Polarity Sensitive Items Research Articles

Establishing the limits between Polarity Sensitivity, Negative Polarity and Negative Concord

Abstract In this paper, by focussing on the behaviour of polarity elements from a variety of languages from different language families (namely, Basque, Hindi, English, Romanian, Spanish, Greek, Czech, and Russian) we investigate the relationship between Polarity Sensitive Items (PSIs) and Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) on the one hand, and between PSIs and Negative Concord items (NCIs) on the other. Based on a number of contrasts that we find, we argue that: (i) if a language has PSIs it does not necessarily have NCIs; (ii) PSIs need to be distinguished from NPIs; (iii) NCIs emerge as a subtype of PSIs, not of NPIs; and (iv) all languages that show Negative Concord (NC) also have Polarity Sensitivity (PS), but the opposite does not hold. We thus postulate that PS is a general phenomenon across languages with Negative Polarity (NPol) and NC as possible subtypes of PS but independent among them, and argue against the standard hypothesis that NC is a special subtype of NPol.

Processing polarity sensitivity in L2 Spanish

Recent studies in the second language acquisition of negation have focused on polarity items and their licensing contexts. Although several studies show a correlation between higher degrees of second language (L2) proficiency and the acquisition of the target L2 structures, less attention has been given to the relation between the acquisition of polarity sensitivity and different types of lexical polarity items. This study addresses this gap in the literature by measuring the processing of polarity-sensitive items under the scope of negation in L2 Spanish. Our findings indicate that learners’ acquisition of polarity sensitivity differs across different types of lexical polarity items.

Turning negative: micro-steps from negative polarity item to negative-word

This paper revisits the debate as to whether n-words such as English nobody, French personne and Italian nessuno are indefinites or intrinsically negative. Intrinsic negative value is diagnozed by use in the three contexts of fragment answers, double negation and constituent negation. Are these criterial contexts involved in a predictable way through the development of future n-words? The question is answered by a detailed study of Polarity Sensitive Items (PSI) that are potentially ambiguous between n-word and negative polarity item (NPI) in four different languages (Finnish, French, American English and Italian). An ordered relation is found from negative fragment answers, that can be evoked by strong NPIs, to double negation and constituent negation, that are communicated by intrinsically negative n-words. Having identified micro-steps into n-word status, the paper demonstrates that n-words are not mere indefinites, and must have an intrinsic negative value.

Dynamic presupposition of want and polarity sensitivity

In this paper, I argue that content of some presuppositions is determined dynamically. In particular, it is shown that the presupposition of want in control constructions depends on the interpretation of an action in the complement clause. Different presuppositional content of sentences with want is argued for using new and known observations about licensing of Polarity Sensitive Items. I propose to capture the dynamic nature of the presupposition of want using the AGM paradigm for belief revision (Alchourrán, Gärdenfors & Makinson 1985). Finally, I show that sensitivity to the interpretation of an action as intentional versus accidental is not specific to polarity system, but can be found across different domains of the grammar in many unrelated languages.

The insignificance reading of Shenme revisited

The insignificance reading of the wh-phrase shenme ‘what’ does not fit into the general analysis of Chinese wh-indefinites as polarity sensitive items and has been elusive to Chinese linguists. In this paper, we identify the degree reading of shenme as the source of its insignificance reading. Specifically, it is shown that the so-called insignificance reading is part of a more general phenomenon of negative strengthening that is not peculiar to shenme, but instead is common to all gradable degree expressions. Diachronic evidence in Chinese is given to support the existence of a degree-reading shenme, apart from the familiar entity-reading shenme. The proposed analysis is extendable to the manner-denoting zenme(yang) ‘how’ in Chinese and makes correct predictions on the availability of an insignificance reading for zenme(yang).

Логическая эквивалентность местоимений на ни- и местоимений на -нибудь: опыт анализа русских номинализаций

This paper deals with the two sets of polarity sensitive items in Russian: ni- and -nibud’ pronouns. Non-specific indefinite -nibud’ pronouns (NSIs) are possible only in propositions that do not ensure truth, i.e. non-veridical contexts. Although clause-mate negation creates such a context, NSIs are incompatible with it and are substituted by negative ni- pronouns that are licensed only by negative concord. The incompatibility of NSIs with negation can be resolved in subjunctive sentences and embedded purpose čtoby-clauses, however, the licensing conditions in these cases are not defined. In this paper I introduce another context which licenses both types of pronouns, namely, negated process nominalizations. I determine the licensing conditions for the two types of pronouns in nominalization, and test previous approaches against the new data. In particular, I argue that -nibud’ pronouns are licensed in the scope of the nonveridical operator that is introduced in the main clause.

