Abstract
In this article, I provide a unified explanation for two puzzling phenomena concerning sentence-initial negation: the ban on True Negative Imperatives that is attested in many languages and the ban on sole negative markers in sentence-initial position in V-to-C languages. I argue that both phenomena can be explained once it is assumed after Han (2001) that operators encoding the illocutionary force of a speech act take scope from matrix C∘ and may not be outscoped by negation. Consequently, a morphosyntactically negative element can appear in a position in C∘ or SpecCP only if it is semantically non-negative or if it can reconstruct to a lower position.
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Notes
Negative sentences with the illocutionary force of an imperative are often referred to as prohibitives.
See Van den Auwera (2005) and references therein for many more examples of languages that ban TNIs and the way those languages express SNIs.
At first sight, the ban on TNIs only seems to apply to the singular imperative forms in Italian. However, the Italian plural imperative form and the corresponding 2nd person indicative are phonologically identical. I follow Zanuttini (1997) who takes plural imperatives to be banned as well and takes the (phonologically identical) indicative forms as the corresponding SNI. This adoption is in line with the observation that no other language banning TNIs makes a distinction between singular and plural imperatives.
Rivero and Terzi (1995) argue that in these cases the Vpart/inf does not raise to C∘, but to a position lower than Neg∘ and that the subject is in an even lower position. This analysis seems to be contradicted by the fact that (non) avendo may even precede speaker-oriented adverbs such as evidentemente ‘evidently’, which occupy a position higher than NegP, as pointed out by Cinque (1999) and repeated in Han (2001).
Since no MoodP is selected in affirmative clauses, positive imperatives are not problematic.
In Zeijlstra (2004) it is argued for Dutch that there is no NegP and that the negative marker niet occupies a vP-adjunct position (instead of SpecNegP). Hence, the occurrence of niet in vP in. Positing niet to occupy some SpecNegP position would not pose any consequences for this analysis, though.
Note that the feature checking mechanism implemented here is one where checking takes place between a higher interpretable and a lower uninterpretable feature. At first sight this seems at odds with more standard versions of feature checking under Agree (Chomsky 1995a, 1995b, 2000, 2001). However, even under these canonical versions of Agree we find similar checking relations. Case features are for instance checked in this reverse way (albeit it simultaneously with phi-feature checking in the traditional direction), as are focus features and Wh features under Rizzi’s Criterion approach (where on syntactic grounds the operator must occupy the (highest) specifier position). Also, in Pesetsky and Torrego’s (2007) recent approach to Agree, where feature value and feature interpretability are disentangled, interpretable features are also able to check uninterpretable features. Also, Adger (2003) proposes a series of examples where he argues that different features are checked in different directions. Finally, Wurmbrand (2010, 2011, 2013, to appear) and Zeijlstra (2012) have argued that Agree should always take place in a top-down fashion only.
Given that most versions of Agree, either implicitly or explicitly, allow differences with respect to the direction of feature checking, I take it to be a legitimate step to assume that negative features may only be checked in a top-down fashion, i.e., interpretable negative features must c-command uninterpretable negative features.
Note that this analysis requires that an abstract Op ¬ is also available in Non-strict NC languages, for instance in constructions such as (24c). Here the abstract negative operator checks the preverbal n-word’s [uNEG] feature. Adding the negative marker non would lead to a double negation reading (which is actually available if the preverbal n-word is stressed). Given that Italian has an abstract negative operator, next to the overt negative operator non, the following question immediately arises: why can’t the abstract operator license postverbal n-words as well, giving rise to sentences such as *Gianni ha telefonato a nessuno, which is ruled out? The explanation is the following: the abstract negative operator is induced in the lowest position in the clause. In the case of a single postverbal n-word, it would occupy a vP-internal position. However, this does not give rise to a sentential negation: the reading that comes about is something like ‘there is a calling event, but no individual that has been called.’ This leads to a semantic contradiction. See Herburger (2001) and Zeijlstra (2004) for a more detailed description and explanation of these facts. It must be noted, though, that the analysis that semantic anomalies may be responsible for ungrammaticality judgements is not uncontroversial. The reader is referred to Chierchia (2006) for the most recent defense of this line of reasoning and Giannakidou (2011) for a critical evaluation of it.
Another question that arises concerns the distribution of the abstract negative operator. I allude to a general mechanism that allows inclusion of an abstract operator only if the grammaticality of a sentence cannot be accounted for otherwise (cf. Zeijlstra 2004, 2008; Biberauer and Zeijlstra 2012, for extensive discussion). Consequently, Op ¬ cannot be included in a sentence of that sentence does not contain an overt element carrying [uNEG] as well. Note that this also ensures that the expression of negation must always be overtly marked (cf. Horn 1989). The only difference is that the marker of negation and the semantic negation do not necessarily have to be realised by the same lexical element.
