Linearization constraints on sentential negation in Russian Sign Language are prosodic

This squib documents exceptions to the main strategy of expressing sentential negation in Russian Sign Language (RSL). The postverbal sentential negation particle in RSL inverts the basic SVO order characteristic of the language turning it into SOV (Pasalskaya 2018a). We show that this reversal requirement under negation is not absolute and does not apply to prosodically heavy object NPs. The resulting picture accords well with the view of RSL word order laid out by Kimmelman (2012) and supports a model of grammar where syntactic computation has access to phonological information (Kremers 2014; Bruening 2019).

Is motor inhibition involved in the processing of sentential negation? An assessment via the Stop-Signal Task

In the last decades, the embodied approach to cognition and language gained momentum in the scientific debate, leading to evidence in different aspects of language processing. However, while the bodily grounding of concrete concepts seems to be relatively not controversial, abstract aspects, like the negation logical operator, are still today one of the main challenges for this research paradigm. In this framework, the present study has a twofold aim: (1) to assess whether mechanisms for motor inhibition underpin the processing of sentential negation, thus, providing evidence for a bodily grounding of this logic operator, (2) to determine whether the Stop-Signal Task, which has been used to investigate motor inhibition, could represent a good tool to explore this issue. Twenty-three participants were recruited in this experiment. Ten hand-action-related sentences, both in affirmative and negative polarity, were presented on a screen. Participants were instructed to respond as quickly and accurately as possible to the direction of the Go Stimulus (an arrow) and to withhold their response when they heard a sound following the arrow. This paradigm allows estimating the Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT), a covert reaction time underlying the inhibitory process. Our results show that the SSRT measured after reading negative sentences are longer than after reading affirmative ones, highlighting the recruitment of inhibitory mechanisms while processing negative sentences. Furthermore, our methodological considerations suggest that the Stop-Signal Task is a good paradigm to assess motor inhibition’s role in the processing of sentence negation.

Two ways to form a portmanteau: Evidence from ellipsis

Bengali negation forms a portmanteau in two cases: with present tense existential copulas and with all perfects. However, ellipsis of the complement of negation treats these two portmanteaux differently. While the negative perfect can be separated by ellipsis into sentential negation and a silenced perfect, the negative present existential cannot be likewise split, even though ellipsis of copulas is generally permitted. This project proposes the existence of two different ways to form portmanteaux and shows that ellipsis deletion is derivationally timed differently with respect to each in order to capture the patterns of elliptical divisibility.

Feature reanalysis and the Latin origin of Romance Negative Concord

This chapter investigates the sequence of changes leading from the Latin system of negation to the various Romance outcomes. While Classical Latin is a Double Negation language, the earliest Romance varieties show a Negative Concord grammar. In the proposed analysis, this seemingly paradoxical development is explained by situating the prerequisites for Negative Concord already at the Late Latin stage. In Late Latin, a featural and structural reanalysis of the negative marker entails the activation of a projection in the clause where sentential negation has to be identified. This, in turn, triggers the grammaticalization of new negatively marked indefinites licensed in the scope of negation. These indefinites establish a syntactic relation first with the Focus Phrase (as negation strengtheners) and subsequently with the Negation Phrase, yielding a Negative Concord system. This study highlights the importance of generative research on the nature and format of syntactic features for our understanding of diachrony.

Frases imperativas e negação em Português Europeu

In languages like Spanish, Italian and European Portuguese, specific morphological verb forms alternate with suppletive verb forms to express imperative. However, they pattern differently with respect to sentential negation: true imperatives ban the occurrence of sentential negation in opposition to suppletive imperatives. This contrast has been ascribed to different causes: differences in the structural configuration of true and suppletive imperatives, distinct selectional properties of the functional projections involved, or scope constraints on the sentence illocutionary force. Focussing European Portuguese, we will set up the structure of imperative sentences, taking into account the evidence provided by sentence negation, the scope of the illocutionary force, the status of Tº and the position of overt subjects

Language Use of Patients With Schizophrenia: An Analysis of Sentential Negation

Since the first descriptions of schizophrenia, language disturbances have been referred to as formal thought disorder (Boer et. al, 2020). Within this context in this study we analyzed sentential negation in the speech of the patients with schizophrenia to find out whether psychopathology and thought disorders of the patients affect the language use. 50 patients with schizophrenia and 50 healthy subjects were included into the study. The results showed negative and affirmative sentences used by the patients were significantly different from the control group. We hypothesized that psychopathology of the patients with schizophrenia plays a central role in language use. At the end of the study patients were concluded to reflect their negative thoughts in thier speech and use more negative sentences.

Parallels between the negative cycle and the rise of interrogative marking in French

In this paper, I discuss a type of construction that is rarely if ever mentioned in connection with diachronic cyclicity: wh-interrogative marking. In particular, I shall compare sentential negation with wh-marking in French and point to interesting commonalities between the prototypical diachronic cycle (negation) and interrogative marking. The pragmatic contrast between question types in Old French is shown to be mirrored in a similar contrast in Modern French, with the previously “strong” est-ce que interrogative now being a weaker one. In addition, I argue that reversal of anaphoric direction is another shared feature in the history of negation and of the est-ce que interrogative.

Exploring negation in Awing

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.

Sentential Negation in English and Izon Languages

This paper is a contrastive study of Sentential Negation in English and Izon languages. Contact language situations have given rise not only to the influences of one language over the other but also to the differences between the structures of the two languages in contact and the likely learning difficulties which an L1 learner of a second language may likely encounter in learning the structure of the L2. Thus, the data for this study were sourced from competent native speakers of the Ogbe-Ijo dialect of the Izon language and a contrastive approach was adopted using the Chomskyan’s Government and Binding theory as a theoretical framework with a view to identifying the structural variations, hierarchy of difficulties and the likely learning problems an Izon learner of English as a second language may encounter at the level of Negation. It discovers that there were obvious parametric variations between the English and Izon languages at the levels of do insertion and the negative particle not among others. It then recommends that conscious efforts should be made by teachers and Izon learners / speakers of English as a second language at the level of realisation of negation in English as a second language.