Licensing Of Negative Polarity Items Research Articles

Linguistics in the Netherlands 1996

1. Preface (by Cremers, Crit) 2. List of Contributors 3. Constructions of inalienable possession: The role of inflectional morphology (by Baauw, Sergio) 4. Associative DPs (by Besten, Hans den) 5. On Heads and the Linear Correspondence Axiom (by Broekhuis, Hans) 6. Inalienable possession in locational constructions: An apparent problem (by Broekhuis, Hans) 7. The spread of the reflexive adjunct middle in the Limburg dialects: 1885-1994 (by Cornips, Leonie M.E.A.) 8. Ternary rhythm in Sentani (by Elenbaas, Nine) 9. The history of thought about language and thought (by Elffers-van Ketel, Els) 10. A dynamic binding approach to intervention effects on negative polarity item licensing (by Honcoop, Martin) 11. How greedy is the French imperative? (by Hulk, Aafke) 12. Reduplication in Leti (by Hulst, Harry van der) 13. Agreement in Quechua: Evidence against Distributed Morphology (by Kerke, Simon van de) 14. Boundary tones and the semantics of the Dutch final particles he, hoor, zeg and joh (by Kirsner, Robert S.) 15. Metrical complexity (by Kooij, Jan G.) 16. Lexical stress and spoken word recognition: Dutch vs. English (by Leyden, Klaske van) 17. On the rise and fall of Spanish diphthongs (by Mauder, Elisabeth) 18. Constraint interaction in binding and the feature specification of anaphoric forms (by Menuzzi, Sergio) 19. Dutch orthography: A near-optimal phonological transcription? (by Nunn, Anneke) 20. The nature of quantification of high-degree: 'very', 'many', and the exclamative (by Postma, Gertjan) 21. Free indirect discourse in newspaper reports (by Redeker, Gisela) 22. Cohesion analysis and information flow: The case of 'Because' versus 'because' (by Renkema, Jan) 23. Emphasis spread in two dialects of Palestinian (by Vijver, Ruben van de) 24. Object drop in Dutch imperatives (by Visser, Janneke)

Licensing of Negative Polarity Items in Moroccan Arabic

This paper deals with the syntactic constraints on the licensing of the negative polarity item (NPI) hetta + NP ‘any NP‘ in Moroccan Arabic. It explores various asymmetries that arise in the context of the interaction between NPIs and the licensing negative head. These asymmetries raise various important issues that go to the heart of current syntactic debates concerning the appropriate syntactic configurations where certain syntactic relations must obtain. It is shown that the NPI hetta + NP ‘any NP‘ must be either c-commanded by or in overt Spec-head relation with the negative head ma ‘not‘ within the same clause. We explore hypotheses that dispense with this disjunction, such as overt M-command or Spec-head agreement plus LF movement. Finally, we show, on the basis of various arguments from reconstruction and locality, that such a reduction is not empirically viable.

A dynamic binding approach to intervention effects on negative polarity item licensing

A dynamic binding approach to intervention effects on negative polarity item licensing

Negative polarity: A semantico-syntactic approach

Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) e.g. any, are licensed in negative sentences, questions, antecedents of conditionals, complements of adversative predicates, etc. On the other hand, Positive Polarity Items (PPIs), e.g. some, cannot appear in the scope of clausemate negation, but are licit elsewhere. I propose the following two (syntactic) principles and a (semantic) filter to account for the distribution of NPIs and PPIs: (1) NPIs are subject to Principle A of the Binding Theory. (2) PPIs are subject to Principle B of the Binding Theory. (3) UEFilter: *Polarity operator in an Upward-Entailing (UE) clause. (A potential binder for polarity items in either negation, or an empty polarity operator licensed in the Comp of non-UE clauses.) The binding principles (1) and (2) (see Progovac 1988, 1991) capture the following general facts: (4) NPIs (as anaphors) need a licenser. (5) The licenser for NPIs has to be local. (In languages with long-distance NPI licensing, such as English, NPIs raise at LF in order to be bound locally.) (6) PPIs (as pronominals) need no licenser. (7) PPIs cannot be bound by a local licenser. The role of the semantic filter (3) is to predict licensing of NPIs in exactly those environments in which they occur. An UE clause allows inferences from subsets to supersets, as in: (8) Mary ate kale. =) Mary ate a green vegetable. The switch to Upward Entailment can accommodate two problematic cases for Downward Entailment (DE) (cf. Ladusaw 1980, 1982, 1983): yes/no questions and on/y. Although neither DE nor UE, they license NPIs. While Ladusaw assumes that DE licenses NPIs directly, it is claimed here that a polarity operator is licensed in the Comp of a non-UE clause, and that the operator in turn licenses NPIs. This assumption can account naturally for a set of otherwise puzzling facts: (i) that non-negative

LF conditions on negative polarity licensing

We argue that conditions on negative polarity licensing are parametrized. First we show that in a language like Hindi, a negative polarity item (NPI) can be licensed even if it is hierarchically superior to negation (an NPI licenser) at s-structure. Independent evidence is provided to show that sentence negation raises to adjoin to IP at LF in Hindi. We suggest that this provides a c-commanding licenser to license the NPI in Hindi at LF. On the basis of this, we conclude that the commonly assumed s-structure requirement on NPI licensing is not universal. Next we demonstrate that c-command is a necessary but not a sufficient condition on NPI licensing. On the basis of some evidence from both Hindi and English, we suggest that the relevant licensing condition involves government. Furthermore the application of this condition is parametrized in that it applies only at LF in Hindi while it must hold at both s-structure as well as at LF in English.