However, as one reviewer correctly remarks, the question arises as to why dhen may not be left out in other constructions, e.g., when argumental n-words precede it. In fact, the optionality of dhen in preverbal oute kan constructions is exceptional, as in most other Strict NC languages (except for some Catalan dialects) the negative marker must always be included. The fact that dhen may be left out in some constructions which are already being marked negatively, directly shows that the linguistic contribution that dhen makes is sometimes redundant, suggesting that dhen is not semantically negative itself. Of course, the question remains open as to why dhen cannot always be removed if it is preceded by an n-word. Nonetheless, this fact does not form an argument against agreement-based analyses of NC, as the obligatoriness of agreement markers is not different from the obligatoriness of agreement morphemes in other constructions (e.g., in cases of poor subject-verb agreement) and is generally poorly understood. Still, the question remains as to why, if preverbal n-words obligatorily need to be accompanied by dhen, oute kan does not. One possibility is that oute kan is subject to linguistic change (from a plain NPI to an n-word) and is therefore currently lexically ambiguous between a plain NPI and an n-word. If that is correct, it may in principle be inserted both with and without negative marker, due to this lexical ambiguity.
But why is (28a) ruled out without the negative marker being present? Fully analogous to the reason why postverbal n-words must always be preceded by a negative marker (see footnote 13), if the negative marker is absent, the negative operator immediately c-commanding oute kan simply scopes from too low a position, namely a vP-internal position, in constructions like (28a) and would thus yield a semantic contradiction.
Note that the fact that all n-words, which originated from NPIs, were also at some point lexically ambiguous between both plain NPIs and n-words is supportive for such an analysis (cf. Herburger 2001; Roberts and Roussou 2003; Jäger 2010). For a more detailed discussion of the behavior Greek oute kan (and an alternative analysis) the reader is referred to Giannakidou (2007).
Han (2001) suggests that the fact that the subjunctive encodes an irrealis plays a role in the imperative interpretation, but this is contradicted by the fact that (for instance) an indicative can fulfil this function as well. (Italian plural SNIs exhibit an indicative.)
It must be noted, though, that Standard French differs from Polish in the sense that ne by itself may never render a sentence negative, whereas Polish nie can (cf. Breitbarth 2009; Haegeman and Lohndahl 2010). Therefore, French ne cannot be taken to carry [uNEG]. In order to account for this difference, I follow Zeijlstra (2010), who argues that French ne is a plain NPI and not a concordal element in the first place.
In French, negative imperatives are different from non-negative imperatives in the sense that non-negative imperatives block proclitisation on Vimp, whereas proclitisation is allowed with negative imperatives: *Le Regarde! (int: ‘watch it’) vs. Ne le regarde pas! ‘Don’t watch it’. However, this is not due to the negation, but due to the fact that French generally blocks proclitisation in sentence-initial position (see also the discussion in Sect. 2.1.1). If, on the other hand, the negative marker precedes the verbal-clitic complex, nothing prevents clitics from keeping their positions.
One of the reviewers points out that Greek mi, but not dhen, can give rise to expletive negation. However, expletive negation does not result from the negative marker carrying [uNEG]. Many languages, some which may even lack Negative Concord altogether, have negative markers that are semantically negative, but still they exhibit expletive negation, e.g., German. This shows that the interpretational mechanism that underlies expletive negation does not require negative markers to be semantically vacuous (cf. Krifka 2010 for discussion).
Thanks to Adrian Brasoveanu (p.c.) for giving me these examples.
One may wonder whether the explanation of the Romanian ban on TNIs also extends to other languages, such as Greek. Indeed, such an explanation cannot be excluded for the ban on TNIs in Greek and it could very well be the case that the clitical behaviour of the Greek negative marker blocks TNIs in this language, regardless of mi’s semantic value.
In order to make truly typological claims, the language sample should be made much broader and include languages from all kinds of language families. This is still a task for further research. For a typological overview of languages that (seem to) ban TNIs, the reader is referred to Van der Auwera (2005).
Example taken from Zanuttini (1997).
Examples taken from Martins (2000:194).
Dutch is standardly analysed as a V-to-C language after Den Besten (1977/1983), as it exhibits Verb Second (V2). Nevertheless, some scholars have argued that not every instance of V2 should be analysed in terms of V-to-C movement. Zwart (1993) argues that non-inverted Dutch main clauses exhibit V-to-I movement and Iatridou and Kroch (1992) have analysed cases of Icelandic and Yiddish (embedded) Verb Second as V-to-I movement, too. However, these arguments are not uncontroversial and have been countered elsewhere in the literature. I refer the reader to Weerman (1989), Vikner and Schwartz (1996), and Koeneman (2000), who all retain the original V-to-C hypothesis, for an evaluation of these arguments. In this paper I follow these authors in taking all instances of Germanic V2 to be V-to-C movement.
Example taken from Haeseryn et al. (1997:1280).
One may wonder how this view on the flexibility of the negative marker relates to the expression of sentential negation, where it appears that the negative marker needs to occupy a fixed position in the clausal structure. I follow Acquiaviva (1997), who argues, building on Jackendoff (1972) and followed upon by Herburger (2001) and Penka (2010), that the difference between sentential and constituent negation reduces to negative scope. In particular, they argue that sentential negation involves negation of the quantifier that binds the event variable. As is well known since the work of Diesing (1992), Ladusaw (1992), Herburger (2001), and others, the semantic locus where the event variable of the main predicate is bound, corresponds to the level of vP. Thus as long as vP is c-commanded by negation, sentential negation is induced, regardless of the exact position of the negative marker in the clausal spine.
Note that sentence-initial niet is not syntactically ill-formed, and thus strictly speaking not ungrammatical, but that it yields a pragma-semantically infelicitous expression, just like banned TNIs under Han’s (2001) analysis.
Examples based on Brandtler (2006).
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Zeijlstra, H. Not in the first place. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 31, 865–900 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-013-9199-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-013-9199-3