Scope economy in positive polarity: Extreme degree quantification
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Raquel González-Rodríguez
Abstract
This paper focuses on degree expressions, such as extremadamente‘extremely’, which cannot occur in negative sentences, thus patterning with Positive Polarity Items (PPIs). I describe the properties of these constructions and offer an analysis that accounts for their incompatibility with negation. Contrary to the standard syntactic view on polarity items, I propose that these PPIs remain in the structural position where they are merged, without checking any positive feature by movement or Agree against certain higher functional projection. Their incompatibility with negation is due to the fact that these constructions denote extreme degree quantification, affirming emphatically the degree to which a property is held. The proposed analysis explains the distribution of these PPIs in negative sentences, as well as the differences between the elements studied and other positive items, establishing a distinction between triggers of positive polarity and positive polarity items.
Abstract
This paper focuses on degree expressions, such as extremadamente‘extremely’, which cannot occur in negative sentences, thus patterning with Positive Polarity Items (PPIs). I describe the properties of these constructions and offer an analysis that accounts for their incompatibility with negation. Contrary to the standard syntactic view on polarity items, I propose that these PPIs remain in the structural position where they are merged, without checking any positive feature by movement or Agree against certain higher functional projection. Their incompatibility with negation is due to the fact that these constructions denote extreme degree quantification, affirming emphatically the degree to which a property is held. The proposed analysis explains the distribution of these PPIs in negative sentences, as well as the differences between the elements studied and other positive items, establishing a distinction between triggers of positive polarity and positive polarity items.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Foreword v
- Table of contents vii
- The quirky case of participial clauses 1
- Answering strategies: A view from acquisition 19
- Transfer in periphrastic causatives in L2 English and L2 Spanish 39
- Clitic omission, null objects or both in the acquisition of European Portuguese? 59
- Metrical structure, tonal association and focus in French 73
- On affixal scope and affix-root ordering in Italian 99
- Scope economy in positive polarity: Extreme degree quantification 115
- The acquisition of aspect in L2 Portuguese and Spanish. Exploring native / non-native performance differences 131
- Mechanisms of scope resolution in child Italian 149
- When scope meets modality: The scope of indefinites in subjunctive environments 165
- Listen to the sound of salience: Multichannel syntax of Q particles 185
- Instability and age effects at the lexicon-syntax interface 201
- On the ambiguity of N-words in French 213
- Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual children: The case of dislocation 229
- Cartography of postverbal subjects in Spanish and Catalan 259
- Mismatches between phonology and syntax in French DP acquisition 281
- Pragmatic solutions for syntactic problems: Understanding some L2 syntactic errors in terms of discourse-pragmatic deficits 299
- A poverty-of-the-stimulus argument for the innateness of the identification conditions on VP ellipsis 321
- Index 335
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Foreword v
- Table of contents vii
- The quirky case of participial clauses 1
- Answering strategies: A view from acquisition 19
- Transfer in periphrastic causatives in L2 English and L2 Spanish 39
- Clitic omission, null objects or both in the acquisition of European Portuguese? 59
- Metrical structure, tonal association and focus in French 73
- On affixal scope and affix-root ordering in Italian 99
- Scope economy in positive polarity: Extreme degree quantification 115
- The acquisition of aspect in L2 Portuguese and Spanish. Exploring native / non-native performance differences 131
- Mechanisms of scope resolution in child Italian 149
- When scope meets modality: The scope of indefinites in subjunctive environments 165
- Listen to the sound of salience: Multichannel syntax of Q particles 185
- Instability and age effects at the lexicon-syntax interface 201
- On the ambiguity of N-words in French 213
- Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual children: The case of dislocation 229
- Cartography of postverbal subjects in Spanish and Catalan 259
- Mismatches between phonology and syntax in French DP acquisition 281
- Pragmatic solutions for syntactic problems: Understanding some L2 syntactic errors in terms of discourse-pragmatic deficits 299
- A poverty-of-the-stimulus argument for the innateness of the identification conditions on VP ellipsis 321
- Index 335
