Abstract
This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation that looks into the acceptability and interpretation judgements that Basque native speakers give to sentences with multiple i-/bat ere indefinites in declarative sentences. It is argued that Basque i-/bat ere indefinites are Polarity Items (PIs) rather than Negative Concord Items (NCIs), as they are consistently associated with an existential reading in unacceptable declarative sentences without an overt negative licensor. That is, Basque i-/bat ere indefinites never give rise to a negative interpretation in the absence of an overt negative marker. It is also argued that Basque PIs differ from NCIs in Strict Negative Concord languages such as Greek in relevant ways, thus reinforcing the conclusion that Basque is not a NC language. This study contributes to a better understanding of the conditions that an indefinite expression must meet to be classified as a PI or as an NCI.
Highlights
In her seminal work on negation in syntax, Laka (1990) contrasted the distribution of negative indefinites in Basque, English and Spanish and postulated a polarity projection ( P) that c-commands IP in Basque and Spanish but is c-commanded by IP in English (1)
Unlicensed i-/bat ere indefinites are consistently and unambiguously interpreted existentially. These results confirm that i-/bat ere indefinites not overtly licensed by a negative marker are interpreted as non-negative in Basque, supporting their characterization as Polarity Items (PIs)
Our results show that i- indefinites in the Pro-Pro condition behave to bat and norbait/zerbait indefinites when it comes to mean acceptability when occurring with an overt negative marker and mean existential reading in the picture selection task when occurring without it, which might be due to the lack of syntactic complexity of the two pronominal indefinites in this critical condition
Summary
In her seminal work on negation in syntax, Laka (1990) contrasted the distribution of negative indefinites in Basque, English and Spanish and postulated a polarity projection ( P) that c-commands IP in Basque and Spanish but is c-commanded by IP in English (1). She addressed the nature of some Spanish negative expressions (e.g., nadie ‘anybody, nobody’) that show a double syntactic behavior: preverbal ones do not require an overt negative marker and behave like a negative quantifier, whereas postverbal ones require it and behave like a Polarity Item (PI), (2).
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