Negative Polarity in Turkish: from negation to nonveridicality

Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 2018

This paper investigates a number of issues regarding negative polarity items (NPIs henceforth), the scope of negation and other negative elements in Turkish. First, based on new data, I argue that the distribution of the adverbial NPI sakin 'ever' is not as restricted as it was claimed in previous work (cf. Kelepir 2000, 2001). That’s, its behavior is quite similar to that of other adverbial NPIs such as asla 'never' and katiyyen 'in no way' in the language. Second, in contrast to the some claims made by Kelepir (2000, 2001), I show that neither NPIs nor negation invoke any intervention effects in the environment of Noun Phrases (NPs). Thus I argue that it is not necessary to posit the Immediate Scope Constraint in Turkish. Lastly, I investigate the interaction between the ne... ne... phrase (i.e. neither… nor…) and negation in Turkish. More specifically, a small-scale online corpus research on the use of the ne... ne... phrase along with negation produced re...

ENGLISH LINGUISTICS, 1999

This paper is concerned with the syntax of negative sentences and negative polarity items (NPIs) in English and Japanese and argues for the validity of a feature-checking analysis in the framework of Chomsky (1995). It is demonstrated that the feature-checking analysis based on feature specification on Neg and NPIs can present a unified view of negative sentences and that different distributions of NPIs naturally follow from it. At the same time, it is argued that negative sentences suggest a locality condition supplementary to the Minimal Link Condition in Chomsky (1995), in support of Manzini (1998). This locality condition is incorporated into the analysis as the NEG-Convention.

Selected papers on theoretical and applied linguistics, 2017

The paper addresses negation and Negative Concord in Bulgarian polar questions focusing on the distribution of the polarity items and the way they interact with the interrogative clitic li. Assuming that li functions as both interrogative and focus operator, I will observe a contrast in the licensing of Positive (PPIs) and Negative (NPIs) Polarity items related to their possibility of hosting the clitic. The contrast will be approached from the perspective of the relation between focus movement and the licensing of the NPIs. The paper furthermore addresses recent discussions on polar questions, namely Holmberg (2012) and Ambar (2013).

The received view on the distribution of polarity items is that positive polarity items (PPIs) such as something are found in positive contexts; they are anti-licensed by negative contexts, which license negative polarity items (NPIs) such as anything. PPI some can however be found under the scope of clause-mate negation. Such a paradoxical use has been analyzed by Szabolcsi (2004) as a special case of licensing: two negative polarity licensors are required by the internal constitution of some. Some is however shown to occur under the scope of a single clause-mate negative. Single and dual negative environments are argued to depend on the same determinism. This determinism is shown to be activated propositions in the sense of Dryer (1996). Propositions accessible to the hearer characterize the contexts where some and other PPIs come under the scope of clause-mate negation in English and other languages, as demonstrated by the transferable diagnostics proposed. The reason for this correlation is that activation brings the whole proposition into the focus of negation, which does not interact directly with the PPI to produce infelicitous interpretations. A simple and general pragmatic determinism accounts for the marked character of the sequences, that allows a clear distinction to be maintained between licensed NPIs and anti-licensed PPIs.

A universal property of natural language is that every language is able to express negation, i.e., every language has some device at its disposal to reverse the truth value of the propositional content of a sentence. However, languages may differ to quite a large extent as to how they express this negation. Not only do languages vary with respect to the form of negative elements, but the position of negative elements is also subject to cross-linguistic variation. Moreover, languages also differ in terms of the number of manifestations of negative morphemes: in some languages negation is realized by a single word or morpheme, in other languages by multiple morphemes. The syntax of negation is indissolubly connected to the phenomenon of (negative) polarity. In short, and leaving the formal discussion for later, negative polarity items (NPIs) are items whose distribution is limited to a number of contexts, which in some sense all count as negative. NPIs surface in various kinds of environments and may also vary in terms of the restrictions they impose on their licensing contexts and the type of licensing relation. Therefore, studying NPIs provides more insight not only into the nature of such context-sensitive elements, but also into the syntax of negation itself. Finally, it should be mentioned that the distinction between negative elements and NPIs is not always that clear-cut. In many languages negative indefinites, quite often referred to as n-words (after Laka 1990) appear to be semantically negative in certain constructions, while exhibiting NPIlike behavior in other configurations. The same may also apply to negative markers in some languages. This chapter aims at providing an overview of the most important recent findings and insights gained in the study of the syntax of negation and polarity.

Introduction of 'Negation and Polarity', Special Issue of Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 28:4. This introduction addresses some key issues and questions in the study of negation and polarity. Focussing on negative polarity and negative indefinites, it summarizes research trends and results. Special attention is paid to the issues of synchronic variation and diachronic change in the realm of negative polarity items, which figure prominently in the articles and commentaries contained in this special issue.

Journal of Semantics, 2013

We discuss four experiments in which we investigated the acceptability of a large set of Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) in semantically and syntactically different environments. The first two experiments distinguish two subsets of NPIs whose behavior patterns with semantic definitions of weak and strong NPIs: One set (strong NPIs) is less acceptable in the local environment of non-anti-additive downward entailing operators than the other set (weak NPIs), but they are all equally acceptable in anti-additive environments. In the next two experiments we use these two sets of NPIs to investigate the impact of Neg-Raising environments with and without intervening quantifiers on their acceptability. Weak NPIs turn out to be more acceptable than strong NPIs, and intervening quantifiers lead to an equal reduction in acceptability for both sets, without making the occurrence of NPIs in these environments categorically unacceptable. We discuss the relevance of these theoretically unexpected results for an adequate analysis of NPIs in the grammatical system.

2007

Despite the large literature that has been addressing Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) (see Baker (1970), Ladusaw (1980), Linebarger (1980), van der Wouden (1997) a.o.), they still remain an important topic for linguistic research. This is motivated, on the one hand, by the productivity of the phenomenon in natural language, and, on the other hand, to the recent computational developments in linguistics, which look for ways to automatically identify NPIs in large electronic linguistic corpora (see Hoeksema 2002, Sailer and Trawinski 2006). In a negative concord language like Romanian, NPIs are in competition with n-words, the typical concord items usually appearing with sentential negation. This paper proposes an investigation of the conditions under which the NPI vreun appears in Romanian negative contexts. It argues for a distinction between two semantic roles that negation plays – ‘predicate negation’ and ‘denial’ of which the latter is responsible for licensing vreun.

1 Sohng, Hong-Ki. 2014. On negative polarity items and free choice items in English with special reference to inherently negative predicate constructions. Linguistic Research 31(1), 135-163. This paper explores the uses of any that has a free choice interpretation in generic contexts and an existential interpretation in polarity contexts, with special focus on the uses of any in inherently negative predicate constructions. Following the approaches by Giannakidou (2001:673) and Montague (1969), I argue that inherently negative predicates are verbs with negation inherent in them, and that they are nonveridical operators. Considering any as a unitary lexical item, I have put forth the Licensing Conditions on Any, modifying Giannakidou's Condition and incorporating Chung's (2010) Free Choice Condition. I have shown that the uses of any in inherently negative predicate construction as well as the other uses of any in this paper can be adequately handled via the Licensing Conditions proposed. I have shown that the c-command requirement of the Licensing Conditions follows from the structural relationship between a nonveridical operator and any, and that the Condition on free choice of the Licensing Conditions is derived from the lexical semantics of any. (Korea Aerospace University)

Languages may vary greatly in the way they express negation. Most languages exploit specifically designated negative markers, such as English not. Many languages may also use negative indefinites (such as English nobody or nothing) to express negation. The behavior of these negative indefinites is subject to crosslinguistic variation: In some languages, negative markers and negative indefinites cannot express a single semantic negation (nobody didn't come means that everybody came and not that nobody came), but in other languages they can. Languages with these properties, such as Italian, are called Negative Concord languages. In this review, I discuss the difference between negative indefinites in languages that exhibit Negative Concord and languages that do not. I also compare the behaviors of negative indefinites in languages that exhibit Negative Concord and so-called Negative Polarity Items. This article provides an accurate overview of recent developments in the study of negation and negative dependencies.