Chapter 15. Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony
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Chloé Tahar
Abstract
This paper investigates the distribution of expletive negation in the complement clause of craindre (“fear”) in French. Building on Anand & Hacquard’s (2013) proposal that fear verbs are hybrid attitude verbs, featuring both a doxastic and a (dis)preferential component, this paper argues that these two components are conveyed by different layers of meaning (in line with Giannakidou & Mari (2020)). More precisely, I argue that, in actual discourse context, craindre may receive two main interpretations: a volitive (dispreference-related) or a psychological (belief-related) interpretation, depending on whether the verb asserts or presupposes dispreference. Based on a diachronic corpus study of the distribution of expletive negation, I show that expletive negation, in the earliest stages of French, places semantic restrictions on the main verb, which are met when the interpretation of craindre is volitive.
Abstract
This paper investigates the distribution of expletive negation in the complement clause of craindre (“fear”) in French. Building on Anand & Hacquard’s (2013) proposal that fear verbs are hybrid attitude verbs, featuring both a doxastic and a (dis)preferential component, this paper argues that these two components are conveyed by different layers of meaning (in line with Giannakidou & Mari (2020)). More precisely, I argue that, in actual discourse context, craindre may receive two main interpretations: a volitive (dispreference-related) or a psychological (belief-related) interpretation, depending on whether the verb asserts or presupposes dispreference. Based on a diachronic corpus study of the distribution of expletive negation, I show that expletive negation, in the earliest stages of French, places semantic restrictions on the main verb, which are met when the interpretation of craindre is volitive.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Processing clitic pronouns outside coargumenthood 11
- Chapter 2. Infinitival complement clauses 25
- Chapter 3. Focus fronting vs. wh -movement 49
- Chapter 4. The varieties of temporal anaphora and temporal coincidence 71
- Chapter 5. The structure and interpretation of ‘non-matching’ split interrogatives in Spanish 97
- Chapter 6. Differential object marking and scale reversals 117
- Chapter 7. Contact phenomena 131
- Chapter 8. - ŋ plurals in North Lombard varieties 151
- Chapter 9. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages 171
- Chapter 10. Aspect in the acquisition of the Spanish locative paradigm by Italian L2 learners 191
- Chapter 11. Catalan nativization patterns in the light of weighted scalar constraints 205
- Chapter 12. Temporal marking and (in)accessibility in Capeverdean 225
- Chapter 13. Very …. extracted 249
- Chapter 14. On adverbial perfect participial clauses in Portuguese varieties and British English 263
- Chapter 15. Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony 287
- Chapter 16. Fission in Romance demonstrative-reinforcer constructions 303
- Index 317
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Processing clitic pronouns outside coargumenthood 11
- Chapter 2. Infinitival complement clauses 25
- Chapter 3. Focus fronting vs. wh -movement 49
- Chapter 4. The varieties of temporal anaphora and temporal coincidence 71
- Chapter 5. The structure and interpretation of ‘non-matching’ split interrogatives in Spanish 97
- Chapter 6. Differential object marking and scale reversals 117
- Chapter 7. Contact phenomena 131
- Chapter 8. - ŋ plurals in North Lombard varieties 151
- Chapter 9. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages 171
- Chapter 10. Aspect in the acquisition of the Spanish locative paradigm by Italian L2 learners 191
- Chapter 11. Catalan nativization patterns in the light of weighted scalar constraints 205
- Chapter 12. Temporal marking and (in)accessibility in Capeverdean 225
- Chapter 13. Very …. extracted 249
- Chapter 14. On adverbial perfect participial clauses in Portuguese varieties and British English 263
- Chapter 15. Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony 287
- Chapter 16. Fission in Romance demonstrative-reinforcer constructions 303
- Index 317
