Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Introduction

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Negation and Polarity: Experimental Perspectives

Part of the book series: Language, Cognition, and Mind ((LCAM,volume 1))

  • 1199 Accesses

Abstract

The motivation of the volume is first presented by sketching the historical developments of investigations on various negative expressions throughout history in the West and the East. A central concept is classical negation as a truth-reverser vs. asymmetric negation for contrariness and scalarity (contrastive-based). The researches on negation and negative polarity is reviewed, showing how licensing has been approached by distinguishing between strong vs. weak NPIs, leaving unresolved issues. The contents of the fifteen chapters of the volume are introduced, most of which relate to experimental perspectives. The volume is unique in focusing on crosslinguistic empirical data and cognitive processes.

I thank Larry Horn for the very helpful last minute comments on this introductory chapter. Thanks also to Pierre Larrivée for helping me to try to make this chapter more readable. The usual disclaimers apply.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    In some languages such as Suena, Apali and Finnish, the negative construction/auxiliary makes the lexical verb lose its finiteness. Miestamo (2005) distinguishes between symmetric type—negative marking not affecting its affirmative counterpart—and asymmetric type—affecting it affirmative counterpart—, thus criticizing Dahl’s 1979 typology. He takes Korean as an example of having both the symmetric type with the short form negation (SN) an and the asymmetric type with the long form negation (LN) –ci anh-. The two forms are alternatively used as descriptive sentential negation. In imperative and other desiderative irrealis constructions, the LN frame + a suppletive negative form, i.e. –ci mal- is employed (Lee 1978a; Han and Lee 2007).

  2. 2.

    Poutsma’s (1928: 105) “the shifting of not often has the effect of toning down the negativing of a sentence” is cited by Horn (2014).

  3. 3.

    Edward Keenan (p.c.) commented: Horn’s (1989) book includes everything on negation.

  4. 4.

    A phrase (quantifier/negation as a function) takes scope over a larger expression or clause (as an argument) that contains it when the larger expression serves as the smaller phrase’s semantic argument, Barker and Shan (2014).

    1. (1)

      John said [Mary called [everyone] yesterday] with relief.

    The function everyone takes scope over the embedded clause as argument or continuation. Everyone denotes a function that takes as its argument the property corresponding to the surrounding embedded clause (continuation) (nuclear scope) with the position occupied by the scope-taker abstracted, namely, λx:yesterday(called x) m.

  5. 5.

    The previous volumes with negation and polarity in their titles are (0) Forget et al. (eds) (1997), (1) Horn et al. (eds) (2000), (2) Hoeksema et al. (eds) (2001), and (3) Zeijlstra et al. (eds) (2007). All are concerned with syntactic and semantic issues. (0) results from an earlier 1995 colloquium, with Horn and Giannakidou included. (1) treats the syntax of sentence negation such as Haegeman’s negative inversion by focus (“With no job would Mary be happy”) (Jackendoff’s S-negation) and preposing by topic (“With no job, Mary would be happy”) (Jackendoff’s constituent negation); scope and licensing are treated—Progovacs logophoric n-words, Horn’s indiscriminatives and the Free-Choice indefnite, Portner and Zanuttini’s negation in wh exclamatives and interrogatives, and Ladusaw’s theorizing of thetic and categorial, stage and individual, weak and strong and more chapters are included. (2) has Atlas’s typology and acquisition hypothesis, van der Auwera’s typology of negative modals, Drozd’s metalinguistic negation in child English, Giannakidou’s (non)veridicality, Hoeksema and Rullmann’s scalarity and polarity, Horn’s Flaubert triggers, squatitive negation and other Kennedy, Klein and Lahiri’s chapters. (3) treats mostly syntactic issues of negation, polarity and negative concord.

