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(Negative) Polarity Items in Catalan and Other Trans-Pyrenean Romance Languages

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Espinal, MT 
Llop, A 

Abstract

jats:pThis paper identifies the set of properties that polarity items (PI), negative polarity items (NPI) and negative concord items (NCI) satisfy in Catalan, Aragonese, Benasquese and Occitan. It shows that in Catalan, gaire ‘much, many’ is a PI, pas ‘at all’ is an NPI with enriched meanings and indefinites such as ningú ‘anybody, n-body’ come in two sets, as both PIs and NCIs. It further shows that in the trans-Pyrenean Romance varieties studied here, a distinction must be made between indefinite pronouns such as dengún ‘anyone, n-one’ and scalar minimizers such as gota (lit. drop), which come in parallel PI and NCI sets, whereas NPIs such as brenca (lit. crumb) have developed an enriched meaning. This paper reveals the different status of pas across Catalan and other trans-Pyrenean Romance varieties either as an NPI at stage II of Jespersen’s cycle, which further constrains conventional implicatures, or as a negative operator.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

polarity items, negative polarity items, negative concord items, Catalan, Aragonese, Benasquese, Occitan

Journal Title

Languages

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2226-471X
2226-471X

Volume Title

7

Publisher

MDPI AG
Sponsorship
Government of Catalonia (2017SGR634, ICREA Academia award)
Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (FFI2017-82547-P, POID2020-112801GB-100, Batista i Roca Fellowship)