Irony as a Test of the Presupposition-Denial Account: An ERP Study

According to the Presupposition-Denial Account, complement set reference arises when focus is on the shortfall between the amount conveyed by a natural language quantifier and a larger, expected amount. Negative quantifiers imply a shortfall, through the denial of a presupposition, whereas positive quantifiers do not. An exception may be provided by irony. One function of irony is to highlight, through indirect negation, the shortfall between what is expected/desired, and what is observed. Thus, a positive quantifier used ironically should also lead to a shortfall and license complement set reference. Using ERPs, we examined whether reference to the complement set is more felicitous following a positive quantifier used ironically than one used non-ironically. ERPs during reading showed a smaller N400 for complement set reference following an ironic compared to a non-ironic context. The shortfall generated thorough irony is sufficient to allow focus on the complement set, supporting the Presupposition-Denial Account.

An Analysis of Negation in English

This paper offers an overview of the different constructions used to express negation in English. Based on previous research in the literature, several negation types have been identified. It has been shown that certain negative affixes such as dis-, un-, anti-, -less, etc. can be attached to the base word and negate it without affecting the remainder of the sentence. The second form of negation is the standard negation, where English adds the particle not (or its contracted form n’t) to the primary verb or to the auxiliary. Negative imperatives are made of do not / don’t + infinitive, while only not is used before infinitives and –ing forms to express negation. It has also been noted that there are several instances in English where negative quantifiers and indefinite pronouns can mark a clause negative. And, one of the major findings at this level is that the replacement of the not-negation (not…anybody, not….anyone) by no-negation constructions (nobody, no one) is often possible. However, the use of no-negation form at the beginning of the clause is more grammatically accepted due to the principle of negative attraction. The study finally shows that subject-auxiliary inversion in negative sentences can be considered optional sometimes.

Empirical generalizations

This chapter shows that, across languages, indefinites show a tendency to become increasingly restricted to ever-stronger negative polarity contexts, eventually becoming restricted to the scope of negation and beginning to enter negative-concord relations. It is shown that developments affecting indefinites can be grouped into two types of development: a quantifier cycle and a free-choice cycle. In the former, indefinites gradually change from (more) positive to (more) negative, in the latter, original free-choice indefinites become NPI-indefinites. It is also shown that negative quantifiers do not typically arise through either development, but through univerbation with a former negative particle. Apparently countercyclic developments can be observed as well. The chapter concludes with an overview of the typology of negative concord, and the diachronic connections between the types of negative concord.

Minimizers and Maximizers as Different Types of Polarity Items

This chapter examines the properties of minimizers and maximizers (i.e. minimal and maximal extent- or quantity-denoting expressions) in English, Catalan, and Spanish. Special emphasis is put on (i) establishing which type of polarity item these expressions align with, and (ii) identifying connections between them and other elements of the polarity landscape such as negative quantifiers and Negative Concord Items. It is shown that different minimizers and maximizers pattern with Affective Polarity Items, Negative Polarity Items, or Positive Polarity Items in the three studied languages, and that English minimizers behave similarly to negative quantifiers when negation is adjacent to them, while in Catalan and Spanish they behave like Negative Concord Items when headed by the particle ni ‘not even’. Vulgar (taboo word) minimizers, which have been argued to carry an incorporated zero numeral in the literature, are claimed to be lexically ambiguous between zero-incorporated structures and Affective Polarity Items.

Negative Quantifiers

This chapter discusses two puzzling phenomena in the domain of negative quantifiers: the so-called nall-problem and the existence of split-scope readings triggered by negative indefinites. The nall-problem concerns the fact that no language in the world lexicalizes negated universal quantifiers (with the meaning ‘not every’) and other negated high-scale elements. Negative Indefinites in languages such as Dutch and German may give rise to so-called split scope readings. Sentences like German Du must keine Krawatte anziehen (‘you must wear no tie’) have a reading where the modal takes scope in between the negation and the indefinite. That suggests that prima facie negative indefinites are not negative quantifiers in a straightforward sense. This chapter briefly discusses and evaluates the main analyses that have been put forward to account for these puzzles.

The asymmetric behavior of English negative quantifiers in negative sentences

In this paper, the unexpected behavior of object negative quantifiers in some diagnostic tests of sentential negation is accounted for within a Minimalist framework assuming that: (i) negative quantifiers decompose into negation and an existential quantifier; (ii) negative quantifiers are multidominant phrase markers, as Parallel Merge allows the verb to c-select their existential part but not their negative part, thus giving negation remerge flexibility; (iii) tag questions involve or-coordination of TPs, and neither/so clauses involve and-coordination of TPs; (iv) two positions for sentential negation are available in English, one below TP (PolP2), and one above TP (PolP1). Activation of either PolP1 or PolP2 in the absence of other scope-taking operators corresponds to two distinct grammars. If PolP1 is active, the negative part of an object negative quantifier remerges in its Specifier valuing the [upol: ] feature of Pol1 as negative ([upol:neg]) while skipping the TP-domain. As no negative formal feature is present in the TP, a negative question tag is required, as well as so-coordination, too-licensing and Yes, I guess so ‘expression of agreement’. Conversely, if PolP2 is active, the negative part of the object negative quantifier remerges in the TP-domain (in Spec, PolP2), thus requiring a positive question tag, neither-coordination, either-licensing, and No, I guess not.

Structural explanations in syntactic variation: The evolution of English negative and polarity indefinites

It is well documented that the study of differences in grammaticality contrasts across the world's languages has implications for the synchronic study of preferential/frequency contrasts within a single language. Our paper extends this observation, arguing that the cross-linguistic study of both grammaticality and frequency contrasts can be crucial to the proper characterization of patterns of diachronic change. As an illustration of this proposal, we investigate patterns of synchronic and diachronic variation in the use of postverbal negative quantifiers (e.g., nothing, nobody, no book, etc., as in, I know nothing) versus negative polarity items under negation (e.g., not … anything, not … anybody, not … any book, etc., as in, I don't know anything) in English. We show how a detailed comparison with similar patterns found elsewhere in closely related languages can give us a better understanding of which linguistic factors condition the use of these different kinds of indefinites in Modern Spoken English and a new perspective on a well-studied proposed change in progress in the English quantificational system.

Positive polarity predicates

This paper presents Dutch and English predicates that behave as positive polarity items and provides a partial, semantically-grounded classification of this group of PPIs. The items are studied from the perspective of anti-licensing behavior (by negation, either locally or long-distance, in questions, and by weakly negative quantifiers such as little and few). Predicates, unlike quantifiers, do not have wide scope readings (which allow quantificational PPIs such as somebody to appear in the syntactic scope of negation). Using a mixture of corpus data and introspective judgments, we show that anti-licensing among PPIs is not uniform (mirroring earlier results on NPIs which likewise show considerable variation). Rescuing contexts are likewise shown to differ among PPIs. Some of the PPI predicates show complex interaction with illocutionary force (especially mandative force), and others with differences between presupposed and asserted propositions. High degree predicates, finally, point toward the existence of connections between the marking of degree and positive polarity. PPI status is argued to be the result of a complex interaction between the effects of negation and other nonveridical operators, and other semantic factors, which differ among subclasses of PPIs. Anti-licensing by weak negation correlates fairly well with anti-licensing by long-distance negation, a finding which is (partly) in line with a recent proposal by Spector (2014, Global positive polarity items and obligatory exhaustivity. Semantics and Pragmatics 7(11). 1–61) concerning global PPIs. However, we find there to be more variation among the PPIs studied here than the classification of Spector (2014) or any binary classification stipulates.