EAN: 9781501527326

THE MORPHOSYNTAX OF NEGATIVE MARKERS - KAREN DE...

This book applies the tools of nanosyntax to the natural language phenomenon of negation. Most
work on negation is concerned with the study of sentence negation  while low scope negation or
constituent negation is hardly ever systematically discussed in the literature. The present
book aims to fill that gap  by investigating scopally different negative markers in a sample of
23 typologically diverse languages. A four-way classification of negative markers is argued for
and it is shown how meaningful syncretism patterns arise across those four groups of negative
markers in the language sample investigated. The syncretisms are meaningful in that they track
the natural semantic scope of negation  and provide support to the idea that morphology is not
arbitrary  but points to submorphemic structure. Consequently  this study leads to a
decomposition of the negative morpheme into five privative features: Tense  Focus 
Classification  Quantity and Negation proper. Finally  the book argues that sentence 
constituent and lexical negation can all be treated in the same module of the grammar  i.e.
syntax.

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