Negative concord and TAM: a new perspective
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Karen De Clercq
Abstract
It has been proposed in the syntactic literature on Negative Concord (NC) that Negative Concord Item(s) (NCIs) move to a particular position in syntax, i.e. SpecNegP (Haegeman 1995, Zanuttini 1997), to give rise to concord. SpecNegP is also the position for (some) Standard Negators (SN). Under another theory, the syntactic agreement approach to NC (Zeijlstra 2004), NCIs are licensed by an abstract negative operator that also licenses the standard negator. In other words, in both accounts NCIs and SNs seem to be related, either because they end up in the same position, or because they share the same licenser. This raises the question whether the allomorphy that arises due to the conditioning between TAM (tense, aspect, mood/modality) and the standard negator (SN), also arises between TAM and NCIs. This paper explores this question by focusing on Quebliyeen Tamazight (Ouali 2012) and Egyptian Arabic (Benmamoun et al. 2013), two Semitic languages from the Afro-Asiatic phylum. The investigation shows that, while both languages display allomorphy conditioned by the interaction between TAM and SN, NCIs are not conditioned by TAM or do not condition TAM. On the basis of this, I conclude that theoretical accounts that make use of the same mechanism to capture the sentential negativity of NCIs and SNs may be in need of revision. I show how Nanosyntax can account for why the interaction between TAM and NCIs differs from the interaction between TAM and SNs, and how NC is a byproduct of the size of lexically stored trees, phrasal lexicalisation and the Superset Principle.
Abstract
It has been proposed in the syntactic literature on Negative Concord (NC) that Negative Concord Item(s) (NCIs) move to a particular position in syntax, i.e. SpecNegP (Haegeman 1995, Zanuttini 1997), to give rise to concord. SpecNegP is also the position for (some) Standard Negators (SN). Under another theory, the syntactic agreement approach to NC (Zeijlstra 2004), NCIs are licensed by an abstract negative operator that also licenses the standard negator. In other words, in both accounts NCIs and SNs seem to be related, either because they end up in the same position, or because they share the same licenser. This raises the question whether the allomorphy that arises due to the conditioning between TAM (tense, aspect, mood/modality) and the standard negator (SN), also arises between TAM and NCIs. This paper explores this question by focusing on Quebliyeen Tamazight (Ouali 2012) and Egyptian Arabic (Benmamoun et al. 2013), two Semitic languages from the Afro-Asiatic phylum. The investigation shows that, while both languages display allomorphy conditioned by the interaction between TAM and SN, NCIs are not conditioned by TAM or do not condition TAM. On the basis of this, I conclude that theoretical accounts that make use of the same mechanism to capture the sentential negativity of NCIs and SNs may be in need of revision. I show how Nanosyntax can account for why the interaction between TAM and NCIs differs from the interaction between TAM and SNs, and how NC is a byproduct of the size of lexically stored trees, phrasal lexicalisation and the Superset Principle.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction 1
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Section 1: General theoretical issues
- Negative concord: the first 133 years 9
- Negindefinites and negative concord: concepts, terms and analyses 53
- Negative concord and TAM: a new perspective 77
- Non-strict negative concord: a correlate of focus movement? 107
- The universal force of (strict) negative concord 123
- N-words: in defence of wide scope. A view from Romanian 149
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Section 2: Perspectives on variation
- Negative concord in Medieval Greek: lexical asymmetry and the role of correlative negation 175
- What does the linear position of negative concord items tell us about their properties? 207
- Grammar or error? Non-compositional (expletive/paratactic) negation in Dutch sentences with zonder ‘without’ 239
- Two negatives in Tyneside English questions: negative concord or double negation? 269
- Less formal and more rebellious — An experiment on the social meaning of negative concord in American English 303
- Subject index 333
- Language index 337
- Name index 341
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1: General theoretical issues
- Negative concord: the first 133 years 9
- Negindefinites and negative concord: concepts, terms and analyses 53
- Negative concord and TAM: a new perspective 77
- Non-strict negative concord: a correlate of focus movement? 107
- The universal force of (strict) negative concord 123
- N-words: in defence of wide scope. A view from Romanian 149
-
Section 2: Perspectives on variation
- Negative concord in Medieval Greek: lexical asymmetry and the role of correlative negation 175
- What does the linear position of negative concord items tell us about their properties? 207
- Grammar or error? Non-compositional (expletive/paratactic) negation in Dutch sentences with zonder ‘without’ 239
- Two negatives in Tyneside English questions: negative concord or double negation? 269
- Less formal and more rebellious — An experiment on the social meaning of negative concord in American English 303
- Subject index 333
- Language index 337
- Name index 341
