On the syntax of English minimizers
Tubau Muntaña, Susagna (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística)

Fecha:	2016
Descripción:	22 pàg.
Resumen:	The syntactic behaviour of English minimizers such as (not) a/one word, (not) a/one bit and (not) sleep a/one wink is puzzling: while they can behave as polarity items (PIs) in non-negative and negative contexts, they become negative quantifiers (NQs) when merged with a negation in negative contexts. Unlike previous accounts, where emphasis is put mainly on highlighting the similarity of minimizers to any-PIs and on supporting the contribution of an even-reading, I integrate the peculiar behaviour of minimizers in English within an analysis of negative indefinites as existential quantifiers that can structurally associate with negation in different ways. I claim that English minimizers contain three basic ingredients: a Numeral Phrase, a Focus particle and, in negative contexts, a Negative Phrase, not. The presence of a Focus particle even in the structure of minimizers plus the flexible merging possibilities of not with respect to the other two components of the minimizer result in their NQ-like behaviour, which can be now fully integrated into a theory of negative indefinites as syntactic objects that are compositionally built.
Ayudas:	Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación FFI2011-23356 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014-SGR-1013
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca
Materia:	English ; Focus particle ; Minimizers ; Negation ; Negative quantifiers ; Polarity items
Publicado en:	Natural language & linguistic theory, Vol. 34 Núm. 2 (2016) , p. 739-760, ISSN 1573-0859

DOI: 10.1007/s11049-015-9308-6

Post-print 16 p, 471.8 KB

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