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THE REPRESENTATION OF OPERATOR‐VARIABLE DEPENDENCIES IN SENTENTIAL NEGATION *
Author(s) -
Acquaviva Paolo
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
studia linguistica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.187
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1467-9582
pISSN - 0039-3193
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9582.1994.tb00852.x
Subject(s) - negation , variable (mathematics) , semantics (computer science) , representation (politics) , operator (biology) , linguistics , computer science , propositional calculus , event (particle physics) , mathematics , philosophy , programming language , mathematical analysis , biochemistry , chemistry , repressor , politics , political science , transcription factor , law , gene , physics , quantum mechanics
. Despite the desirability of an analysis of sentential negation based on the Negative Criterion and the NegP hypothesis, current approaches are unsatisfactory both on the theoretical and on the empirical level. I argue that the ultimate source of such inadequacies is the idea that negative expressions are quantifiers and must accordingly reach a scope position. The alternative view that negatives are negated indefinites affords a general analysis of sentential negation as unselective binding of the event variable and possibly of variables associated with indefinites, including negative indefinites. This approach solves the noted problems without rejecting the starting assumptions, and provides a unified syntactic analysis for negative sentences grounded on their semantics.