Abstract
This paper investigates the scope interaction between modality and negation in Turkish. We observe that modals display a complex picture of scope interaction with negation: both possibility and necessity modals can have scope above or under negation on the one hand and both epistemic and root modals can take wide scope over or narrow scope under negation. This suggests that modals are interpreted in accordance with modal relations, bases, and sources closely associated with discourse and pragmatic factors, but not with lexical idiosyncrasies through which modals are classified as Modal1, Modal2. The study also presents empirical evidence for the idea that scope relations are determined by syntactic structure, indicating that complex grammatical operations are unnecessary to maintain the linear order of the sentence. This suggests that Turkish exhibits scope rigidity in syntax-semantics interface, a situation also noted for scope relations between NPIs and negation. For otherwise cases where scope relations are not read off syntactically, we offer LF movement of negation to a higher position, an operation which has already been introduced for independent grammatical phenomena such as NPI licensing. Hence, there is no need to postulate overt or covert head movement of modals to structurally higher positions to outscope negation.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank anonymous reviewers for the helpful suggestions and comments. Special thanks go to Eser Erguvanlı Taylan for the discussions on Turkish modal system. We also thank Harry van der Hulst for his generous support during the reviewing process. All errors are ours.
References
Aksu Koç, Ayhan. 1988. The acquisition of aspect and modality: The case of past reference in Turkish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511554353Search in Google Scholar
Baker, Mark. 1985. The Mirror principle and morphosyntactic explanation. Linguistic Inquiry 16(3). 373–415.Search in Google Scholar
Baturay Meral, Semra. 2022. Kiplik yaklaşımları üzerine genel bir bakış [A general discussion on approaches to modality]. Turkish Studies - Language and Literature 17(4). 1159–1179. https://doi.org/10.7827/TurkishStudies.63709.Search in Google Scholar
Breitbarth, Anne. 2011. Modality and negation in the history of Low German. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 30(2). 131–167. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsw.2011.007.Search in Google Scholar
Butler, Jonny. 2003. A Minimalist treatment of modality. Lingua 113. 967–996. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0024-3841(02)00146-8.Search in Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads: A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195115260.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2001. A note on mood, modality, T and aspect affixes in Turkish. In Eser Erguvanlı Taylan (ed.), The verb in Turkish, 47–59. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.44.03cinSearch in Google Scholar
Corcu, Demet. 2003. A linguistic analysis of necessity as a part of the modal system in Turkish. MA Thesis. Mersin: Mersin University.Search in Google Scholar
Corcu, Demet. 2005. Zorunluluk kipliği belirtisi: –mAlI’nın anlamsal iç yapısı [Necessity modal: the internal structure of -mAlI]. Dilbilim Araştırmaları [Linguistic Investigations] 16. 33–45.Search in Google Scholar
Corcu Gül, Demet. 2010. Tanıtsallığın durum anlambilimsel sunumu: Türkçede tanıt türleri [The semantic presentation of evidentiality: Evidential typology in Turkish]. Ankara: Ankara University dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Cormack, Annabel & Neil Smith. 2002. Modals and negation in English. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff (eds.), Modality and its interaction with the verbal system, 133–163. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.47.08corSearch in Google Scholar
de Haan, Ferdinand. 1997. The interaction of modality and negation: A typological study. New York: Garland.Search in Google Scholar
Erguvanlı Taylan, Eser. 1986. Some aspects of negation in Turkish. In Ayhan Aksu Koç & Eser Erguvanlı Taylan (eds.), Modern studies in Turkish linguistics: Proceeding of the 2nd international conference on Turkish linguistics, 159–179. Istanbul: Boğaziçi University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Erguvanlı Taylan, Eser. 1996. The parameter of aspect in Turkish. In Ahmet Konrot (ed.), Modern studies in Turkish linguistics: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Turkish linguistics, 153–168. Eskişehir: Anadolu University.Search in Google Scholar
