Exclamative Wh-Phrases as Positive Polarity Items
González Rodríguez, Raquel (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha)

Additional title:	Els sintagmes-qu exclamatius com a termes de polaritat positiva
Date:	2008
Abstract:	This paper studies the island effects induced by negation in exclamative sentences. In order to explain this phenomenon, I focus on the interaction between exclamative wh-phrases and negation, showing that negation can appear in exclamative sentences when the wh-phrase is not within the scope of negation; when the negative operator has wide scope, the sentence is ungrammatical. Assuming Szabolcsi and Zwarts's (1997) account of negative islands, I argue that the wh-phrase can have wide scope only when its domain is an unordered set, and not when it ranges over ordered sets. I argue that the inverse scope relation, where the wh-phrase is within the scope of negation, is always rejected, since wh-phrases are positive polarity items. I show that they are sensitive to downward-entailing contexts and propose that this is due to the fact that they widen a domain of quantification without strengthening the statement, in line with Kadmon and Landman's (1993) and Chierchia's (2004) analyses of negative polarity.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Published in:	Catalan journal of linguistics, V. 7 (2008) p. 91-116, ISSN 2014-9719

Adreça original: https://revistes.uab.cat/catJL/article/view/v7-gonzalez
Adreça alternativa: https://raco.cat/index.php/CatalanJournal/article/view/128411
DOI: 10.5565/rev/catjl.133

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