Is it syntactic or pragmatic?

Abstract The main aim of this study is to reconsider Tomioka’s (2007) pragmatic account of the lf-intervention effects (IE), and to claim that Polarity Sensitive Items (psis) are genuine syntactic interveners. I will examine the parallelism among psis in IE configurations, which is distinct from other interveners, and further claim that the study of IE should not be monolithic, but hybrid: Syntactic lf-interveners (psis), blocking scopal interactions/Pragmatic interveners, causing illegal information structures. The predictions will be borne out that psis actually cause IE in other contexts as well, which pragmatic accounts cannot explain (Funakoshi & Takahashi 2014). Such hybrid perspectives bring back enormous findings on IE (e.g. lf wh-movement) to the field of syntax, without relegating all of them to pragmatics.

Negative intensification in the spoken language of British adults and teenagers: A corpus-based study<sup>1</sup>

Intensification, a general device used by speakers to convey their message more clearly and to strengthen their position to it (Bolinger 1972), has been discussed widely in the literature. However, the specific use of intensification on negatives (i.e. it didn’t do any harm at all, I hadn’t the faintest idea who he was ) has received much less attention. The aim of this paper is to identify and explore the resources used by British adults and teenagers in the intensification of negative constructions. A second focus of interest will be the extent to which differences exist here in the language of adults and teenagers, given that the latter are, broadly speaking, more prone to use intensification. Findings indicate that the strengthening of negatives in English can be achieved in different ways: a) by means of a number of non-assertive and negative polarity-oriented items, such as in the slightest , in the least , at all , even; b) the repetition of the adverb never or the combination never ever ; c) cases of multiple negation or negative concord intended to heighten a negative meaning); d) negative polarity collocations and idiomatic expressions; and e) adverbs such as definitely , absolutely, certainly plus a negative ( not / no or nothing ). Teenagers tend to intensify negatives more than adults, although these differences are not so clearly marked as expected, and while the former prefer the use of swear words and idiomatic or semi-idiomatic expressions together with locutions such as no way , the latter opt more often for negatively oriented polarity sensitive items.

Fragment answers and double negation in strict negative concord languages

This paper revisits the phenomenon of negative concord (NC) as an instance of polarity sensitivity. We shed light on a new set of data regarding n-words as fragment answers to negative questions and show that we find unexpected double negation (DN) readings for fragment n-words in view of their behavior in non-elliptical constructions. To account for this pattern, we offer an updated version of the hypothesis that n-words are strong NPIs, making use of an alternative and exhaustification approach. We argue that the difference between n-words and other NPIs should be seen as the result of two parameters: (i) whether reconstruction of the polarity item is allowed, and (ii) whether the polarity item has the ability to license a covert negation operator. The result is an explanatory account of NC and DN readings in both non-elliptical and elliptical environments, which allows for an easier integration of n-words in the broader typology of polarity sensitive items.

Discourse level variable licensing.Par exemplein Quebec French

AbstractThis paper reports the existence of a type of lexical item that has gone unnoticed in the previous literature. We start from the observation that the phrasepar exemplein Quebec French has two possible meanings: an illustrative one and a contrastive one. We argue that contrastivepar exempleadjoins to constituents that are similar to polarity sensitive items and thus marks sensitivity of the respective XP to a certain property of the environment. The syntactic distribution of the XP to which contrastivepar exempleadjoins to, although similar to that of polarity sensitive items, actually differs from the latter in important respects. Just like polarity sensitive items, the [XPpar exemple] constituent must be in the scope of an operator. However, unlike polarity sensitive items, which are licensed by operators that are defined at sentence level, the licensor of contrastive [XPpar exemple] is a discourse level connector (i.e. a connector that relates the sentence that containspar exemplewith a previous, independently expressed sentence). This implies that discourse connectors do more than simply relate two propositions: given that they also licence variables, they also have operator properties.

Aspectual Properties and Polarity-Sensitivity of Copulas pen1 and khʉʉ1 in Thai

‘Pen1’ and ‘khʉʉ1’ in Thai have traditionally been regarded as copular verbs comparable to ‘be’ in English. Appearing in a copulative sentence, the two Thai copula verbs, however, differ in polarity-sensitivity. The present study demonstrates that the difference in polarity-sensitivity of the two Thai copulas cannot be accounted for within the theory of polarity-sensitive items previously proposed. Investigating the aspectual properties of the two Thai copulas in comparison with those of English copula, this study suggests that an explanation for the difference in polarity-sensitivity of the two Thai copulas might involve their aspectual properties. Contributing to the study of aspect and polarity-sensitivity, the present study reveals differences between Thai and English copulas and provides additional support for the idea that the macro-category of so-called copular verbs is too vague to describe cross-linguistic variation.

