Abstract

In this paper we consider two analyses of NEG raising phenomena: a syntactic approach based on raising NEG, as recently advocated in Collins & Postal 2014, and a semantic/pragmatic approach based on the Excluded Middle Assumption; see Bartsch 1973. We show that neither approach alone is sufficient to account for all the relevant phenomena. Although the syntactic approach is needed to explain the distribution of strict NPIs and Horn clauses, the semantic/pragmatic approach is needed to explain certain inferences where syntactic NEG raising is blocked. EARLY ACCESS

Highlights

  • Various linguists and philosophers long ago noticed a distinctive property of negative constructions in various languages involving a relatively small subset of main predicates taking complement clauses

  • The falsity of (21) strengthens the argument in CP (2014) that semantic/ pragmatic factors cannot be the basis for the strict NPI and Horn clause facts, domains which argue for the reality of syntactic NEG raising

  • B. * I don’t think that Marilyn has seen her mother in ages, because I don’t know Marilyn. These are unacceptable in the framework of CP (2014) because the highlighted strict NPIs signal the presence of syntactic NEG raising while the because continuations signal that the matrix clauses are semantically negative

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Summary

Introduction

Various linguists and philosophers long ago noticed a distinctive property of negative constructions in various languages involving a relatively small subset of main predicates taking complement clauses. There is a syntactic approach, formally initiated in Fillmore 1963 and extensively defended in Collins & Postal 2014; hereafter: CP (2014) Under this conception, (1a), on the reading taken as equivalent to that of (1b), has been analyzed in terms of syntactic raising of a NEG from the embedded clause. Unitary view of NEG scope fixing is, we believe, widely shared (see Crowley 2016 for one recent non-exclusionist proposal), we are aware of no attempt from either conceptual point of view to argue for the correctness of an exclusionary view Such question-begging is theoretically critical since it facilitates incorrect overgeneralization.

Bartsch’s proposal
Remark
Horn clauses
Remarks
Island cases
Equivalences revisited
Conclusion

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