A crosslinguistic perspective on n-words

The semantic status of so-called n-words in Negative Concord languages has been under considerable debate. This paper takes a new perspective on this problem by bringing Negative Concord together with two different phenomena that n-words give rise to in non-Negative Concord languages, namely scope splitting in German and distributional restrictions in the Scandinavian languages. I argue that all this taken together reveals the common nature of n-words across languages. These phenomena suggest that n-words should not be analysed as negative quantifiers. Rather, n-words are morpho-syntactic markers of sentential negation. I present a cross-linguistic analysis of n-words and show how the three phenomena discussed follow from it. This analysis is based on the assumption that n-words are semantically non-negative and must be licensed by a (possibly abstract) negation. It is proposed that n-words cross-linguistically are of essentially the same nature and that differences between languages regarding their behaviour are due to parametric variation

A crosslinguistic perspective on n-words

The semantic status of so-called n-words in Negative Concord languages has been under considerable debate. This paper takes a new perspective on this problem by bringing Negative Concord together with two different phenomena that n-words give rise to in non-Negative Concord languages, namely scope splitting in German and distributional restrictions in the Scandinavian languages. I argue that all this taken together reveals the common nature of n-words across languages. These phenomena suggest that n-words should not be analysed as negative quantifiers. Rather, n-words are morpho-syntactic markers of sentential negation. I present a cross-linguistic analysis of n-words and show how the three phenomena discussed follow from it. This analysis is based on the assumption that n-words are semantically non-negative and must be licensed by a (possibly abstract) negation. It is proposed that n-words cross-linguistically are of essentially the same nature and that differences between languages regarding their behaviour are due to parametric variation

Strict and non-strict negative concord in Hungarian: A unified analysis

Surányi (2006) observed that Hungarian has a hybrid (strict + non-strict) negative concord system. This paper proposes a uniform analysis of that system within the general framework of Zeijlstra (2004, 2008) and, especially, Chierchia (2013), with the following new ingredients. Sentential negation NEM is the same full negation in the presence of both strict and non-strict concord items. Preverbal SENKI `n-one’ type negative concord items occupy the specifier position of either NEM `not' or SEM `nor'. The latter, SEM spells out IS `too, even’ in the immediate scope of negation; it is a focus-sensitive head on the clausal spine. SEM can be seen as an overt counterpart of the phonetically null head that Chierchia dubs NEG; it is capable of invoking an abstract (disembodied) negation at the edge of its projection

Vanilla Rules: the "No Ice Cream" Construction

This paper is about what we call Deontically-flavored Nominal Constructions (DNCs) in English, such as "No ice cream" or "Dogs on leash only". DNCs are often perceived as commands and have been argued to be a type of non-canonical imperative, much like root infinitives in German or Russian. We argue instead that DNCs at their core are declaratives that cite a rule but can be used performatively in the right context. We propose that DNCs contain an elided deontic modal, i.e., allowed, whose presence explains their distributional restrictions and interpretational properties. Among other things, we speculate on the licensing conditions of DNCs (the presence of 'only' or the negative determiner 'no'), suggesting that these are tied to the properties of discourses in which rules can be used naturally

'At most' at last

Recent pragmatic accounts derive the ignorance inferences to which superlative modifiers give rise as quantity implicatures in a neo-Gricean framework. While these approaches successfully account for the interaction of at least with modals, the behavior of at most remains a puzzle. I propose that at most is composed of an antonymizing operator and at least and show how this accounts for the interaction of at most with modals and quantifiers in a neo-Gricean framework

Negative features on negative indefinites: Evidence from split scope

The assumption that negative indefinites (NIs) are semantically non-negative elements associating with sentential negation has proven fruitful to account for the behaviour of NIs in languages exhibiting negative concord (NC). Under this view, NIs carry a negative feature that has to be licenced by a semantic negation. There are, however, different ways in which licencing of negative features can be spelled out. This paper shows that several accounts proposed in the literature are problematic. Crucial evidence comes from constructions where another semantic operator takes scope in between the negation and the indefinite. Parallel data have been discussed for NIs in German and Dutch under the label split scope, and I show that they also bear on the analysis of NIs in NC languages. The fact that another semantic operator can take scope in between the negation and the NI is particularly problematic for analyses positing that NIs semantically associate with negation, for example, Ladusaw (1992, 1995) and Kratzer (2005), who build on the indefinite nature of NIs and postulate that NIs have to be bound by a negation operator. The conclusion is that the relation NIs bear towards sentential negation is purely syntactic and that negative features on NIs are best analysed as agreement features

'Almost there' : the meaning of "almost"

Modifiability by almost has been used as a test for the quantificational force of a DP without stating the meaning of almost explicitly. The aim of this paper is to give a semantics for almost applying across categories and to evaluate the validity of the almost test as a diagnosis for universal quantifiers. It is argued that almost is similar to other cross-categorial modifiers such as at least or exactly in referring to alternatives ordered on a scale. I propose that almost evaluates alternatives in which the modified expression is replaced by a value close by on the corresponding Horn scale. It is shown that a semantics for almost that refers to scalar alternatives derives the correct truth conditions for almost and explains selectional restrictions. At the same time, taking the semantics of almost seriously invalidates the almost test as a simple diagnosis for the nature of quantifiers