Negation and Negative Concord in a
Polyadic Quantification framework

Henriëtte de Swart

Department of French/UiL-OTS
Kromme Nieuwegracht 29
3512 HD Utrecht
henriette.deswart@let.uu.nl
http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/~Henriette.deSwart/personal

Abstract

This paper addresses the two interpretations a combination of negative indefinites can get in concord languages like French, namely a concord reading which amounts to a single negation, or a double negation reading. I defend a polyadic approch in which a sequence of negative indefinites can be interpreted as iteration of quantifiers or as resumption. The first option leads to a scopal relation, interpreted as double negation. The second option leads to the construction of a polyadic negative quantifier, interpreted as negative concord. I propose an extension of the polyadic quantifier approach which can deal with non-variable binding operators such as negation and negative prepositions.

Dvi-file
PS-File
PDF-File
Bibtex Entry