There is no number effect in the licensing of negative polarity items: a reply to Guerzoni and Sharvit

Hoeksema, Jacob

doi:10.1007/s10988-008-9041-2

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…*Both students should report it to the police. Hoeksema (2008) holds a similar position, observing that the existence presupposition-present in examples like (5)-is somehow lifted in (6). (6) The students know how hard the theorem is.…”

Section: Existence Presuppositionsmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Finally, we turn to the compatibility of Hoeksema's (2008) observations about licensing singular definite descriptions with the theories of licensing we have discussed. Recall that Hoeksema produces examples of singular definite generics that appear to successfully license NPIs.…”

Section: Mass and Singular Genericsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…He proposes that NPIs are not licensed in DE environments that are also UE. This perspective has been questioned by Hoeksema (2008). Hoeksema presents data from corpora to corroborate his view that NPI licensing in definite descriptions is independent of number distinctions.…”

Section: Negation and Negative Polaritymentioning

confidence: 97%

“…As noted above, Giannakidou (2002), Hoeksema (2008) suggests that it is the presence or absence of the existence presupposition that determines whether licensing occurs. This is compatible with DE, Veridicality and other approaches to NPIs.…”

Section: Existence Presuppositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To test for the effect of genericity, the difference between licensing in simple present (typically generic) and present progressive sentences (typically episodic) is tested. The reason to test generics is Hoeksema's (2008) observation about the facilitating role of genericity.…”

Section: Experiments Two: Plurality and Genericitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Negation and Polarity: Experimental Perspectives

Larrivée¹,

李²

2016

Language, Cognition, and Mind

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Section: Existence Presuppositionsmentioning

confidence: 79%

Section: Mass and Singular Genericsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Negation and Negative Polaritymentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Existence Presuppositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experiments Two: Plurality and Genericitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Negation and Polarity: Experimental Perspectives

Larrivée¹,

李²

2016

Language, Cognition, and Mind

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Negative Polarity

Homer¹

2020

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics

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Negative polarity items (NPIs), for example the indefinites any , kanenas (in Greek), quoi que ce soit (in French), minimizers (e.g., lift a finger ), the adverb yet , and so forth have a limited distribution; they appear to stand in a licensing relationship to other expressions, such as negation, in the same sentence. This chapter offers an overview of some of the empirical challenges and theoretical issues raised by NPIs. It retraces a line of research that started out as an investigation of the right “licensing condition(s)” of NPIs: it sought to characterize licensing operators and used some semantic property (affectivity, downward‐entailingness and variants thereof, or non‐veridicality) to do so. It gradually shifted to exploring the very sources of polarity sensitivity: current theories no longer view NPIs as being in “need” of licensing, and instead hold that their contribution to meaning leads to semantic or pragmatic deviance in certain environments, from which they are thus barred. We first present the so‐called Fauconnier–Ladusaw approach to NPI‐licensing, and its licensing condition based on the notion of downward‐entailingness. This condition proves to be both too strong and too weak: it is too strong because NPIs can be licensed in the absence of a downward‐entailing operator, and it is too weak, in view of intervention effects caused by certain scope‐taking elements. We explore two ways of weakening the original condition: replacing downward‐entailingness with another semantic property, non‐veridicality; and Strawson downward‐entailingness. The upshot of this discussion is that NPIs are not licensed by operators , but rather need to fit into certain environments . Finally, we show how the restrictions on the distribution of NPIs (specifically indefinites) can be explained by the interaction between certain features of the meaning of NPIs and semantic properties of their environment.

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Another Look at NPIs in Definite Descriptions: An Experimental Approach

Gajewski

2015

Language, Cognition, and Mind

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There is no number effect in the licensing of negative polarity items: a reply to Guerzoni and Sharvit

Cited by 6 publications

References 12 publications

Negation and Polarity: Experimental Perspectives

Negation and Polarity: Experimental Perspectives

Negative Polarity

Another Look at NPIs in Definite Descriptions: An Experimental Approach

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