Relating (Un)acceptability to Interpretation. Experimental Investigations on Negation

Abstract

Although contemporary linguistic studies routinely use unacceptable sentences to determine the boundary of what falls outside the scope of grammar, investigations far more rarely take into consideration the possible interpretations of such sentences, perhaps because these interpretations are commonly prejudged as irrelevant or unreliable across speakers. In this paper we provide the results of two experiments in which participants had to make parallel acceptability and interpretation judgments of sentences presenting various types of negative dependencies in Basque and in two varieties of Spanish (Castilian Spanish and Basque Country Spanish). Our results show that acceptable sentences are uniformly assigned a single negation reading in the two languages. However, while unacceptable sentences consistently convey single negation in Basque, they are interpreted at chance in both varieties of Spanish. These results confirm that judgment data that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable negative utterances can inform us not only about an adult’s grammar of his/her particular language but also about interesting cross-linguistic differences. We conclude that the acceptability and interpretation of (un)grammatical negative sentences can serve linguistic theory construction by helping to disentangle basic assumptions about the nature of various negative dependencies.

English negative concord and double negation: The division of labor between syntax and pragmatics

“…Given that Standard English speakers typically do not use (or at least do not report to using) NC, a broader implication of the findings reported here is that grammars may have latent structures, or structures that can be generated but are not necessarily employed in usage, potentially for non-linguistic reasons such as normative pressure. A related conclusion is drawn in Etxeberria et al (2018), in a comparative study of acceptability and interpretation judgments of negative sentences in Castilian, Basque Country Spanish, and Basque. On the basis of their experimental results, these authors conclude that because "ungrammatical sentences can also be interpreted reliably" (p. 14), they can also serve as an important data source in the construction of linguistic theories.…”

Asymmetries in the Acceptability and Felicity of English Negative Dependencies: Where Negative Concord and Negative Polarity (Do Not) Overlap

“…Many linguists have taken its unacceptability and absence from SE usage to reflect its underlying ungrammaticality 5 . This is at least in part due to the traditional causal link assumed by linguists between acceptability and grammaticality on the one hand, and unacceptability and ungrammaticality on the other (Etxeberria et al, 2018, p. 2). If there exists a direct connection between acceptability and grammaticality, then it follows that SE grammars generate (prescriptively correct) NPI constructions, but they do not generate NC.…”

“…This paper uses experimental means to explore an alternative hypothesis, one which does not assume a direct and causal link between NC unacceptability and ungrammaticality (Lewis and Phillips, 2015; Etxeberria et al, 2018). We acknowledge the social forces shaping NC acceptability, and use measures of meaning in context to contribute toward our understanding of its grammaticality in relation to NPI constructions.…”

Polarity Items in Basque

“…In Spanish, by contrast, sentences with low acceptability ratings are interpreted at chance (between single negation and double negation) in both varieties. Etxeberria et al (2018) show that in Basque double negation readings are not available when two or more i-indefinites co-occur with the sentential negative marker within a single sentence, ( 4), unlike what is claimed in Etxepare (2003:554).…”

“…To our knowledge the claim that Basque inor 'anybody' type items are PIs (from now on i-indefinites) has been addressed in the literature by considering two sorts of phenomena: (i) whether the co-occurrence of i-indefinites and the negative marker ez can give rise to double negation readings, and (ii) whether i-indefinites can occur in fragment answers without a negative marker. The first of these issues was addressed experimentally in Etxeberria et al (2018) where the acceptability and interpretation of transitive sentences containing i-indefinites in subject and in object position both with and without the negative marker was investigated. The results of this study, in which Basque was compared to two varieties of Spanish (namely Castilian Spanish and the Spanish used in the Basque Country), show that Basque participants judge most items with an overt negative marker with high acceptability ratings, and most items without it with low acceptability ratings, and furthermore that in Basque single negation is the preferred interpretation both in sentences with and without an overt negative marker (with two i-indefinites).…”