References

  • Aikhenvald, A., & Dixon, R. M. W. (1998). Dependencies between Grammatical Systems. Language, 74, 56–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alonso-Ovalle, L. (2006). Disjunction in alternative semantics. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, C. L. (1970). Double negatives. Linguistic inquiry, 1, 169–186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, C., & Shan, C. (2014). Continuations and natural language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartsch, R. (1973). ‘Negative transportation’ Gibt es Nicht. Linguistische Bericht, 27, 1–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolinger, D. (1972). Degree words. The Hague: Mouton.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, P., & Just, M. A. (1975). Sentence comprehension: A psycholinguistic model of sentence verification. Psychological Review, 82, 45–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chierchia, G. (2004). Scalar implicatures, polarity phenomena, and the syntax/pragmatics interface. In A. Belletti (Ed.), Structures and Beyond, (pp. 39–103). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Choi, S. (1988). The semantic development of negation: Across-linguistic study. Journal of Child Language, 15, 517–532.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colinet, M., & Grégoire, W. (2012). Emphatic NPI/FCI and adversative discourse relations, a probabilistic approach. In M. Okumura et al. (Eds.), JSAI-iSAI 2001 (pp. 27–39). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, C., & Postal, P. M. (2014). Classical NEG raising. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Constant, N. (2012). English rise-fall-rise: A study in the semantics and pragmatics of intonation. Linguistics and Philosophy, 35, 407–442.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Constant, N. (2014). Contrastive topic: Meanings and realizations. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corblin, F. (1996). Multiple negation processing in natural languages. Theoria, 62(3), 214–259.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, H. H. & Chase, W. G. (1972). On the process of comparing sentences against pictures. Cognitive Psychology, 3(3), 472–517.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crnič, L. (2011). On the meaning and distribution of concessive scalar particles. NELS, 41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crnič, L. (2014). Non-monotonicity in NPI licensing. Natural Language Semantics, 22, 169–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dahl, Ö. (1979). Typology of sentence negation. Linguistics, 17, 79–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dayal, V. (1998). Any as inherently modal. Linguistics and Philosophy, 21, 433–476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Swart, H. (2010). Expression and interpretation of negation: An OT typology. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • de Swart, H., & Fonville, R. (2014). Double negatives and intonation in Dutch. In D. Gilbers & J. Hoeksema (Eds.), Black book: A Festschrift for Frans Zwarts (pp. 86–100). Groningen: CLCG.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fillmore, C. (1963). The position of embedding transformations in Grammar. Word, 19, 208–231.

