Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Licensing Double Negation in NC and non-NC languages

  • Published:
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

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 question.

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

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Baunaz, Lena. 2008. Split-DP and floating quantifiers: A syntactic approach to French Quantification. PhD dissertation, University of Geneva, Geneva.

  • Belletti, Adriana. 1990. Generalized verb movement. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolinger, Dwight. 1965. Pitch accent and sentence rhythm. In Forms of English: Accent, morpheme, order, eds. Isamu Abe and Tetsuya Keneyiko. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bošković, Željko. 2007. On the locality and motivation of Move and Agree: an even more minimal theory. Linguistic Inquiry 38: 589–644.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brody, Michael. 1990. Some remarks on the Focus Field in Hungarian. UCL Working Papers 2: 201–225.

    Google Scholar 

  • Büring, Daniel. 1999. On D-trees, beans and B-accents. Ms., University of California, Santa Cruz.

  • Carston, Robyn. 1994. Metalinguistic negation and echoic use. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 6: 321–349.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cinque, Guglielmo. 1990. Types of A-bar dependencies. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corblin, Francis. 1996. Multiple negation processing in natural language. Theoria 62: 214–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corblin, Francis, and Lucia Tovena. 2003. L’expression de la négation dans les langues romanes. In Les langues romanes: problèmes de la phrase simple, ed. Danièle Godard, 242–279. Paris: CNRS Editions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Den Dikken, Marcel. 2002. Direct and parasitic polarity item licensing. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 5(1): 35–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Déprez, Viviane. 2003. Concordance négative, syntaxe des mots-N et variation dialectale. Cahier de Linguistique Francaise 25: 97–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ducrot, Oswald. 1972. Dire et ne pas dire: principes de sémantique linguistique. Paris: Hermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • É. Kiss, Katalin. 1987. Configurationality in Hungarian. Dordrecht: Reidel.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • É. Kiss, Katalin. 1998. Identificational focus versus information focus. Language 74: 245–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • É. Kiss, Katalin. 2000. A [+referáló] és [+specifikus] jegyek ellenőrzése a kontrásztív topik esetében [the checking of the features [+referential] and [+specific] in the case of contrastive topic]. In A mai magyar nyelvleírásának újjabb módszerei IV [New Methods in the Description of Hungarian IV], eds. László Büky and Márta Maleczki, pp. 85–96. Szeged: University of Szeged Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • É. Kiss, Katalin. 2002. The syntax of Hungarian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gécseg, Zsuzsanna. 2002. A kontrasztív topik szintaxisárol és szemantikájárol [on the syntax and semantics of contrastive topics]. Magyar Nyelv XCVII 3:283–293 and 4:423–431

  • Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1998. Polarity sensitivity as nonveridical dependency. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2000. Negative … concord? Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 18: 457–523.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gyuris, Beáta. 2002. The semantics of contrastive topics in Hungarian. PhD dissertation, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

  • Haegeman, Liliane. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Haegeman, Liliane, and Rafaella Zanuttini. 1996. Negative concord in West Flemish. In Parameters and functional heads: Essays in comparative syntax, eds. Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi, 117–179. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Höhle, Tilman N.. 1992. Über Verum-Fokus im Deutschen. In Informationsstruktur und Grammatik: Sonderheft 4, Linguistische Berichte, ed. Joachim Jacobs, 112–141. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, Laurence. 1989. A natural history of negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, Laurence. 1991. Duplex negatio affirmat… : the economy of double negation. In Papers from the 27th regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, eds. Lise Dobrin, Lynn Nichols, and Rosa M. Rodriguez, 80–106. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horváth, Julia. 1986. FOCUS in the theory of grammar and the syntax of Hungarian. Dordrecht: Foris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs, Joachim. 1996. Bemerkungen zur I-Topikalisierung [Remarks on I-topicalisation]. Sprache und Pragmatik 41: 1–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jespersen, Otto. 1924. The philosophy of grammar. London: Allen & Urwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kálmán, László, and Ádám Nádasdy. 1994. A hangsúly [stress]. In Strukturális Magyar Nyelvtan 2: Fonológia [A structural grammar of Hungarian 2: Phonology], ed. Ferenc Kiefer, 393–467. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karagjosova, Elena. 2006. Correction and acceptance by contrastive focus. In Brandial ‘06: Proceedings of the 10th workshop on the semantics and pragmatics of dialogue, Potsdam, Germany, 11–13 September, eds. David Schlangen and Raquel Fernández, 26–33. Potsdam: University of Potsdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kayne, Richard. 1984. Connectedness and binary branching. Dordrecht: Foris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenesei, István. 1986. On the logic of word-order in Hungarian. In Topic, focus and configurationality, eds. Werner Abraham and Sjaak de Meij, 143–159. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenesei, István. 2006. Focus as identification. In The architecture of focus: Studies in generative grammar 82, eds. Valéria Molnár and Susanne Winkler, 137–168. Berlin: de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knittel, Marie-Laurence. 1998. Structure morphosyntaxique des syntagmes nominaux possessivés du hongrois. In La grammaire de la possession, eds. Jacqueline Guéron and Anne Zribi-Hertz, 128–183. Nanterre: Presses Universitaires de Paris 10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kratzer, Angelika. 1991. The representation of focus. In Semantics: An international handbook of contemporary research, eds. Arnim von Stechow and Dieter Wunderlich, 825–834. Berlin: de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krifka, Manfred. 1991. A compositional semantics for multiple focus constructions. Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 1: 127–158.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ladusaw, William. 1992. Expressing negation. In Proceedings of the conference on semantics and linguistic theory, 2, 237–259. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laka, Itziar. 1990. Negation in syntax: on the nature of functional categories and projections. PhD dissertation, MIT.

  • Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information structure and sentence form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Young-Suk, and Laurence R. Horn. 1994. Any as indefinite plus even. Ms., Yale University, New Haven, CT.

  • Lee, Chungmin. 1999. Contrastive topic, a locus of the interface: Evidence from Korean and English. In The semantics/pragmatics interface from different points of view: Current research in the semantics/pragmatics interface 1, ed. Ken Turner. Oxford: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Chungmin. 2003. Contrastive topic and/or contrastive focus. In Japanese/Korean Linguistics 12, ed. William McClure. Stanford: CSLI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Chungmin. 2006. Contrastive (predicate) topic, intonation, and scalar meanings. In Topic and focus: Meaning and intonation from a crosslinguistic perspective, eds. Chungmin Lee, Matthew Gordon, and Daniel Büring, 151–175. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maleczki, Márta. 2003. Information structure, argument structure and typological variation. In Meaning through language contrast, eds. Katarzyna Jaszczolt and Ken Turner, 223–244. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mathieu, Eric. 2001. On the nature of French n-words. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 13: 319–352.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molnár, Valéria. 1991. Das Topik im Deutschen und im Ungarischen [Topic in German and in Hungarian]. Lund: Almqvist & Wiksell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molnár, Valéria. 1998. Topic in Focus. On the syntax, phonology and pragmatics of the so-called “contrastive topic” in Hungarian and German. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 45: 89–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olsvay, Csaba. 2000. Negative universal quantifiers in Hungarian. A syntactic analysis of negative universal quantifiers in Hungarian. MA thesis, Eötvös Loránd University.

  • Olsvay, Csaba. 2006. Negative universal quantifiers in Hungarian. Lingua 116: 245–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Péters, Hugues. 2001. Raising and negative quantification in French. Generative Grammar in Geneva 2: 71–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pesetsky, David, and Esther Torrego. 2007. The syntax of valuation and the interpretability of features. In Phrasal and clausal architecture: Syntactic derivation and interpretation. In honor of Joseph E. Emonds, eds. Simin Karimi, Vida Samiian, and Wendy K. Wilkins, 262–294. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Puskás, Genoveva. 1994. Sentential negation in Hungarian. Rivista di Linguistica 6: 57–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Puskás, Genoveva. 1998. On the neg-criterion in Hungarian. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 45(1–2): 167–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Puskás, Genoveva. 1999. Negation and n-words in Hungarian. In Proceedings of the twenty-eighth western conference on linguistics, eds. Nancy Antrim, Grant Goodall, Martha Shulte-Nafeh, and Vida Samiian, 443–456. Fresno: California State University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Puskás, Genoveva. 2000. Word order in Hungarian: The syntax of A-bar positions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Puskás, Genoveva. 2002. On negative licensing contexts and the role of n-words. In Approaches to Hungarian 8: Papers from the Budapest conference, eds. István Kenesei and Péter Siptár, 81–106. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

