Licensing Double Negation in NC and non-NC languages

Abstract

The paper proposes a syntactic and semantic analysis of Double Negation (DN). It is shown that there are two types of DN. Strong DN is the result of a Focus construction that involves a polar reading triggered by a Verum Focus; Weak DN, on the other hand, arises when the corresponding n-word is marked as a Contrastive Topic and introduces weak (i.e. non exclusive) alternatives. The paper discusses the occurrence of these two kinds of DN in two types of languages, which feature different negative strategies. While Hungarian is a strict NC language with non-negative n-words and an obligatory negative marker, English and German are non-NC languages, with negative n-words that can function on their own. It is shown that both strong DN and weak DN occur in each of these languages. However, the mechanisms that license n-words contributing the DN reading are different, due to the differences in the nature of the n-words and in the discourse-functional behavior of the languages in question. Goal of the paperUntil recently, little real attention has been paid to the phenomenon of double negation. Much of what the literature says amounts to observations. However, it is generally recognized that the phenomenon does exist, and moreover, it coexists with negative concord in some languages (see e.g. Zeijlstra 2004). It has been described in some detail for French (Corblin 1996;Corblin & Tovena 2003) with observations as to the "special" contexts in which it occurs. De Swart is the first to dedicate a whole chapter to the phenomenon (de Swart 2010). She also mentions that double negation needs special contexts. Although her approach gives a reasoned account of the phenomenon, it is set in bidirectional Optimality Theory, a framework in which grammatical differences are modeled as constraint re-ranking, and which is thus incompatible with a minimalist approach.The goal of the paper is to give an account of double negation (henceforth DN) in a minimalist framework, taking as a stance that if the model it proposes is an adequate representation of linguistic knowledge, it should also be able to handle the rather tricky question of double negation for which native speakers have clear intuitions. One of the fundamental claims of a minimalist approach is that syntactic structures are identical crosslinguistically, a claim that leaves much of the burden of variation to the "periphery": "The primary [task] is to show that the apparent richness and diversity of linguistic phenomena is illusory and epiphenomenal, the result of interaction of fixed principles under slightly varying conditions" (Chomsky 1995: 8). Such an approach has been underlying much of the research on negation. It has led to, among other things, a debate about the nature of negative expressions-so-called n-words, following Laka's (1990) terminology. One line of thought proposes that n-words occurring in Negative Concord (henceforth NC) languages are intrinsically negative (cf. Haegeman 1995;Haegeman & Zanuttini 1996;Zanuttini 1997;Mathieu 2001;Corblin & Toven...

Micro-syntactic variation in American English Negative Concord

“…To see how, let us consider the published data in Puskás (2012), in which English is taken to be a non-NC language (Puskás 2012: 641).…”

“…With several notable exceptions, English NC has often been ignored in the theoretical literature, and (Standard) English is frequently referred to as a "DN language" (Puskás 2012;Déprez et al 2015;Espinal and Tubau 2016;a.o.). Nevertheless, like NC patterns found in other languages, English NC displays microvariation both diachronically and synchronically (Iyeiri 2005).…”

Negation and Polarity: Experimental Perspectives

“…More linguistic marking is needed for DN in terms of prosodic and syntactic cues Puskas 2012). Lesser frequency is documented by Huddlestone (2010: 140) who finds 4 % of Double Negation for clauses with multiple n-words in Afrikaans.…”

“…6, 7 6 See, among the antecedents of our work: Corblin (1995 and Vinet (1998) on the interaction between stress and contrastive focus in the interpretation of French n-words; Corblin and Tovena (2003) for French and Italian; Zanuttini (1991, Godard and Marandin (2007) for Italian ;Baltazani's (2006) study on the interaction of intonation and the pragmatic interpretation of negation in Greek; Falaus (2007) for the possibility of licensing DN in Romanian when two n-words co-occur within the same sentence and a special intonation contour applies to one of them; the work by Molnár (1998) and Puskás (2006Puskás ( , 2012 on DN, information structure and intonation in Hungarian; for the possibility of licensing DN in a sequence of negative indefinites in Afrikaans depending on the intonation contour; and for the possibility of licensing a DN interpretation for isolated n-words in Catalan depending on the intonation contour. See also Merchant (2004: note 5), who suggests that a DN reading for full sentences (i.e.…”

“…Corblin 1994a, b, c;Corblin and Derzhanski 1997;Corblin and Tovena 2001;Horn 1991Moscati 2006;Puskas 2012;. This is allegedly the case in so-called Negative Concord languages such as French, Spanish and Italian, where the concord relation would be the default interpretation for multiple negative expressions sharing the same structural clausal scope.…”