Home Minimizers in Azerbaijani from a comparative perspective
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Minimizers in Azerbaijani from a comparative perspective

  • Venera Suleymanova and Jack Hoeksema EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: March 29, 2018
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

Azerbaijani, like many other languages, has a class of negative polarity items denoting minimal measures (along dimensions such as size, length, duration, value, weight etc.), called minimizers. This paper presents an overview of this group of expressions, compares them to minimizers in the western European languages, in particular English and Dutch, identifies the various domains in which these minimizers may be used, and discusses their distribution across polarity-sensitive contexts such as negation, conditional clauses, questions, etc. The distribution we found, on the basis of both corpus data and native speaker judgments, is very similar to that of minimizers in English or Dutch, especially when differences are factored out which are due to the fact that Azerbaijani has strict negative concord, whereas English and Dutch do not. To this end, we distinguish two types of minimizers for Azerbaijani, negated minimizers preceded by heç bir ‘not one’, and minimizers preceded by bir only.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Alrakis II programme of Erasmus Mundus for funding the research of the first author during the first half of 2015, and two anonymous reviewers for their excellent advice.

Appendix List of abbreviations

1sg

1st person singular

2sg

2nd person singular

3sg

3rd person singular

1pl

1st person plural

2pl

2nd person plural

3pl

3rd person plural

agr

agreement marker (on nouns)

poss1

1st person possessive

poss2

2nd person possessive

poss3

3rd person possessive

abl

ablative case

acc

accusative case

aor

aorist tense

cond

conditional mood

cv

converb

dat

dative case

fut

future tense

gen

genitive case

ger

gerund

imp

imperative mood

join

joining morpheme

loc

locative case

neg

negation

pass

passive voice

past

past tense

pl

plural

pot

potential mood

pp

past participle

pres

present tense

subj

subjunctive mood

References

Abdullayev, Sarkhan. 1998. Negation in modern German and Azerbaijani. (Müasir alman vƏ Azerbaycan dillərində inkarliq kateqoriyasi). Baku: Maarif.Search in Google Scholar

Abels, Klaus. 2003. Who gives a damn about minimizers in questions? In Robert B. Young & Yuping Zhou (eds.), Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory, vol. 13, 1–18. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.10.3765/salt.v13i0.2895Search in Google Scholar

Alonso-Ovalle, Luis. 2009. ‘Even’ and biased questions: The case of Spanish ‘siquiera’. In Ed Cormany, Satoshi Ito & David Lutz (eds.), Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory, vol. 19, 1–18. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University. eLanguage.10.3765/salt.v19i0.2540Search in Google Scholar

Alsarayreh, Atef. 2012. The licensing of negative sensitive items in Jordanian Arabic. Lawrence: University of Kansas dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Atlas, Jay D. 1997. Negative adverbials, prototypical negation, and the De Morgan taxonomy. Journal of Semantics 14. 349–368.10.1093/jos/14.4.349Search in Google Scholar

Beaver, David & Brady Clark. 2009. Sense and sensitivity: How focus determines meaning. Chichester: John Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781444304176Search in Google Scholar

Bolinger, Dwight. 1972. Degree words. The Hague: Mouton.10.1515/9783110877786Search in Google Scholar

Brems, Lieselotte. 2007. The grammaticalization of small size nouns. Reconsidering frequency and analogy. Journal of English Linguistics 35(4). 293–324.10.1177/0075424207307597Search in Google Scholar

Burridge, Kate. 1993. Syntactic change in Germanic: Aspects of language change in Germanic with particular reference to Middle Dutch. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.89Search in Google Scholar

Chen, I-Hsuan. 2015. The diachronic development and synchronic distribution of minimizers in Mandarin Chinese. Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Chierchia, Gennaro. 2012. Logic in grammar. Polarity, free choice and intervention. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697977.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Collins, Chris. 2016. Not even. Natural Language Semantics 24(4). 291–303.10.1007/s11050-016-9124-5Search in Google Scholar

Collins, Chris & Paul M. Postal. 2014. Classical NEG Raising. An essay on the syntax of negation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262027311.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Collins, Chris & Paul M. Postal. 2017. Dispelling the cloud of unknowing. In Laurence R. Horn & Kenneth Turner (eds.), Pragmatics, truth and underspecification. Towards an atlas of meaning. New York: New York University. In press.Search in Google Scholar