Erguvanlı Taylan, Eser. 2000. Semi-grammaticalized modality in Turkish. In Aslı Göksel & Celia Kerslake (eds.), Studies on Turkish and Turkic languages, 133–143. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Erguvanlı Taylan, Eser. 2001. On the relation between temporal/aspectual adverbs and the verb form in Turkish. In Eser Erguvanlı Taylan (ed.), The verb in Turkish, 97–128. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.44.05taySearch in Google Scholar
Erguvanlı Taylan, Eser. 2018. Türkçede dilbilgisel kiplikte olasılık ve gereklilik [Possibility and necessity in grammatical modality in Turkish]. Mersin Üniversitesi Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi [Mersin University language and literature journal] 15(2). 1–22.Search in Google Scholar
Erguvanlı Taylan, Eser & A. Sumru Özsoy. 1993. Türkçede bazı kiplik biçimlerinin öğretimi üzerine [On the education of some modal markers in Turkish]. In Kamile İmer & N. Engin Uzun (eds.), 7. dilbilim kurultayı bildirileri [Proceedings of 7th linguistics conference], 1–13. Ankara: Ankara University Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Erk Emeksiz, Zeynep. 2008a. Türkçede kiplik anlamının belirsizliği ve anlamsal roller [Modal indeterminacy and sematic roles in Turkish]. Dil Dergisi [Language journal] 141. 55–66. https://doi.org/10.1501/Dilder_0000000098.Search in Google Scholar
Erk Emeksiz, Zeynep. 2008b. Deontic modality in Turkish: Pragmatic and semantic constraints. In Ryosuke Shibagaki & Reiko Vermeulen (eds.), MIT working Papers in linguistics 58. Boston: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Francis, Naomi & Sabine Iatridou. 2020. Modals and negation. In Viviane Déprez & M. Teresa Espinal (eds.), The Oxford handbook of negation, 285–300. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198830528.013.16Search in Google Scholar
Göksel, Aslı & Celia Kerslake. 2005. Turkish: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203340769Search in Google Scholar
Girigoraş, Sözen Özkan. 2020. Word Order and information Structure in Turkish. Los Angeles: UCLA dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Görgülü, Emrah. 2018. Negative polarity, scope of negation and negative phrases in Turkish. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 14(4). 136–149. https://www.jlls.org/index.php/jlls/article/view/945/426 (accessed 12 June 2024).Search in Google Scholar
Gül, Demet. 2012. Semantic operators and the modal meanings of the suffix –Ar. Dilbilim Araştırmaları [Linguistic investigations] 23. 25–40.Search in Google Scholar
Gürer, Aslı. 2015. Semantic, prosodic, and syntactic marking of information structural units in Turkish. Istanbul: Boğaziçi University dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Güven, Mine. 2001. Türkçede -Abil eki ve kiplik belirteçleri üzerine [On the suffix -Abil and modal adverbs in Turkish]. In Ömer Demircan & Aybars Erözden (eds.), 15. Dilbilim kurultayı bildirileri [Proceedings of the 15th linguistics conference], 79–87. Istanbul: Yıldız Technical University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hojatollah Taleghani, Azita. 2006. The interaction of modality, aspect and negation in Persian. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Homer, Vincent. 2015. Neg-raising and positive polarity: The view from modals. Semantics and Pragmatics 8. 1–88. https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.8.4.Search in Google Scholar
Iatridou, Sabine & Hedde Zeijlstra. 2009. On the scopal interaction of negation and deontic modals. In Maria Aloni, Harald Bastiaanse, Tikitu de Jager & Katrin Schulz (eds.), Pre-proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium 2009. Amsterdam: ILLC. http://ling.auf.net/lingBuzz/000978 (accessed 22 June 2024).Search in Google Scholar
Iatridou, Sabine & Hedde Zeijlstra. 2013. Negation, polarity and deontic modals. Linguistic Inquiry 44. 529–568. https://doi.org/10.1162/LING_a_00138.Search in Google Scholar
Johanson, Lars. 2009. Modals in Turkic. In Björn Hansen & Ferdinand de Haan (eds.), Modals in the languages of Europe, 487–510. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110219210.3.487Search in Google Scholar
Kayabaşı, Demet & Murat Özgen. 2018. A phase-based account of NPI-licensing in Turkish. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 54. 83–113. https://doi.org/10.1515/psicl-2018-0003.Search in Google Scholar
Kelepir, Meltem. 2001. Topics in Turkish syntax: Clausal structure and scope. Boston: MIT dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Kerimoğlu, Caner. 2010. On the epistemic modality markers in Turkey Turkish: Uncertainty. Turkish Studies 5(4). 434–478.10.7827/TurkishStudies.1836Search in Google Scholar
Kerimoğlu, Caner & Cansu Aksu. 2015. {-DIr} biçimbiriminin sözlü söylemdeki kiplik alanları ve kullanımları [Modality domains and usages of {-Dır} morpheme in Turkish spoken discourse]. Dil Araştırmaları [Language researches] 9(17). 73–94. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/1531460 (accessed 20 June 2024).Search in Google Scholar
