexts shows a variable interpretation, a characteristic of negative polarity items. Our results indicate thatpasdoes not increase the amount of negative interpretation ofnoin EN contexts, or of double negation in NCI contexts, but is an item dependent on the interpretation ofno. We conclude that the strengthening role of Catalanpas(at stage two of Jespersen’s cycle), while associated with the expression of metalinguistic negation, does not reverse the truth or falsity of a proposition.

scholarly journals Cumbersome paths to indefiniteness. Evidence from an Old Occitan customary

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 245-275
Author(s):  
Mikolaj Nkollo
Keyword(s):  
Free Choice ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Linguistic Data ◽  
Old Occitan ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Clausal Negation ◽  
Syntactic Properties

The central problem of this paper is the evolution of common nouns assumed to have turned into indefinite pronouns. The linguistic data have been retrieved from the Costuma d’Agen, a 13th-century Occitan Customary. The choice of this text is warranted by multiple relations obtaining between the architecture of legal codices and the presence of indefinite expressions. In this text, the contexts in which re (< Lat. acc. rem), ‘anything’ or ‘nothing’ occurs have been identified. This word is shown to be pervasive in Negative Concord (NC; under the scope of no(n), the expression of clausal negation), thereby meeting the requirements imposed upon negative polarity items (NPIs). Outside NC, re appears in conditional protases and temporal clauses introduced by ‘before’. Irrespective of the context in which it appears, Old Occitan re turns out to be fairly advanced on the grammaticalization scale: unlike its etymon, it no longer inflects for number, it does not take determiners and fails to function as a subject in the Costuma d’Agen. Comparative evidence from Gascon 13th century texts proves that, although the descendants of rem of that period occur in the same structural environments (all of them are, by then, free-choice items, FCIs), they do not evolve at the same pace as their Occitan cognate. In other words, even in neighboring linguistic zones, these expressions differ with respect to the degree of persistence of syntactic properties inherent to Latin common nouns. Finally, re is matched against other FCIs, such as hom or home ‘anybody’ or ‘nobody’ and autrui ‘someone else’ or ‘someone else’s’. Compared to re, the medieval developments of these items are far more diversified and retain more original features of their etymons. The difference is traced back to the greater conceptual salience of the animate domain.

scholarly journals Minimizers in Azerbaijani from a comparative perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venera Suleymanova ◽  
Jack Hoeksema
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Western European ◽  
Polarity Sensitive

Abstract Azerbaijani, like many other languages, has a class of negative polarity items denoting minimal measures (along dimensions such as size, length, duration, value, weight etc.), called minimizers. This paper presents an overview of this group of expressions, compares them to minimizers in the western European languages, in particular English and Dutch, identifies the various domains in which these minimizers may be used, and discusses their distribution across polarity-sensitive contexts such as negation, conditional clauses, questions, etc. The distribution we found, on the basis of both corpus data and native speaker judgments, is very similar to that of minimizers in English or Dutch, especially when differences are factored out which are due to the fact that Azerbaijani has strict negative concord, whereas English and Dutch do not. To this end, we distinguish two types of minimizers for Azerbaijani, negated minimizers preceded by heç bir ‘not one’, and minimizers preceded by bir only.

The empirical reality of bridging contexts

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-451
Author(s):  
Pierre Larrivée ◽  
Amel Kallel
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Negative Polarity Items ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Documented Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
Grammatical Change

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to provide quantitative substantiation for the role of bridging context in grammatical change. Bridging contexts are assumed to be environments compatible with the new function that an item is acquiring. The evolving item would therefore be predicted to occur in bridging contexts at significant rates just before the change. To test this prediction, the well-known evolution of Negative Polarity Items into an n-word is analysed, using the well-documented case of the aucun in the history of French. Charting its course in a monogeneric corpus of narrative legal material, we find that the item occurs in strong negative polarity environments at rates of over 50% before it is found in a majority of n-word uses. This supports the view that bridging contexts are instrumental to change, and that they involve quantitative conditions.

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