Croft, William. 1991. The evolution of negation. Journal of Linguistics 27(1). 1–27.10.1017/S0022226700012391Search in Google Scholar

De Clercq, Karen. 2011. Squat, zero and no/nothing: Syntactic negation vs. semantic negation. In Marion Elenbaas & Rick Nouwen (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands, 14–24. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/avt.28.02cleSearch in Google Scholar

de Haan, Germen J. & Fred Weerman. 1984. Taaltypologie, taalverandering en mogelijke grammatica’s: Het Middelnederlandse en [Linguistic typology, language change and possible grammars: Middle Dutch en]. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 100. 161–190.Search in Google Scholar

Den Dikken, Marcel & Anastasia Giannakidou. 2002. From hell to polarity: “Aggressively non-D-linked” WH-phrases as polarity items. Linguistic Inquiry 33(1). 31–61.10.1162/002438902317382170Search in Google Scholar

Eckardt, Regine. 2006. Meaning change in grammaticalization: An enquiry into semantic reanalysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262601.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Eckardt, Regine & Eva Csipak. 2013. Minimizers – Towards pragmatic licensing. In Eva Csipak, Regine Eckardt, Mingya Liu & Manfred Sailer (eds.), Beyond ‘ever’ and ‘any’. New explorations in negative polarity sensitivity, 267–298. Berlin: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110305234.267Search in Google Scholar

Fauconnier, Gilles. 1975. Pragmatic scales and logical structure. Linguistic Inquiry 6(3). 353–375.Search in Google Scholar

Gaatone, David. 1971. Étude descriptive du système de la negation en français contemporain. Geneva: Librairie Droz.Search in Google Scholar

Garzonio, Jacopo & Cecilia Poletto. 2009. Quantifiers as negative markers in Italian dialects. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 9(1). 127–151.10.1075/livy.9.04garSearch in Google Scholar

Gast, Volker & Johan van der Auwera. 2010. Vers une typologie des opérateurs additifs scalaires. In Pascale Hadermann & Olga Inkova (eds.), Approches de la scalarité, 226–247. Genève: Droz.Search in Google Scholar

Gast, Volker & Johan van der Auwera. 2011. Scalar additive operators in the languages of Europe. Language 87(1). 2–54.10.1353/lan.2011.0008Search in Google Scholar

Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1998. Polarity sensitivity as (non)veridical dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.23Search in Google Scholar

Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2000. Negative… concord? Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 18(3). 457–523.10.1023/A:1006477315705Search in Google Scholar

Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2006. Only, emotive factives, and the dual nature of polarity dependency. Language 82(3). 575–603.10.1353/lan.2006.0136Search in Google Scholar

Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2007. The landscape of EVEN. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 25(1). 39–81.10.1007/s11049-006-9006-5Search in Google Scholar

Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2011. Negative polarity and positive polarity: Licensing, variation and compositionality. In Klaus Von Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn & Paul Portner (eds.), The handbook of natural language meaning, 2nd edn., 1660–1712. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar

Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2017. Evaluative subjunctive as nonveridicality. In Joanna Bƚaszak, Anastasia Giannakidou, Dorota Klimek-Jankowska & Krzysztof Migdalski (eds.), Tense, mood, and modality: New answers to old questions, 177–217. Chicago: Chicago University Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226363660.003.0005Search in Google Scholar

Giannakidou, Anastasia & Suwon Yoon. 2016. Scalar marking without scalar meaning: Nonscalar, nonexhaustive even-marked NPIs in Greek and Korean. Language 92(3). 522–556.10.1353/lan.2016.0047Search in Google Scholar

Griffiths, James & Güliz Güneş. 2014. Ki issues in Turkish. In Marlies Kluck, Dennis Ott & Mark de Vries (eds.), Parenthesis and ellipsis: Cross-linguistic and theoretical perspectives, 173–217. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9781614514831.173Search in Google Scholar

Guerzoni, Elena. 2006. Intervention effects on NPIs and feature movement. Natural Language Semantics 14(4). 359–398.10.1007/s11050-007-9008-9Search in Google Scholar

Halpert, Claire & Carter Griffith. to appear. CPs in North Azeri: New evidence for extraposition. In Proceedings of WAFL 10. Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.Search in Google Scholar

