Polarity sensitivity is a ubiquitous phenomenon involving expressions such as anybody, nobody, ever, never, somebody and their counterparts in other languages. These expressions belong to different classes such as negative and positive polarity, negative concord, and negative indefinites. In this book, Ahmad Alqassas proposes a unified approach to the study of this phenomenon that relies on examining the interaction between the various types of polarity sensitivity, with a particular focus on Arabic. Alqassas shows that treating this interaction is fundamental for scrutinizing their licensing conditions. Alqassas draws on data from Standard Arabic and the major regional dialects represented by Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, and Qatari. Through the (micro)comparative approach, Alqassas explains the distributional contrasts with a minimal set of universal syntactic operations such as Merge, Move, and Agree. He also considers a fine-grained inventory of negative formal features for polarity items and their licensors. These simple features paint a complex landscape of polarity and lead to important conclusions about syntactic computation. By engaging with the rich but under-studied landscape of Arabic polarity sensitivity, this book provides a new perspective on the syntax-semantic interface and develops a unified syntactic analysis for polarity sensitivity. These contributions have important implications for the study of Arabic and for syntactic theory more generally.
Author(s): Ahmad Alqassas
Series: Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2021
Cover
Series
A Unified Theory of Polarity Sensitivity
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1 Issues in the Syntax of Polarity-Sensitive Items
1.1 Introduction: Polarity-sensitive items
1.2 Critical issues in PSI syntax
1.2.1 NPI dependencies
1.2.2 NCI dependencies
1.2.3 Enclitic negation and locus of negation
1.2.4 PSIs with head-like properties
1.3 Sentential negation and PSI syntax
1.3.1 Definition of sentential negation
1.3.2 The locus of sentential negation
1.4 Outline of the book
2 Classification of PSIs and Their Lexical Categories
2.1 NPIs, PPIs, and indefinites
2.1.1 NPIs versus PPIs
2.1.2 NPIs and their lexical categories
2.2 NCIs and their lexical categories
2.3 Disjunction particles in coordinate complexes
3 Licensing Negative Polarity Items
3.1 NPI licensing in the syntactic structure
3.2 NPI analyses in Arabic
3.3 Adverbial and determiner NPIs in Arabic
3.4 Standard Arabic negation and NPI licensing
3.5 Licensing Arabic PSIs in nonveridical contexts
4 Licensing Negative Concord Items
4.1 NCI licensing
4.1.1 The NPI approach
4.1.2 The NQ approach
4.1.3 The lexical ambiguity approach
4.1.4 NCI analyses in Arabic: Syntactic agreement approach
4.1.5 NCI licensing and phase theory
4.2 Licensing disjunction phrases and clauses
4.2.1 Introduction and empirical generalizations
4.2.2 Theoretical issues
4.2.3 Compositional meaning of coordinate complexes
4.2.4 Analysis of negative coordination by wala
4.2.4.1 Status and locus of laa
4.2.4.2 Status and locus of wala as an NCI and disjunction operator
4.2.4.3 Ellipsis
4.2.4.4 Bare argument ellipsis and coordinate complexes
4.2.5 Conclusion
5 PSIs with Head-Like Properties
5.1 Head-like PSIs as adverbs with phrasal projection
5.1.1 Empirical generalizations
5.1.2 The syntactic status of head-like PSIs
5.1.2.1 Head-like PSIs as syntactic heads selecting a NegP
5.1.2.2 Head-like PSIs as syntactic adverbs in Spec-XP
5.1.3 Analysis of head-like PSIs as phrasal heads
5.1.3.1 PSIs as XPs
5.1.3.2 The NP subject preceding head-like PSIs
5.1.4 Head-like PSIs as XPs: Licensing by negative constituents
5.1.5 Conclusion
5.2 Head-like PSIs and case licensing
5.2.1 Distribution of PSIs with head-like properties
5.2.2 Temporal adverbs and their complements
5.2.3 Licensing non-nominative case in Arabic
5.2.4 Proposal for accusative case licensing on complements of PSIs
6 Summary and Conclusions
6.1 The syntax of NPIs
6.2 The syntax of negative indefinites
6.3 The syntax of head-like PSIs
Bibliography
Index