    Google Scholar 

  • Puskás, Genoveva. 2006. Double negation and information structure: somewhere between topic and focus. In The Architecture of Focus, eds. Valéria Molnár and Susanne Winkler, 291–317. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Puskás, Genoveva. 2009. De l’interaction entre structure informationnelle et syntaxe: quelques réflexions sur la double négation en français. In Mélanges plurilingues offerts à Suzanne Schlyter à l’Occasion de son 65ème anniversaire, eds. Petra Bernardini, Verner Egerland, and Jonas Granfeldt, 273–287. Lund: Lunds Universiteit.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of grammar, ed. Liliane Haegeman, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Rizzi, L.. 2004. On the form of chains: criterial positions and ECP effects. Ms., University of Sienna.

  • Romero, M., and C.-H. Han. 2002. Verum focus in negative Yes/No questions and Ladd’s p/nonp ambiguity. In Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) 11, ed. Brendan Jackson, 204–224. Ithaca: CLC Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rooryck, Johan. 2008. On the scalar nature of syntactic negation in French. Paper presented at the Research Seminar, Linguistics Department, University of Geneva.

  • Rooth, Mats. 1985. Association with focus. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

  • Rooth, Mats. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1: 75–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Stechow, Arnim. 1991. Current issues in the theory of focus. In Semantics: An international handbook of contemporary research, eds. Amim von Stechow and Dieter Wunderlich, 804–825. Berlin: Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surányi, Balázs. 2002. Negation and the negativity of n-words in Hungarian. In Approaches to Hungarian 8: Papers from the Budapest conference, eds. István Kenesei and Péter Siptár, 107–132. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surányi, Balázs. 2003. Multiple operator movements in Hungarian. Utrecht: University of Utrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surányi, Balázs. 2006. Quantification and focus in negative concord. Lingua 116: 272–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • de Swart, Henriëtte, and Ivan A. Sag. 2002. Negation and negative concord in Romance. Linguistics and Philosophy 25: 373–417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szabolcsi, Anna. 1981. Compositionality in focus. Folia Linguistica 15: 141–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szabolcsi, Anna. 1983. The possessor that ran away from home. The Linguistic Review 3: 89–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szabolcsi, Anna. 1994. The noun phrase. In Syntax and semantics 27: The syntactic structure of Hungarian, eds. Ferenc Kiefer and Katalin É. Kiss, 179–274. San Diego: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Szabolcsi, Anna. 1997. Strategies for scope taking. In Ways of scope taking, ed. A. Szabolcsi, 109–154. Dordrecht: Foris.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Tomioka, Satoshi. 2009. Contrastive topics operate on speech acts. In Information structure: theoretical, typological, and experiment perspectives, eds. Malte Zimmermann and Caroline Féry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tóth, Ildikó. 1995. Negative Polarity licensing in Hungarian. MA Thesis, Szeged, Hungary: József Attila University.

  • Tovena, Lucia. 1998. The fine structure of polarity sensitivity. London: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wagner, Michael. 2008. A compositional analysis of contrastive topics. In Proceedings of NELS 38, eds. Muhammad Abdurrahman, Anisa Schardl, and Martin Walkow, 1–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watanabe, Akira. 2004. The genesis of negative concord: syntax and morphology of negative doubling. Linguistic Inquiry 35: 559–612.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yabushita, Katsuhiko. 2008. A new approach to contrastive topic: Partition semantics and pragmatics. In Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) 18, 747–764. Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zanuttini, Rafaella. 1991. Syntactic properties of sentential negation: a comparative study of Romance languages. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

  • Zanuttini, Rafaella. 1997. Negation and clausal structure: A comparative study of Romance languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeijlstra, Hedde H.. 2004. Sentential negation and negative concord. PhD Dissertation, University of Amsterdam. Utrecht: LOT Publications.

  • Zeijlstra, Hedde H.. 2010. There is only one way to Agree. Paper presented at the 33rd generative linguistics in the Old World conference (GLOW 33), Wroclaw, April 2010.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département de Linguistique, Faculté des Lettres, University of Geneva, 5, rue de Candolle, 1204, Geneva, Switzerland

    Genoveva Puskás

Authors
  1. Genoveva Puskás
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Genoveva Puskás.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Puskás, G. Licensing Double Negation in NC and non-NC languages. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 30, 611–649 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-011-9163-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-011-9163-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation