Analyses and history of English sentential negation

2017

This very rich and comprehensive monograph presents a study of the expression of negation in a large array of languages, mostly but not exclusively from the Indo-European family. Henriëtte de Swart's aim is to provide an analysis of the cross-linguistic variation found with respect to negation, using a model based on Optimality Theory (OT). The choice of this model is motivated by its applicability to the syntax-semantics interface, that is, it is said to offer a unified perspective on both the syntactic and semantic contributions of negation, or the speaker (production) and hearer (interpretation) contributions in negative forms/meanings. As such, the book embarks on a clearly innovative enterprise, which encourages the reader to view the strikingly diverse phenomena involved in negation from a different perspective. Wide-scope OT accounts are-to my knowledge-extremely scarce ; and although recent contributions to the study of negation, both from a syntactic and from a semantic point of view, have added to our understanding of the phenomenon, few researchers have attempted to tackle the complex issue of the syntax-semantics interface of negation, especially when working within a large-scale typological investigation. De Swart's book is divided into six chapters and a conclusion. The first two chapters provide the empirical and formal background. Chapter 1, ' Negation in a cross-linguistic perspective ', presents an overview of the central issues of negation. It provides an in-depth discussion of typological and diachronic variation in sentential negation. It also introduces the muchdebated question of the nature of negative expressions. In the existing literature, negative expressions have been assigned various interpretations, having been analysed as negative quantifiers, indefinites in the scope of negation, or even as ambiguous between the two readings (see the references in the book). De Swart argues that 'n-words ' (Laka 1990

2004

1999

Journal of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, Vol. 2, Issue 4 , 2020

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.

The Oxford Handbook of Negation, ed. by V. Déprez & M.T. Espinal , 2020

PRE-PRINT DRAFT https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198830528.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780198830528-e-4 This chapter is dedicated to the morpho-syntactic properties of markers of sentential negation, and to the relation between such properties and other aspects of the syntax of negation. It reviews the results of cross-linguistic research and describes the different forms of negative markers (affixes, particles, auxiliary verbs, complementizers). It also discusses a number of correlations between the form of the sentential negative marker and more general structural aspects (doubling, pre- vs. postverbal negation, presence of Negative Concord).

Journal of Pragmatics, 1991

Reviewed by Alexis Kalokerinos* Laurence Horn's book is a major contribution to the fields of semantics and pragmatics. Not only does the author thoroughly cover negation from the viewpoint of these fields but he also treats morphology and syntax and offers insights into psychology, logic and philosophy. The title can be considered justified by the guided tour through time that Horn offers the reader. Insights and theories from Aristotle on are concisely reviewed and illustrated with comprehensive quotations. This proves to be very instructive: "Those who do not learn from the history of ideas are condemned to relive it" (p. 5), as appears to have happened all too often in the case of reflection on negation in natural language. But this is not the whole point. Through his critical review we gain a new, original approach to the topic. The author proposes a doublelevel framework which can be used to study the complex linguistic phenomena involving negation. On the semantic level, by remodeling and enriching the Aristotelian square of opposition, Horn puts forward a modified model of Term Logic. On the pragmatic level he reformulates Grice's conversational principles into two interactive principles governing both use and change in language. These are far-reaching hypotheses, whose implications go beyond the already very large domain of negation.

Functional Heads, 2012

In this article we focus our attention on sentential negations, both clitic and adverbial. These are associated with the functional category Neg by Pollock (1989) and further articulated in several Neg positions as part of the adverbial hierarchy by Zanuttini (1997), Cinque (1999). Based on data from Romance varieties, we argue that while the interpretive component of grammar includes a sentential operator negation (with the properties of the logical negation), neither clitic nor adverbial negations instantiate it. Rather both clitic and adverbial negations are negative polarity arguments, implying the negative operator in whose scope they are licenced. In turn, negative polarity properties are not encoded by a specialized functional category, but have exactly the same status as other properties represented in lexical entries as pertaining to their interpretation at the LF interface, including those imputed to lexical categories: animacy, numerability, etc. 'He didn't want to abandon his sword' Northern Italian dialects provide evidence in favor of a non purely etymological connection between negation and partitive assignment to the internal argument of the verb. Thus in (3) the negation triggers the partitive even in the presence of a definite interpretation. This type of data recalls the phenomenon described by Pesetsky (1982) for Russian, whereby the accusative object in nonnegative contexts can alternate with a partitive object in negative ones. (3) (a mmarju) tSamum-ru/na mija Trecate (Piedmont) the Mario we.call-him/of.him not