Licensing Double Negation in NC and non-NC languages

The paper proposes a syntactic and semantic analysis of Double Negation (DN). It is shown that there are two types of DN. Strong DN is the result of a Focus construction that involves a polar reading triggered by a Verum Focus; Weak DN, on the other hand, arises when the corresponding n-word is marked as a Contrastive Topic and introduces weak (i.e. non-exclusive) alternatives. The paper discusses the occurrence of these two kinds of DN in two types of languages, which feature different negative strategies. While Hungarian is a strict NC language with non-negative n-words and an obligatory negative marker, English and German are non-NC languages, with negative n-words that can function on their own. It is shown that both strong DN and weak DN occur in each of these languages. However, the mechanisms that license n-words contributing the DN reading are different, due to the differences in the nature of the n-words and in the discourse-functional behavior of the languages in questio

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

To wish or not to wish: Modality and (metalinguistic) negation

This paper examines the interaction between negation and some expressions of bouletic modality. Whereas most other types of modals may scope below negation, expressions of bouletic modality in the form of hortative and optative markers never do. The distribution of high adverbials, as well as co-occurrence possibilities with a negative head, such as French 'ne', reveal that hortatives and optatives do not target the same position: they occupy two different heads within the left peripheral structure. However, it is argued that the syntax of the bouletic operator, which is analyzed as involving high left-peripheral positions, prevents the negative marker from syntactically and semantically scoping over it. This is shown to also correlate with access to metalinguistic negation interpretations. While with the adequate context, the bouletic operators examined here are compatible with metalinguistic negation, no wide scope interpretation above the bouletic modal content is accessible. This is exactly the contexts in which the negative head is syntactically banned. It is proposed that these observations constitute evidence for the fact that metalinguistic negation requires specific syntactic conditions, namely access to a high contrast-related position. Metalinguistic negation is obviously triggered by contextual input, but, at least in the cases examined here, is not blind to syntax