Kerslake, Celia. 1990. The semantics of possibility in Turkish. In Bengisu Rona (ed.), Current issues in Turkish linguistics, 85–104. Ankara: Hitit Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Kocaman, Ahmet. 1988. Modality in the Turkish discourse. In Sabri Koç (ed.), Studies on Turkish linguistics, 463–468. Ankara: METU Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Kocaman, Ahmet. 1990. The necessitive mood in Turkish. In Bengisu Rona (ed.), Current issues in Turkish linguistics, 104–111. Ankara: Hitit Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Kornfilt, Jaklin. 1997. Turkish. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1981. The notional category of modality. In Hans J. Eikmeyer & Hannes Rieser (eds.), Words, worlds, and contexts: New approaches in word semantics, 38–74. Berlin: de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1991. Modality. In Arnim von Stechow & Dieter Wunderlich (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of contemporary research, 639–650. Berlin: de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110126969.7.639Search in Google Scholar
Kuram, Kadri. 2015. The Organization of functional Heads and tense/aspect/mood Interpretation in Turkish. Newcastle: Newcastle University dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Lee, Hui-Chi. 2014. The modal system in Hainan Min. Language and Linguistics 15(6). 825–857. https://doi.org/10.1177/1606822X14544622.Search in Google Scholar
Linebarger, Marcia Christine. 1980. The grammar of negative polarity. Boston: MIT dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
McKenzie, Andrew. 2006. Fixing the scope of negation in Turkish. Ms: University of Massachusetts. https://people.umass.edu/partee/Gen_Neg/_docs/fixingscope.pdf (accessed 10 July 2024).Search in Google Scholar
Meral, Hasan Mesut. 2020. Discourse negation via the ne … –sI structures in Turkish. In Deniz Zeyrek & Umut Özge (eds.), Discourse meaning: The view from Turkish, 23–56. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110686654-002Search in Google Scholar
Moscati, Vincenzo. 2006. The scope of negation. Siena: Università di Siena dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Oikonomou, Despina. 2016. Imperatives are existential modals: Deriving the strong reading as an implicature. In Mary Moroney, Carol-Rose Little, Jacob Collard & Dan Burgdorf (eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Semantics and linguistic theory conference (SALT), Vol. 26, 1043–1062. Washington: Linguistic Society of America.10.3765/salt.v26i0.3949Search in Google Scholar
Ouhalla, Jamal. 1990. Sentential negation, relativised minimality and the aspectual status of auxiliaries. The Linguistic Review 7. 183–231. https://doi.org/10.1515/tlir.1990.7.2.183.Search in Google Scholar
Özgen, Murat. 2021. Stage-level/individual-level predicates and –DIr in Turkish. In A. Selmin Söylemez & Alper Kumcu (eds.), Synergy II: Linguistics: Contemporary studies on Turkish linguistics, 101–132. Berlin: Peter Lang.Search in Google Scholar
Ozil, Şeyda. 1994. Temel tümcelerde ve ortaçlı yapılarda kip anlatımı [Modality in main and relative clauses]. Dilbilim Araştırmaları [Linguistic Investigations] 5. 112–127.Search in Google Scholar
Palmer, Frank. 2001. Mood and modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139167178Search in Google Scholar
Papafragou, Anna. 2000. Modality: Issues in the semantics-pragmatics interface. Amsterdam: Elsevier.10.1163/9780585474199Search in Google Scholar
Picallo, M. 1990. Modal verbs in Catalan. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 8(2). 285–312. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00208525.Search in Google Scholar
Portner, Paul. 2004. The semantics of imperatives within a theory of clause types. In Kazuha Watanabe & Robert B. Young (eds.), Proceedings of Semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) 14, 235–252. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.10.3765/salt.v14i0.2907Search in Google Scholar
Puskás, Genoveva. 2018. To wish or not to wish: Modality and (metalinguistic) negation. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 3(1). 125. 1–33. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.412.Search in Google Scholar
Ruhi, Şükriye, Deniz Zeyrek & Necdet Osam. 1996. Türkçe’de kiplik belirteçleri ve çekim ekleri ilişkisi üzerine bazı gözlemler [Some observations on Turkish modal adverbs and their relations to inflectional suffixes]. IX. Dilbilim Kurultayı Bildirileri [Proceedings of the 9th linguistics conference], 307–315. Bolu: Abant İzzet Baysal University Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Sansa Tura, Sabahat. 1981. “Yes, He Hasn’t” and a few other not’s in Turkish. Seventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 7. 317–327. https://doi.org/10.3765/bls.v7i0.2098.Search in Google Scholar