    Google Scholar 

  • Forget, D., Hirschbuhler, P., Martineau, F. & Rivero, M.-L. (Eds.). (1997). Negation and polarity: Syntax and semantics. Benjamins: Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gajewski, J. R. (2005). Neg-raising: Polarity and presupposition. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gajewski, J. R. (2007). Neg-raising and polarity. Linguistics and Philosophy, 30, 289–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gajewski, J. R. (2011). Licensing strong NPIs. Natural Language Semantics, 19, 109–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giannakidou, A. (1997). The landscape of polarity items. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Groningen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ginzberg, J. (2012). The interative stance: Meaning for conversation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Glenberg, A. M., Robertson, D. A., Jennifer, J. L., & Johnson-Glenberg, M. C. (1999). Not propositions. Journal of Cognitive Systems Research, 1, 19–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guerzoni, E., & Sharvit, Y. (2007). A question of strength: on NPIs in interrogative clauses. Linguistics and Philosophy, 30, 361–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Han, C., & Lee, C. (2007). On negative imperatives in Korean. Linguistic Inquiry, 38, 373–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heim, I. (1984). A note on negative polarity and downward entailingness. NELS, 14, 98–107.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirschberg, J. (1985). A theory of scalar implicature (natural languages, pragmatics, inference). Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoeksema (2000). Negative polarity items: Triggering, scope and C-command. In L. Horn & Y. Kato, (Eds.), Papers in negation and polarity. semantic and syntactic perspectives, prefinal version, (pp. 123–154). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R. (1971). Negative transportation: Unsafe at any speed? CLS, 7, 120–133.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R. (1972). On the semantic properties of logical operators in English. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R. (1978). Remarks on neg-raising. In P. Cole (Ed.), Syntax and semantics (pp. 129–220). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R. (1985). Metalinguistic negation and pragmatic ambiguity. Language, 61, 121–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R. (1989). A natural history of negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R. (2014). The cloud of unknowing, In D. Gilbers & J. Hoeksema (Eds.), Black book: A Festschrift for Frans Zwarts (pp. 86–100). Groningen: CLCG.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R. (2016, this volume). Licensing NPIs: Some negative (and positive) results. In P. Larrivée & C. Lee (Eds.), Negation and polarity: Experimental perspectives (pp. 281–305). Cham: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R., & Bayer, S. (1984). Short-circuited implicature: A negative contribution. Linguistics and Philosophy, 7, 397–414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L. R., & Kato, Y. (Eds.). (2000). Negation and polarity: syntactic and semantic perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoeksema, J., Rullmann, H., Sanchez-Valencia, V., & van der Wouden, T. (Eds.). (2001). Perspectives on negation and polarity. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Israel, M. (1996). Polarity sensitivity as lexical semantics. Linguistics and Philosophy, 19, 619–666.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jayez, J., & Tovena, L. M. (2008). Evidentiality and determination. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, 12, 271–286.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jayez, J., & Tovena, L. M. (2011). The meaning and (a bit of) the history of quelque. In L. M. Tovena (Ed.), French Determiners in and across time (pp. 111–39). London: College Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1971). Comprehension of negation with quantification. Journal of verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 10, 244–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kadmon, N., & Landman, F. (1994). Any. Linguistics and Philosophy, 16, 353–422.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karttunen, L., & Peters, S. (1979). Conventional implicature. In C. K. Oh & D. A. Dinneen (Eds.), Syntax and semantics (pp. 1–56). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaup, B., Yaxley, R. H., Madden, C. J., Zwaan, R. A., & Lüdtke, J. (2007). Experiential simulations of negated text information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 976–990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J.-B. (1996). The grammar of negation: A lexicalist constraint-based perspective. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klima, E. (1964). Negation in English. In J. D. Fodor & J. J. Katz (Eds.), The structure of language (pp. 246–323). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kroeger, P. (2014). External negation in Malay/Indonesian. Language, 90, 137–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ladusaw, W. A. (1979). Polarity sensitivity as inherent scope relations. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, Austin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff, R. (1969). A syntactic argument for negative transportation. CLS, 5, 149–157.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lahiri, U. (1998). Focus and negative polarity in Hindi. Natural Language Semantics, 6, 57–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (1978a). Negative imperatives in Korean. In C-W. Kim (Ed.), Papers in Korean linguistics (pp. 149–156). Gleason: Hornbeam Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (1978b). The analysis of al-ta ‘know’. In Maum 1 (pp. 60–65). Seoul: Yusimhoy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (1996). Negative polarity items in English & Korean. Language Sciences, 18(1–2), 505–523. Also in K. Jaszczolt & K. Turner (Eds.), Contrastive semantics and pragmatics. Oxford: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (1997). Negative polarity and free choice: Where do they come from? In P. Dekker, M. Stokhof, & Y. de Venema (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th Amsterdam Colloquium. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (1999). Types of NPIs and nonveridicality in Korean and other languages. In G. Storto (Ed.), UCLA Working Papers in Syntax (pp. 96–132). Los Angeles: University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2000a). Contrastive predicates and conventional scales. CLS, 36(1), 243–257.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2000b). Topic contrastive topic and focus: What’s on our minds. Journal of Cognitive Science, 1–2, 21–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2001a). Contrastive topic and proposition structure. In A. M. Di Sciullo (Ed.), The asymmetry conference (pp. 345–372). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2001b). Contrastive topic and conventional scales. CLS, 36(1), 243–257.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2003a). Contrastive topic and/or contrastive focus. In B. McClure (Ed.), Japanese/Korean linguistics (pp. 352–364). Stanford: CSLI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2003b). Negative polarity items and free choice in Korean and Japanese: A contrastive study. Icwungenehak 22. Korean Society of Bilingualism.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2006). Contrastive topic/focus and polarity in discourse. In K. von Heusinger & K. Turner (Eds.), Where semantics meets pragmatics (pp. 381–420). London: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2007). Contrastive (predicate) topic, intonation, and scalar meanings. In C. Lee, M. Gordon, & D. Buring (Eds.), Topic and focus: Crosslinguistic perspectives on meaning and intonation (pp. 151–175). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2010a). Scalar implicatures revisited. In H. Kishimoto (Ed.), Kotoba-no Taisyoo (pp. 67–80). Tokyo: Kurosio.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2010b). Information structure in PA/SN or descriptive/metalinguistic negation: With reference to scalar implicatures. In D. Shu & K. Turner, (Eds.), Contrasting meaning in the languages of the East and West (pp. 33–73). Oxford: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, S., & Hong, S. J. (2016, this volume). An experimental study of Neg-raising inferences in Korean. In P. Larrivée & C. Lee (Eds.), Negation and polarity: Experimental perspectives, (pp. 257–277). Cham: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Y.-S., & Horn, L. (1994). Any as indefinite plus even. Ms., Yale University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miestamo, M. (2005). Standard negation. In The negation of declarative verbal main clauses in a typological perspective. Berlin: de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Payne, J. (1985). Complex phrases and complex sentences. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (Vol II, pp. 3–41). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pea, R. D. (1980). The development of negation in early child language. In D. R. Olson (Ed.), The social foundations of language and thought (pp. 156–186). New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prince, E. (1976). The syntax and semantics of NEG-raising, with evidence from French. Language, 52, 404–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raju, R. T. (1954). The principle of four-cornered negation in Indian philosohy. Review of Metaphysics, 7, 694–713.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richter, F., & Sailer, M. (2006). Modeling typological markedness in semantics: The case of negative concord. In S. Mueller (Ed.), Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (pp. 305–325). Stanford: CSLI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, C. (1996). Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. OSU Working Papers in Linguistics, 49, 91–136.

