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Scandinavian Negative Indefinites and Cyclic Linearization
Author(s) -
Engels Eva
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
syntax
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-9612
pISSN - 1368-0005
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9612.2011.00161.x
Subject(s) - variation (astronomy) , string (physics) , phrase , linguistics , object (grammar) , verb , position (finance) , mathematics , divergence (linguistics) , syntax , linearization , computer science , physics , philosophy , finance , nonlinear system , quantum mechanics , astrophysics , economics , mathematical physics
. In the Scandinavian languages, a [+negative] phrase must be licensed by Spec‐head agreement in overt syntax, necessitating leftward movement of negative objects, Negative Shift (NegS). Although string‐vacuous NegS is possible in all Scandinavian varieties, there is a considerable amount of crosslinguistic variation as to non‐string‐vacuous NegS. In particular, the varieties differ with regard to which constituents may be crossed by NegS and whether crossing depends on the position of the main verb. Under the cyclic linearization approach (Fox & Pesetsky 2003, 2005a), non‐string‐vacuous movement must proceed via intermediate positions. The variation as to the distribution of negative objects in the Scandinavian languages can thus be accounted for by differences in the availability of these intermediate positions, which is taken here to be determined by a mechanism of feature transmission. The relevance of intermediate positions is corroborated as neither the intervening constituents nor the object’s base position nor its target position (to the left/right of the matrix main verb) can capture the observed variation by themselves.