An Emergent Theory of Negation

This is a thesis on the nature of negation in natural language, on its realisation, functions, interpretation, effects, and variation. Linguistic negation is assumed to be emergent in several ways, that is, to be the result of the composition of several ingredients. It is thus not a semantic primitive, but a set of diverse phenomena of which the presence of a negative feature [neg] is merely a possible manifestation—and one which is rarely if ever attested on its own, that is, not ‘lumped’ together with other semantic or pragmatic ingredients. The thesis is organised in three Parts. The first reviews a selection of the linguistic literature on negative topics. The first chapter is an introduction to some general properties of negation as they emerge from the linguistic, logic, and philosophical tradition. The second chapter is a review of prominent theories on the syntactic encoding of negation, which deal with the many-to-one relation between the syntactic expression and the logical interpretation of negation. The third chapter lays out a typology of dependent negative elements and indefinites. Chapter Four is an analysis of the concepts of metalinguistic and external negation, and denial. Part II deals with specific issues in the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of negation. Chapter One is concerned with left-peripheral negators, mainly in English and Italian, and with negative readings resulting from idiomatic or expressive phrases. Chapter Two deals with the effect of negative affixation to nominal elements. This analysis illustrates the interaction of negation with dimensionality, and in general with the properties of the term or predicate it modifies. Chapter Three is an analysis of Italian Negative Concord Items. The question underlying this chapter is whether these indefinites are intrinsically negative, and whether they can contain a referentially active existential component. Chapter Four is a study of the interaction between negation and adjunction, between sentential and constituent negation, between descriptive and illocutionary negation/FALSUM, and between negation in language and in logic as it emerges from the interaction of negative markers with De Morgan’s Laws. Part III is a case study on negation in the Goidelic languages, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, which are chosen for the unique way in which they realise negation at the syntactic level and in negative dependencies, characterised both by severe structural restrictions and by a remarkable semantic versatility. Chapter One presents the main features of the syntax of these languages. Chapter Two is an analysis of the system of negative affixes in the two languages and of the syntactically and semantically peculiar ways in which Goidelic realises Focus or contrastive negation, which poses several problems for existing cartographies of negation. Chapter Three is a discussion of the indefinite system of Goidelic languages, examining the syntactic and semantic versatility of Irish and Scottish Gaelic polarity items. Chapter Four is a case study on the expression of emphatic negation in these two languages, specifically on a phenomenon which Jim McCloskey dubbed ‘Demonic Negation’, in which a word meaning "demon" or "devil" grammaticalises into a full-fledged negative marker. The chapter also describes the various uses for hell-words and demonic expressions in the two languages, detailing the common features which bind them together and motivate their association with negation.