The prosody of French ambiguous multiple negative sentences.

While it has long been assumed that prosody can help resolve syntactic and semantic ambiguities, empirical evidence has shown that the mapping between prosody and meaning is complex (Hirschberg & Avesani, 2000; Jackendoff, 1972). This paper investigates the prosody of ambiguous French sentences with multiple potentially negative terms that allow two semantically very distinct interpretations—a single negation reading involving so-called negative concord (NC), and a double negative reading (DN) with a positive meaning reflecting a strictly compositional interpretation—with the goal to further research on the role of prosody in ambiguities by examining whether intonation can be recruited by speakers to signal distinct interpretations of these sentences to hearers. Twenty native speakers produced transitive sentences with potentially negative terms embedded in contexts designed to elicit single-negation or double-negation readings. Analysis regarding the F0 and the duration of the utterances revealed distinct prosodic profiles for the two readings, confirming previous evidence that speakers can produce characteristic acoustic cues to signal intended distinctive meanings (Kraljic & Brennan, 2005; Syrett, Simon, & Nisula, 2014). Our results reveal that NC readings feature a focused subject and a deaccented object, in contrast to DN readings where both the subject and the object were independently focused. They do not relate DN to contradiction but link negative meaning with focus on French negative concord items (NCI). The paper discusses the implications of these findings for theoretical approaches to NC and outlines further questions for the syntax-prosody interface of these constructions.

Nobody Doesn’t Like Negative Concord

Languages vary with respect to whether sentences with two negative elements give rise to double negation or negative concord meanings. We explore an influential hypothesis about what governs this variation: namely, that whether a language exhibits double negation or negative concord is partly determined by the phonological and syntactic nature of its negative marker (Zeijlstra 2004; Jespersen 1917). For example, one version of this hypothesis argues that languages with affixal negation must be negative concord (Zeijlstra 2008). We use an artificial language learning experiment to investigate whether English speakers are sensitive to the status of the negative marker when learning double negation and negative concord languages. Our findings fail to provide evidence supporting this hypothesised connection. Instead, our results suggest that learners find it easier to learn negative concord languages compared to double negation languages independently of whether the negative marker is an adverb or an affix. This is in line with evidence from natural language acquisition (Thornton et al. 2016).

Cyclic changes to the negative coordinating conjunction from Latin to Modern French

The evolution of the negative coordinating conjunction (‘neither’/‘nor’) from Latin to Modern French instantiates a type of cyclic development that is previously undocumented as such at the level of morphosyntax, viz. a ‘semasiological’ cycle. In effect, the conjunction appears to have taken an almost perfectly circular path. Thus, in Classical Latin, as is consonant with the typological status of that language as a Double Negation language, neque/nec was exclusively used in negative contexts. Medieval French being a Negative Concord language, on the other hand, its negative coordinating conjunction, ne, a direct descendant of neque/nec, was able to develop a full range of weak negative polarity uses. In a range of contexts, ne was thus semantically equivalent to either the additive conjunction et (‘and’) or the disjunction ou (‘or’). By the end of the Classical French period, however, the conjunction (which by then takes the form ny/ni) has lost all of its weak negative polarity uses again, and it is used only in strong negatively polar environments in Modern Standard French. Based on data from the electronic corpora Frantext and Base de Français Médiéval, I analyze the three stages of this evolution. I show that, together with other developments in the French negative system, it falsifies predictions made in the literature and has consequences for the reconstruction of negative systems in less well-documented languages.

Из наблюдений над способами выражения отрицания в церковнославянском тексте русского извода

The article describes the specificity of the changes that took place in the process of dissemination of double negation, typical for Slavic languages, visible in the Ruthenian recension of Church Slavonic texts. The reflections on the achievements in the field are enriched with the results of research on the text of Gospel No. 7 from the collection of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA F. 381. Op. 1 Unit hr 7), which has not been analyzed so far in terms of the issues raised. Nearly three hundred negative structures were subjected to observations. In order to determine the number of single negation cases in relation to double negation the main focus was on structures such as: (1) ni Pron + V, (2) ni Pron + ne V oraz (3) ne V + ni Pron. It was determined, among other things, that their use was influenced by both the literature tradition and live language with elements of the northern dialect of the East Slavonic. On the other hand, the analysis of the negative structures preceding homogeneous parts of the sentence revealed the tendency, manifested onthe leaves of the monument, to transform towards the norm of the contemporary Russian language.

Peculiarities of Translating Russian Polynegative Sentences into Georgian (According to the Stories of Anton Chekhov and Their Translations)

Since grammatical rejection construction belongs to one of the linguistic universals, its study is very relevant to us. Russian and Georgian languages ​​are typologically different, in particular in terms of the use of double negation. That is why we addressed the problems related to the translation of Russian polynegative pronouns into Georgian.The aim of our paper is to reveal the peculiarities of translating Russian polynegative sentences into Georgian. Our task was to reveal the peculiarities of conveying polynegativity in Georgian, where initially (from the beginning) only a single rejection was possible. We have selected Anton Chekhov's stories and their Georgian translations as the research material. While working on the topic, we have used the following research methods: scientific literature analysis, contrastive analysis methods, elements of statistical analysis.The analysis of the Georgian translations of the Russian negative verbs revealed that mainly the Russian general negative (complete negation, общеотрицательные) sentences were translated into Georgian through the negative (partial negation -частноотрицательные) sentences. If in Russian the negation belongs to "Deeprichastie", in Georgian this inversion is conveyed through the verb without the particles expressing the negation.

Variation in negation in Seto

Seto is an exceptional language in the Uralic family due to its systematic use of postverbal negation, although preverbal and double negation marking are also used. Postverbal negation is still the most frequent and unmarked pattern occurring in about 74% of negative clauses in Seto. This paper analyzes variation between pre- and postverbal negation in East Seto (spoken in present-day Russia), based on data gathered during fieldwork trips in 2010–2013. By applying quantitative methods that are used in variationist studies (regression modelling, conditional inference trees, and random forests), we determine the variables affecting the choice between pre- and postverbal negation. Marked preverbal negation occurs more likely with first and third person, cognition verbs, and present tense, all of which are often used in fixed expressions like I don’t know. We also found a strong structural persistence effect in the data and remarkable differences between individual speakers.