Neg-Raising and Neg movement

This paper is about the phenomenon known as Neg-Raising. All previous analyses of Neg-Raising fall into one of two categories: syntactic and semantic/pragmatic. The syntactic approach derives the unexpected interpretation of Neg-Raising expressions from a Neg movement operation in the syntax (Fillmo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Natural language semantics 2019-03, Vol.27 (1), p.1-17
Main Author: Crowley, Paul
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ellipsis
Inference
Linguistics
Negation
Philosophy of Language
Pragmatics
Semantic analysis
Semantic categories
Semantics
Social Sciences
Syntactic analysis
Syntactic movement
Syntax
Syntax semantics relationship
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Summary:This paper is about the phenomenon known as Neg-Raising. All previous analyses of Neg-Raising fall into one of two categories: syntactic and semantic/pragmatic. The syntactic approach derives the unexpected interpretation of Neg-Raising expressions from a Neg movement operation in the syntax (Fillmore in Word 19:208-231, 1963) while the semantic/pragmatic approach derives it as an inference attributed to an excluded middle associated with Neg-Raising predicates (Bartsch in Linguistische Berichte 27:1-7,1973). In this squib, I discuss a collection of novel and known data, which I argue indicate that both a Neg movement operation as well as an excluded middle are necessary to account for the full range of data. I propose that Neg-Raising is an intrinsically semantic/pragmatic phenomenon and that the Neg movement operation is conditioned by the presence of an excluded middle. I offer a generalization that takes a step towards understanding this mysterious dependency.
ISSN:0925-854X
1572-865X
DOI:10.1007/s11050-018-9148-0