[WS120] Negation and polarity: interfaces and cognition

 

Auteurs : Pierre Larrivée (Caen) and Chungmin Lee (Seoul)

Titre : Negation and polarity: interfaces and cognition

As a feature of all human grammars, negation and related phenomena such as focus and polarity have been the object of considerable scrutiny in contemporary linguistics, and considerable insights have been achieved since the first edition of Larry Horn’s ‘A Natural History of Negation’ in 1989. There is a good level of understanding of the morphology and syntax of negation, its historical development, and its pragmatics, in a wide variety of languages. However, a number of issues remain unresolved, especially with regards to the contribution of interfaces to the interpretation of negation. The positional factors that intervene in the semantic licensing of polarity items (English ‘*Anyone didn’t come’, compared to the felicitous Korean ‘Amwu-to an-wassta’) and the interference from pragmatic factors (noted early on by Linebarger), are still awaiting proper characterisation. Similar characterisation is needed for the interpretation of negation itself in its exclamative (‘Not him again!’), interrogative (‘Isn’t it him already?’) and expletive uses, and while multiple models exist of negative concord and double negation, their relation to prosody and information structure remains to be fully spelled out. Agreed definition and diagnostics of metalinguistic, polemic and descriptive values are still awaited. Debates are to be apportioned as to the precise triggers of how negative value is acquired by indefinites and minimizers, and the existence of cognitive constraints on historical pathways of change.
 The workshop aims to bring together innovative and substantial contributions to the role of interface in the interpretation of negation and polarity, that illuminate the organisation of cognitive processes. Contributions setting the debates are offered by Jon Gasjewski (Connecticut), Michael Israel (Maryland), Eun-ju Noh (Inha University), Roland Pfau (Amsterdam) and Phillip Wallage (Northumbria), and the discussion is to be led by Larry Horn (Yale). The draft versions of papers will be requested before the workshop, for distribution among participants, and we intend to publish a selection of the papers.

22.07.2013   10:30-12:30

Chair: Chungmin Lee

10:30 - 11:30 Laurence HORN
Revisiting the licensing question: some negative (and positive) results
> read abstract...
11:30 - 12:00 Jon GAJEWSKI
Another Look at NPIs in Definite Descriptions
> read abstract...
12:00 - 12:30 Lyn TIEU
Negative polarity and domain widening: A learnability perspective
> read abstract...

22.07.2013   14:00-16:00

Chair: Pierre Larrivée

14:00 - 14:30 Michael ISRAEL
Affect and Affectivity: Informative Value at the Heart of Polarity Sensitivity
> read abstract...
14:30 - 15:00 Patricia AMARAL
“Smart as a fox”: Scalar negation and comparative constructions in Brazilian Portuguese
> read abstract...
15:00 - 15:30 Alice TER MEULEN
Focus meaning and aspectual adverbs
> read abstract...
15:30 - 16:00 Chungmin LEE
Metalinguistically Negated vs Descriptively Negated Adverbials
> read abstract...

22.07.2013   16:30-18:30

Chair: Chungmin Lee

16:30 - 17:00 Liliane HAEGEMAN
The syntax of preverbal en in (West) Flemish
> read abstract...
17:00 - 17:30 Phillip WALLAGE
Pragmatically marked ‘emphatic’ negation and its contribution to the Middle English Jespersen Cycle
> read abstract...
17:30 - 18:00 Susagna TUBAU et al.
Prosody and metalinguistic Double Negation in Catalan and Spanish
> read abstract...
18:00 - 18:30 Viviane DÉPREZ et al.
When and How is Concord preferred? An experimental approach
> read abstract...

23.07.2013   10:30-12:30

Chair: Pierre Larrivée

10:30 - 11:00 Roland PFAU
Diachronic and structural aspects of sign language negation
> read abstract...
11:00 - 11:30 Pauline BEAUPOIL et al.
A multimodal approach to children’s first negative constructions
> read abstract...
11:30 - 12:00 Lílian TEIXEIRA DE SOUSA
Sentential negation in Brazilian Portuguese
> read abstract...
12:00 - 12:30 Jakob M. STEIXNER
NC in Bavarian: Syntac and Information Structure
> read abstract...

23.07.2013   16:30-18:30

Title: Poster session
Chair: Chungmin Lee

16:30 - 18:00 all et al.
Poster session
16:30 - 18:00 Benjamin TSOU
(poster in workshop)
A note on pseudo-conditional sentences, and denial: A cross-lingual comparison
> read abstract...
16:30 - 18:00 Igor VINOGRADOV
(poster in workshop)
Negation and Irreal Modality in Mayan Languages
> read abstract...
16:30 - 18:00 Montserrat BATLLORI
(poster in workshop)
Behind the grammaticalization path of three types of n-words in Catalan
> read abstract...
16:30 - 18:00 Nami ARIMITSU
(poster in workshop)
Irreality, negative meanings and intensifiers
> read abstract...
16:30 - 18:00 Naoko TOMITA
(poster in workshop)
Representation of a change-of-polarity - A contrastive study of German and Japanese on the language-specificity in information organization
> read abstract...
16:30 - 18:00 Olga KELLERT
(poster in workshop)
What NPIs have in common with interjections and modal particles
> read abstract...
16:30 - 18:00 Tista BAGCHI et al.
(poster in workshop)
Negation and the anti-polarity of focus in Bangla conditionals
> read abstract...
16:30 - 18:00 Ye TIAN et al.
(poster in workshop)
Eye movements reveal causes of delay in negative sentence processing
> read abstract...
18:00 - 18:30 Laurence HORN
Closing word
> read abstract...

Posters

Benjamin TSOU
A note on pseudo-conditional sentences, and denial: A cross-lingual comparison
> read abstract...
Igor VINOGRADOV
Negation and Irreal Modality in Mayan Languages
> read abstract...
Montserrat BATLLORI
Behind the grammaticalization path of three types of n-words in Catalan
> read abstract...
Nami ARIMITSU
Irreality, negative meanings and intensifiers
> read abstract...
Naoko TOMITA
Representation of a change-of-polarity - A contrastive study of German and Japanese on the language-specificity in information organization
> read abstract...
Olga KELLERT
What NPIs have in common with interjections and modal particles
> read abstract...
Tista BAGCHI et al.
Negation and the anti-polarity of focus in Bangla conditionals
> read abstract...
Ye TIAN et al.
Eye movements reveal causes of delay in negative sentence processing
> read abstract...