    Google Scholar 

  • Romoli, J. (2012). Soft but strong. Neg-raising, soft triggers, and exhaustification. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Romoli, J. (2013). A scalar implicature-based approach to neg-raising. Linguistics and Philosophy, 36, 291–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rooth, M. (1985). Association with focus. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst. GLSA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rullmann, H. (1997). Even, polarity, and scope. In M. Gibson, G. Wiebe, & G. Libben (Eds.), Papers in experimental and theoretical linguistics (pp. 40–64). Edmonton: Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rullmann, H. (2003). Additive particles and polarity. Journal of Semantics, 20, 329–401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sauerland, U. (2004). Scalar implicatures in complex sentences. Linguistics and Philosophy, 27, 367–391.

    Google Scholar 

  • Volterra, V., & Antinucci, F. (1979). Negation in child language: A pragmatic study. In E. Ochs & B. B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Developmental pragmatics (pp. 281–303). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Fintel, K. (1999). NPI-licensing, Strawson-entailment, and context-dependency. Journal of Semantics, 16, 97–148.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wason, P. C. (1965). The contexts of plausible denial. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 4, 7–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wheeler, R. E. (2001). Modern Mathematics. Kendall Hunt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, K. (1993). Towards a unified semantics of even: A reply to Rooth. SALT, 3, 182–201.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, K. (1996). The scope of even. Natural Language Semantics, 4, 193–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeijlstra, H. (2010). Emphatic multiple negative expressions in Dutch. The Linguistic Review, 27(1), 37–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeijlstra, H., & Söhn J. H. (Eds.). (2007). Proceedings of the workshop on negation and polarity, Tübingen: UB/SFB.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zwarts, F. (1995). Nonveridical contexts. Linguistic Analysis, 25, 286–312.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zwarts, F. (1996). Facets of negation. In J. van der Does & J. van Eijck (Eds.), Quantifiers, logic and language (pp. 385–421). Stanford: CSLI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zwarts, F. (1998). Three types of polarity. In F. Hamm & E. Hinrichs (Eds.), Plural quantification (pp. 177–238). Kluwer: Dordrecht.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Chungmin Lee

Authors
  1. Chungmin Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chungmin Lee .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Département des Sciences du Langage, University of Caen Lower Normandy, Caen, France

    Pierre Larrivée

  2. #308 Bldg 150, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Chungmin Lee

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lee, C. (2016). Introduction. In: Larrivée, P., Lee, C. (eds) Negation and Polarity: Experimental Perspectives. Language, Cognition, and Mind, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-17463-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-17464-8

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation