1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910792118303321

Titolo

The expression of negation [[electronic resource] /] / edited by Laurence R. Horn

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin ; ; New York, N.Y., : Mouton de Gruyter, c2010

ISBN

1-282-67305-X

9786612673054

3-11-021930-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (349 p.)

Collana

The expression of cognitive categories ; ; 4

Classificazione

ET 670

Altri autori (Persone)

HornLaurence R

Disciplina

415

Soggetti

Grammar, Comparative and general - Negatives

Negation (Logic)

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Typology of negation -- The Acquisition of Negation -- On the diachrony of negation -- Multiple negation in English and other languages -- Quantifier-negation interaction in English: A corpus linguistic study of all...not constructions -- Negative and positive polarity items: An investigation of the interplay of lexical meaning and global conditions on expression -- Negation as a metaphor-inducing operator -- Negation in Classical Japanese -- Negation and polarity in the new millennium: A bibliography -- Backmatter

Sommario/riassunto

Negation is a sine qua non of every human language but is absent from otherwise complex systems of animal communication. In many ways, it is negation that makes us human, imbuing us with the capacity to deny, to contradict, to misrepresent, to lie, and to convey irony.  The apparent simplicity of logical negation as a one-place operator that toggles truth and falsity belies the intricate complexity of the expression of negation in natural language. Not only do we find negative adverbs, verbs, copulas, quantifiers, and affixes, but the interaction of negation with other operators (including multiple iterations of negation itself) can be exceedingly complex to describe, extending (as first detailed by Otto Jespersen) to negative concord,



negative incorporation, and the widespread occurrence of negative polarity items whose distribution is subject to principles of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The chapters in this book survey the patterning of negative utterances in natural languages, spanning such foundational issues as how negative sentences are realized cross-linguistically and how that realization tends to change over time, how negation is acquired by children, how it is processed by adults, and how its expression changes over time.  Specific chapters offer focused empirical studies of negative polarity, pleonastic negation, and negative/quantifier scope interaction, as well as detailed examinations of the form and function of sentential negation in modern Romance languages and Classical Japanese.