Négation, polarité, asymétrie et évènements

Jacques Moeschler: Négation, polarity, asymmetry and events This paper is focused on the effect of négative polarity on presuppositions and scalar implicatures, négative quantifiers and négative events. The main thesis is that the semantics of négation, depending on its scope, does not cover ail the properties and relations of sentence meaning. When ordinary négation is used, the presupposition is not affected, whereas when négation is metalinguistic, it either asserts or negates the proposition, and either asserts or negates its implication. When négation is used with a négative particular (down-bounded quantifier), it préserves its négative scalar up-bounded implicature. Finally, when used with an event, négation préserves the relational domain of the semantics of event, i. e. its temporal (directional) inference. Thèse properties of négation contrast with the complément function of logical négation.Moeschler Jacques. Négation, polarité, asymétrie et évènements. In: Langages, 40e année, n°162. 2006. Polarité, négation et scalarité, sous la direction de Silvia Palma. pp. 90-106