Sansa Tura, Sabahat. 1986. -DIr in modern Turkish. In Ayhan Aksu Koç & Eser Erguvanlı Taylan (eds.), Modern studies in Turkish linguistics: Proceeding of the 2nd international conference on Turkish linguistics, 145–158. Istanbul: Boğaziçi University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Savaşır, İskender. 1986. Habits and abilities in Turkish. In Dan Slobin & Karl Zimmer (eds.), Studies in Turkish linguistics, 137–147. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.8.08savSearch in Google Scholar
Sebzecioğlu, Turgay. 2004. Türkçede kip kategorisi ve -Yor biçimbiriminin kipsel değeri [Mood category in Turkish and -Yor as a modal morpheme]. Dil Dergisi [Language journal] 124. 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1501/Dilder_0000000013.Search in Google Scholar
Sezer, Engin. 2001. Finite inflection in Turkish. In Eser Erguvanlı Taylan (ed.), The verb in Turkish, 1–45. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.44.02sezSearch in Google Scholar
Thomas, Rose. 2012. The interaction of modality and negation in Finnish. Journal of Linguistics 48(3). 653–684. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226712000035.Search in Google Scholar
Tosun, Gülşat. 1999. Split infl hypothesis in Turkish. Istanbul: Boğaziçi University MA thesis.Search in Google Scholar
Uzun, Nadir Engin. 1998. Türkçede görünüş/kip/zaman üçlüsü [Tense aspect modality in Turkish]. Dil Dergisi [Language journal] 68. 5–22.Search in Google Scholar
Uzun, Nadir Engin. 2000. Anaçizgileriyle evrensel dilbilgisi ve Türkçe [Universal grammar and Turkish]. Istanbul: Multilingual.Search in Google Scholar
Uzun, Leyla & Zeynep Erk Emeksiz. 2002. Türkçede –Ar biçimbiriminin sözdizimsel ve anlambilimsel yapısı üzerine [On the semantic and syntactic structure of -Ar in Turkish]. In Güray König, Nalan Büyükkantarcıoğlu & Firdevs Karahan (eds.), 16. dilbilim kurultayı bildirileri [Proceedings of the 16th linguistics conference], 129–145. Ankara: Hacettepe University Press.Search in Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan. 2001. On the typology of negative modals. In Jack Hoeksema, Hotze Rullmann, Victor Sánchez-Valencia & Ton van der Wouden (eds.). Perspectives on negation and polarity items, 23–48. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.40.03auwSearch in Google Scholar
van Schaaik, Gerjan. 2001. The Bosphorus papers: Studies in Turkish grammar, 1996-1999. Istanbul: Boğaziçi University Press.Search in Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai. 2006. Modality and language. In Donald M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of philosophy, 2nd edn. Detroit: MacMillan.Search in Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai & Sabine Iatridou. 2007. Anatomy of a modal construction. Linguistic Inquiry 38(3). 445–483. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2007.38.3.445.Search in Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai & Sabine Iatridou. 2017. A modest proposal for the meaning of imperatives. In Ana Arregui, María Luisa Rivero & Andrés Salanova (eds.), Modality across syntactic categories, 288–319. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718208.003.0013Search in Google Scholar
Yavaş, Feryal. 1980. The Turkish future marker. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics 5(1). 139–149. https://doi.org/10.17161/KWPL.1808.540.Search in Google Scholar
Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2004. Sentential negation and negative concord. Amsterdam: LOT Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Zidani-Eroğlu, Leyla. 1997. Indefinite noun phrases in Turkish. Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- A comparative syntax of the formal politeness markers in Japanese and Korean: -Mas/-Des and -(Su)pni
- Negative concord by phase: multiple downward agree and the parametrization of edge features
- Complex weight distinctions in Harmonic Serialism
- A footless stroll through Italian stress
- Proleptic objects as complex-NPs
- Specifier-to-head reanalysis: evidence from mandarin and Cantonese
- The interaction between modality and negation in Turkish
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- A comparative syntax of the formal politeness markers in Japanese and Korean: -Mas/-Des and -(Su)pni
- Negative concord by phase: multiple downward agree and the parametrization of edge features
- Complex weight distinctions in Harmonic Serialism
- A footless stroll through Italian stress
- Proleptic objects as complex-NPs
- Specifier-to-head reanalysis: evidence from mandarin and Cantonese
- The interaction between modality and negation in Turkish