Hoeksema, Jack. 1997. Negation and negative concord in Middle Dutch. In Danielle Forget, Paul Hirschbuehler, France Martineau & Maria-Luisa Rivero (eds.), Negation and polarity: Syntax and semantics, 139–158. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.155.08hoeSearch in Google Scholar

Hoeksema, Jack. 2002. Minimaliseerders in het standaard-Nederlands [Minimizers in standard Dutch]. Tabu 32(3/4). 105–174.Search in Google Scholar

Hoeksema, Jack. 2009. Jespersen Recycled. In Elly van Gelderen (ed.), Cyclical change, 15–34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.146.04hoeSearch in Google Scholar

Hoeksema, Jack. 2011. Looking at middle English through the mirror of Anglo-Norman. In Pierre Larrivée & Richard P. Ingham (eds.), The evolution of negation. Beyond the Jespersen cycle, 165–177. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110238617.165Search in Google Scholar

Hoeksema, Jack. 2013. Polarity items in strawsonian contexts: A comparison. In Eva Csipak, Regine Eckardt, Mingya Liu & Manfred Sailer (eds.), Beyond ‘ever’and ‘any’. New explorations in negative polarity sensitivity, 47–77. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110305234.47Search in Google Scholar

Hoeksema, Jack. 2014. The Middle Dutch negative clitic: Status, position and disappearance. Lingua 147. 50–68.10.1016/j.lingua.2014.02.004Search in Google Scholar

Hoeksema, Jack & Henny Klein. 1995. Negative predicates and their arguments. Linguistic Analysis 25. 146–180.Search in Google Scholar

Hoeksema, Jack & Hotze Rullmann. 2001. Scalarity and polarity. In Jack Hoeksema, Hotze Rullmann, Víctor Sánchez-Valencia & Ton van der Wouden (eds.), Perspectives on negation and polarity items, 129–171. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.40.07hoeSearch in Google Scholar

Horn, Laurence R. 1969. A presuppositional analysis of only and even. Papers from the fifth regional meeting of the Chicago linguistic society 5. 97–108. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Search in Google Scholar

Horn, Laurence R. 1972. On the semantic properties of logical operators in English. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Horn, Laurence R. 1989. A natural history of negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Horn, Laurence R. 2001. Flaubert triggers, squatitive negation, and other quirks of grammar. In Jack Hoeksema, Hotze Rullmann, Víctor Sánchez-Valencia & Ton van der Wouden (eds.), Perspectives on negation and polarity items, 173–200. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.40.08horSearch in Google Scholar

Horn, Laurence R. 2002. Assertoric inertia and NPI licensing. Papers from the 38th regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 38–2: The Panels. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Search in Google Scholar

Horn, Laurence R. 2009. Only XL: The assertoric asymmetry of exponibles. In Ed Cormany, Satoshi Ito & David Lutz (eds.), Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory, vol. 19, 198–222. CLC Publications, Ithaca, NY eLanguage.10.3765/salt.v19i0.2542Search in Google Scholar

Horn, Laurence R. 2014. The cloud of unknowing. In Jack Hoeksema & Dicky Gilbers (eds.), Black book: A Festschrift in honor of Frans Zwarts, 178–196. Groningen: University of Groningen.Search in Google Scholar

Horst, Joop van der & Marijke J. van der Wal. 1979. Negatieverschijnselen en woordvolgorde in de geschiedenis van het Nederlands [Negation phenomena and word order in the history of Dutch]. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde XCV. 6–37.Search in Google Scholar

Israel, Michael. 2001. Minimizers, maximizers and the rhetoric of scalar reasoning. Journal of Semantics 18(4). 297–331.10.1093/jos/18.4.297Search in Google Scholar

Israel, Michael. 2011. The grammar of polarity: Pragmatics, sensitivity, and the logic of scales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511975288Search in Google Scholar

Jager, Arie de. 1858. De versterkte ontkenning in onze taal, vooral bij de middelnederlandsche schrijvers [Reinforced negation in our language, especially that of medieval Dutch writers]. In Arie De Jager (ed.), Latere verscheidenheden uit het gebied der Nederlandsche taalkunde [Additional issues in Dutch linguistics], 59–154. Deventer: A. ter Gunne.Search in Google Scholar

Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and other languages. Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 1. Copenhagen: A. F. Höst.Search in Google Scholar

Karttunen, Lauri & Stanley Peters. 1979. Conventional implicature. In Choon Kyu Oh & David A. Dinneen (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, vol. 11, 1–56. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kay, Paul. 1990. Even. Linguistics and philosophy 13(1). 59–111.10.1007/BF00630517Search in Google Scholar

Kesici, Esra. 2013. Ki-Clauses in Turkish: A paratactic analysis. In Hyun Kyoung Jung & Jessamyn Schertz (eds.), Coyote papers: Working papers in linguistics, vol. 21, 1–20. Tucson: Linguistics Circle, University of Arizona.Search in Google Scholar

Krifka, Manfred. 2010. How to interpret expletive negation under bevor in German. In Thomas Hanneforth & Gisbert Fanselow (eds.), Language and logos: Festschrift for Peter Staudacher on his 70th birthday, 214–236. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.10.1524/9783050062365.214Search in Google Scholar

Ladusaw, William A. 1979. Polarity sensitivity as inherent scope relations. Austin: University of Texas at Austin dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Landman, Fred. 1991. Structures for semantics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-011-3212-1Search in Google Scholar

Lee, Chungmin. 1999. Types of NPIs and nonveridicality in Korean and other languages. In G. Storto (ed.), Syntax at Sunset 2, (UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 3), 96–132. Los Angeles, CA: University of California.Search in Google Scholar

Lee, Young-Suk & Laurence R. Horn. 1994. Any as indefinite plus even. New Haven: Yale University unpublished MS.Search in Google Scholar

Linebarger, Marcia. 1980. The grammar of negative polarity. Cambridge MA: MIT dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Meillet, Antoine. 1912. L’évolution des formes grammaticales. Scientia 26(6). 384–400.Search in Google Scholar

Mosegaard-Hansen, Maj-Britt. 2013. Negation in the history of French. In David Willis, Christopher Lucas & Anne Breitbarth (eds.), The history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, Case studies, 51–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602537.003.0002Search in Google Scholar

Napoli, Donna Jo & Jack Hoeksema. 2009. The grammatical versatility of taboo terms. Studies in Language 33(3). 612–643.10.1075/sl.33.3.04napSearch in Google Scholar

Ouhalla, Jamal. 1993. Subject-extraction, negation and the anti-agreement effect. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 11(3). 477–518.10.1007/BF00993167Search in Google Scholar

Pesetsky, David. 1987. Wh-in-situ: Movement and unselective binding. In Eric Reuland & Alice ter Meulen (eds.), The representation of (in)definiteness, 98–129. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Postal, Paul. 2004. The structure of one type of American English vulgar minimizer. In Paul Postal (ed.), Skeptical linguistic essays, 159–172. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Postma, Gertjan. 2001. Negative polarity and the syntax of taboo. In Jack Hoeksema, Hotze Rullmann, Víctor Sánchez-Valencia & Ton van der Wouden (eds.), Perspectives on negation and polarity items, 283–330. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.40.13posSearch in Google Scholar

Postma, Gertjan. 2002. De enkelvoudige clitische negatie in het Middelnederlands en de Jespersen-cyclus [Simplex clitic negation in Middle Dutch and the Jespersen cycle]. Nederlandse Taalkunde 7(1). 44–82.Search in Google Scholar

Pott, August F. 1833. Etymologische Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Indo-Germanischen Sprachen, vol. 1. Lemgo: Meyer.Search in Google Scholar

Progovac, Ljiljana. 1988. A binding approach to polarity sensitivity. Los Angeles: University of Southern California dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Progovac, Ljiljana. 1994. Negative and positive polarity: A binding approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511554308Search in Google Scholar

Rooth, Mats. 1985. Association with focus. Amherst (MA): University of Massachusetts at Amherst dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Sailor, Craig. 2017. Negative inversion without negation: On fuck-inversion in British English. Cambridge Occasional Papers in Linguistics 10(5). 88–110.Search in Google Scholar

Sánchez Valencia, Víctor, Ton van der Wouden & Frans Zwarts. 1994. Polarity, veridicality and temporal connnectives. In Paul Dekker & Martin Stokhof (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Amsterdam Colloquium, Part 3, 587–606. Amsterdam: ILLC/ Department of Philosophy.Search in Google Scholar

