Towards a cross-linguistic typology of marking polarity in embedded degree clauses
- The article focuses on comparative complementisers in comparative clauses expressing inequality in various languages, with particular attention paid to their role as lexicalising negative polarity. I argue that the relevant property follows from degree semantics, in that the comparative subclause encodes the inequality of the degree expressed by a matrix clausal element and the one expressed by the comparative operator. Just like ordinary negation, this has to be encoded overtly; however, as it does not constitute an instance of genuine clausal negation, the property cannot be encoded by an operator, and hence must be realised on a functional head, which is either the complementiser or a separate polarity head.
Author details: | Julia Bacskai-AtkariGND |
---|---|
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1556/064.2016.63.4.1 |
ISSN: | 1216-8076 |
ISSN: | 1588-2624 |
Title of parent work (English): | Acta linguistica Hungarica : an international journal of linguistics |
Publisher: | Akadémiai Kiadó |
Place of publishing: | Budapest |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2016 |
Publication year: | 2016 |
Release date: | 2020/03/22 |
Tag: | CP-periphery; comparative subclauses; complementisers; negative polarity; overtness |
Volume: | 63 |
Number of pages: | 21 |
First page: | 389 |
Last Page: | 409 |
Funding institution: | German Research Fund (DFG) |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Institution name at the time of the publication: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Exzellenzbereich Kognitionswissenschaften |