Anyone for non-scalarity?

This article examines the status of scalarity in the analysis of the meaning of the English determinerany. The latter's position as a prime exemplar of the category of polarity-sensitive items has led it to be generally assumed to have scalar meaning. Scalar effects are, however, absent from a number of common uses of this word. This suggests thatanydoes not involve scales as part of its core meaning, but produces them as a derived interpretative property. The role of three factors in the derivation of the expressive effect of scalarity is explored: grammatical number, stress and the presence of gradable concepts in the NP. The general conclusions point to the importance of developing a causal semantic analysis in which the contributions of each of the various meaningful components of an utterance to the overall message expressed are carefully distinguished.

Broaden Your Views: Implicatures of Domain Widening and the “Logicality” of Language

This article presents a unified theory of polarity-sensitive items (PSIs) based on the notion of domain widening. PSIs include negative polarity items (like Italian mai ‘ever’), universal free choice items (like Italian qualunque ‘any/whatever’), and existential free choice items (like Italian uno qualunque ‘a whatever’). The proposal is based on a ‘‘recursive,’’ grammatically driven approach to scalar implicatures that breaks with the traditional view that scalar implicatures arise via post- grammatical pragmatic processes. The main claim is that scalar items optionally activate scalar alternatives that, when activated, are then recursively factored into meaning via an alternative sensitive operator similar to only. PSIs obligatorily activate domain alternatives that are factored into meaning in much the same way.

Approach to polarity sensitivity and negative concord by lexical underspecification

This paper presents a dynamic semantic approach to the licensing of Polarity Sensitive Items (PSIs) and n-words of Negative Concord. We propose that PSIs are unified by the semantic scale property, which is responsible for their sensitivity to the context; we develop a semantic licensing analysis based on Fauconnier's (1975) scales and Ladusaw's (1979) notion of entailment. The first part of the paper concludes with a formalization of semantic licensing in the sense of Ladusaw (1979) within HPSG (see, e.g., Pollard & Sag (1994)) which allows for a uniform treatment of the licensing of PSIs and n-words of Negative Concord and accounts for the disambiguating nature of PSIs in scopally ambiguous sentences.
 The second part of the paper is concerned with the limitations of semantic licensing, which, we claim, needs to be sensitive to the context. We present the discussions of, e.g., Heim (1984) and Israel (1996) with respect to the importance of the context in particular licensing constellations, and then turn to linearity constraints on licensing. We present data from German which may not be accounted for by linearity constraints and sketch an analysis for this data which supports the necessity of context-sensitive semantic licensing.

The Syntax and Semantics of Unselected Embedded Questions

The selection of clausal complement type by embedding predicates constitutes a privileged domain for the assessment of interface issues between different modules of the grammar. This article addresses the selectional problem posed by embedded if-questions (of semantic type (t, t) appearing as arguments of noninterrogative predicates like 'admit' or 'say' (which are assumed to select a that-clause of type t). We show that such UNSELECTED EMBEDDED QUESTIONS (UEQs) are semantically sensitive to the same set of elements as POLARITY SENSITIVE ITEMS, and this sensitivity constrains their distribution and interpretation. The proposal is that UEQs are headed by a semantically sensitive determiner Δ, which is covert in English (a counterpart of either) but overt in Basque. After raising, the UEQ leaves a variable of type t, thus solving the selectional problem. The interplay between s-selection, c-selection and lexical semantic specifications is argued to account for a number of other puzzles in clausal complementation.

The Semantics of Scandinavian Free Choice Items

I present an analysis of Free Choice Items (FCIs), based on Scandinavian, where FCIs are complex and distinct from polarity sensitive items. Scandinavian FCIs are argued to have two components. One is a universal quantifying into modal contexts. The other is an operator mapping a type (s,t) expression onto itself, adjoining to the closest type t or (s,t) expression. Thus invoking Intensional Functional Application, this operator requires the presence of a modal in the scope of the universal quantifier. Facts concerning ‘essential connections’ and ‘existential import’ are accounted for by assuming that the FC determiner has the option of acting like a quantifier.