Schaaik, Gerjan van. 1994. Turkish. In Peter Kahrel & René van den Berg (eds.), Typological studies in negation, 35–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.29.03schSearch in Google Scholar

Schwenter, Scott A. 2002. Additive particles and scalar endpoint marking. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 16. 119–134.10.1075/bjl.16.09schSearch in Google Scholar

Sharvit, Yael. 2008. Bare minimizers. In S. Armon-Lotem, G. Danon & S. Rothstein (eds.), Current issues in generative Hebrew linguistics, 293–312. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.134.12barSearch in Google Scholar

Shyu, Shu-ing. 2016. Minimizers and EVEN. Linguistics 54(6). 1355–1395.10.1515/ling-2016-0031Search in Google Scholar

Surányi, Balázs. 2006. Quantification and focus in negative concord. Lingua 116(3). 272–313.10.1016/j.lingua.2004.08.007Search in Google Scholar

Tottie, Gunnel. 1991. Negation in English speech and writing. San Diego: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar

Tsurska, Olena. 2009. The negative cycle in early and modern Russian. In Elly van Gelderen (ed.), Cyclical change, 73–90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.146.06tsuSearch in Google Scholar

Tubau, Susagna. 2016. On the syntax of English minimizers. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 34(2). 739–760.10.1007/s11049-015-9308-6Search in Google Scholar

Vallduví, Enric. 1994. Polarity items, n-words and minimizers in Catalan and Spanish. Probus 6(2–3). 263–294.10.1515/prbs.1994.6.2-3.263Search in Google Scholar

Van Alsenoy, Lauren & Johan van der Auwera. 2015. Indefinite pronouns in Uralic languages. In Matti Miestamo, Anne Tamm & Beáta Wagner-Nagy (eds.), Negation in Uralic languages, 519–546. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.108.19alsSearch in Google Scholar

Vandeweghe, Willy. 2005. Minimale representanten en NoC’s: Nadere beschouwingen [Minimizers and NoC’s: Additional remarks]. In Els Elffers & Fred Weerman (eds.), AD 2005. Taalkundige artikelen voor Ad Welschen [Linguistic papers for Ad Welschen]. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam. http://cf.hum.uva.nl/dsp/nederlandsetaalkunde/NTKonderzoek.htmSearch in Google Scholar

Vasishth, Shravan. 1998. Monotonicity constraints on negative polarity in Hindi. In Mary M. Bradshaw, David Odden & Derek Wyckoff (eds.), Ohio State Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 51, 201–220. Ohio: The Ohio State University.Search in Google Scholar

von Fintel, Kai. 1999. NPI-licensing, Strawson-entailment, and context-dependency. Journal of Semantics 16. 97–148.10.1093/jos/16.2.97Search in Google Scholar

Wallage, Phillip. 2016. Identifying the role of pragmatic activation in changes to the expression of English negation. In Pierre Larrivée & Chungmin Lee (eds.), Negation and polarity: Experimental perspectives, 199–227. Cham: Springer.10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_9Search in Google Scholar

Willis, David, Christopher Lucas & Anne Breitbarth. 2013. Comparing diachronies of negation. In David Willis, Christopher Lucas & Anne Breitbarth (eds.), The development of negation in the languages of Europe, Vol. I: Case studies, 1–50. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602537.003.0001Search in Google Scholar

Wouden, Ton van der. 1997. Negative contexts. Collocation, polarity and multiple negation. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Zanuttini, Raffaella. 1991. Syntactic properties of sentential negation. A comparative study of Romance languages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2004. Sentential negation and negative concord. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Zwarts, Frans. 1986. Categoriale grammatica en algebraïsche semantiek [Categorial grammar and algebraic semantics]. Groningen: University of Groningen dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Zwarts, Frans. 1998. Three types of polarity. In Fritz Hamm & Erhard Hinrichs (eds.), Plurality and quantification, 177–238. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-017-2706-8_5Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2015-10-16
Revised: 2016-4-21
Revised: 2017-1-6
Accepted: 2017-8-2
Published Online: 2018-3-29
Published in Print: 2018-3-26

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 26.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/flin-2018-0004/html
Scroll to top button