Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian
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Anamaria Fălăus
Abstract
It has been recently argued (Szabolcsi 2004) that the distribution of positive polarity items can be accounted for in terms of negative polarity items-licensing. I present empirical evidence in favor of the strong relation between NPIs and PPIs on the basis of two types of polarity items in Romanian: n-words and the PPI oarecare. I argue that these dependent elements are sensitive to the same semantic property, namely antimorphy: the former are licensed only in antimorphic contexts, the latter are anti-licensed in the same anti-morphic environments. This generalization provides strong support for Szabolcsi’s claim that positive polarity is not just a prohibition to appear in the scope of negation, but rather “halfway licensing” of polarity sensitive items. At a more theoretical level, I argue that resumptive quantification is the semantic mechanism underlying the interpretation of both positive and negative polarity.
Abstract
It has been recently argued (Szabolcsi 2004) that the distribution of positive polarity items can be accounted for in terms of negative polarity items-licensing. I present empirical evidence in favor of the strong relation between NPIs and PPIs on the basis of two types of polarity items in Romanian: n-words and the PPI oarecare. I argue that these dependent elements are sensitive to the same semantic property, namely antimorphy: the former are licensed only in antimorphic contexts, the latter are anti-licensed in the same anti-morphic environments. This generalization provides strong support for Szabolcsi’s claim that positive polarity is not just a prohibition to appear in the scope of negation, but rather “halfway licensing” of polarity sensitive items. At a more theoretical level, I argue that resumptive quantification is the semantic mechanism underlying the interpretation of both positive and negative polarity.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Null Expletives and Case: The View from Romance 1
- On the Existence of Null Complementizers in Old French 19
- On the Lack of Transparency Effects in French 37
- On the Syllabification of Prevocalic /w/ in Judeo-Spanish 51
- Word Order and Minimalism 69
- The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century 89
- Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian 105
- Correlativization and Degree Quantification in Spanish 121
- Imperfect Variation and Class Marking in the Old Spanish Third Conjugation 143
- Licensing Negative Fragments and the Interpretation of Comparison 157
- Developing I-Language in L1 and L2 173
- Crypto-Variation in Italian Velar Palatalisation 193
- Antisymmetry and the Typology of Relative Clauses: Morphological Evidence from Romance 209
- Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account 227
- Discriminating Pitch Accent Alignment in Spanish 243
- Proscriptions…Gaps…and Something in Between: An Experimental Examination of Spanish Phonotactics 261
- Romanian Palatalization: The Role of Place of Articulation in Perception 277
- Putting in Order the Spanish DP 291
- The Domain of Palatalization in Romanian 307
- Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception on Sound Change 321
- The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure 339
- Index 359
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Null Expletives and Case: The View from Romance 1
- On the Existence of Null Complementizers in Old French 19
- On the Lack of Transparency Effects in French 37
- On the Syllabification of Prevocalic /w/ in Judeo-Spanish 51
- Word Order and Minimalism 69
- The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century 89
- Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian 105
- Correlativization and Degree Quantification in Spanish 121
- Imperfect Variation and Class Marking in the Old Spanish Third Conjugation 143
- Licensing Negative Fragments and the Interpretation of Comparison 157
- Developing I-Language in L1 and L2 173
- Crypto-Variation in Italian Velar Palatalisation 193
- Antisymmetry and the Typology of Relative Clauses: Morphological Evidence from Romance 209
- Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account 227
- Discriminating Pitch Accent Alignment in Spanish 243
- Proscriptions…Gaps…and Something in Between: An Experimental Examination of Spanish Phonotactics 261
- Romanian Palatalization: The Role of Place of Articulation in Perception 277
- Putting in Order the Spanish DP 291
- The Domain of Palatalization in Romanian 307
- Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception on Sound Change 321
- The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure 339
- Index 359
