A Quantifier Approach to Negation in Natural Languages

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Weiß
Keyword(s):  
Logical Form ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Negative Particle ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Negative Indefinites ◽  
Event Variable ◽  
Formal Feature

This article attempts to give a uniform and coherent analysis of the semantics and syntax of negation, with special emphasis on negative concord (NC) constructions. It is argued that negation is semantically a tripartite quantifier binding the event variable in its restriction. In syntax, this logical form corresponds to a structure where a NegP is present with Neg ° (normally) hosting the negative particle and a specifier as a checking position in the Minimalist sense. As a consequence, negative indefinites are held to be weak indefinites with a formal feature NEG which has to be checked away (thus obtaining Neg absorption). Additionally, some new data are introduced showing that even English style negative indefinites are analysable as non-negated weak indefinites.

scholarly journals A typology of negation in a constraint-based framework of syntax and semantics

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henriette De Swart
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Storage Mechanism ◽  
Scope Ambiguities ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Negative Indefinites ◽  
Polyadic Quantifier

Negation and negative indefinites raise problems for the principle of compositionality of meaning, because we find both double and single negation readings in natural languages. De Swart and Sag (2002) solve the compositionality problem in a polyadic quantifier framework. The syntax-semantics interface exploits an extension of the Cooper storage mechanism that HPSG uses to account for scope ambiguities. In de Swart and Sag (2002), all negative quantifiers are collected into an N-store, and are interpreted by means of iteration (double negation) or resumption (negative concord) upon retrieval. This puts the ambiguity between single and double negation readings in the grammar, rather than in the lexical items. This paper extends the earlier analysis with a typology of negation and negative indefinites using bi-directional optimality theory (OT). The constraints defined are universal, but their ranking varies from one language to the next. In negative concord languages, the functional motivation for the marking of 'negative variables' wins out, so we use n-words. Double negation languages value first-order iteration, so we use plain indefinites or negative polarity items within the scope of negation. The bi-directional set-up is essential, for syntactic and semantic variation go hand in hand.

Syntax

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Neale
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Related Notion ◽  
Theories Of Mind ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Linguistic Categories ◽  
Traditional Work ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Syntax (more loosely, ‘grammar’) is the study of the properties of expressions that distinguish them as members of different linguistic categories, and ‘well-formedness’, that is, the ways in which expressions belonging to these categories may be combined to form larger units. Typical syntactic categories include noun, verb and sentence. Syntactic properties have played an important role not only in the study of ‘natural’ languages (such as English or Urdu) but also in the study of logic and computation. For example, in symbolic logic, classes of well-formed formulas are specified without mentioning what formulas (or their parts) mean, or whether they are true or false; similarly, the operations of a computer can be fruitfully specified using only syntactic properties, a fact that has a bearing on the viability of computational theories of mind. The study of the syntax of natural language has taken on significance for philosophy in the twentieth century, partly because of the suspicion, voiced by Russell, Wittgenstein and the logical positivists, that philosophical problems often turned on misunderstandings of syntax (or the closely related notion of ‘logical form’). Moreover, an idea that has been fruitfully developed since the pioneering work of Frege is that a proper understanding of syntax offers an important basis for any understanding of semantics, since the meaning of a complex expression is compositional, that is, built up from the meanings of its parts as determined by syntax. In the mid-twentieth century, philosophical interest in the systematic study of the syntax of natural language was heightened by Noam Chomsky’s work on the nature of syntactic rules and on the innateness of mental structures specific to the acquisition (or growth) of grammatical knowledge. This work formalized traditional work on grammatical categories within an approach to the theory of computability, and also revived proposals of traditional philosophical rationalists that many twentieth-century empiricists had regarded as bankrupt. Chomskian theories of grammar have become the focus of most contemporary work on syntax.

Form and Meaning of (Indefinite) Pronouns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Koeneman ◽  
Hedde Zeijlstra
Keyword(s):  
Free Choice ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Morphological Form ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
Negative Indefinites ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Indefinite Pronouns

The relation between the morphological form of a pronoun and its semantic function is not always transparent, and syncretism abounds in natural languages. In a language like English, for instance, three types of indefinite pronouns can be identified, often grouped in series: the some-series, the any-series, and the no-series. However, this does not mean that there are also three semantic functions for indefinite pronouns. Haspelmath (1997), in fact distinguishes nine functions. Closer inspection shows that these nine functions must be reduced to four main functions of indefinites, each with a number of subfunctions: (i) Negative Polarity Items; (ii) Free-Choice Items; (iii) negative indefinites; and (iv) positive or existential indefinites. These functions and subfunctions can be morphologically realized differently across languages, but don’t have to. In English, functions (i) and (ii), unlike (iii) and (iv), may morphologically group together, both expressed by the any-series. Where morphological correspondences between the kinds of functions that indefinites may express call for a classification, such classifications turn out to be semantically well motivated too. Similar observations can be made for definite pronouns, where it turns out that various functions, such as the first person inclusive/exclusive distinction or dual number, are sometimes, but not always morphologically distinguished, showing that these may be subfunctions of higher, more general functions. The question as to how to demarcate the landscape of indefinite and definite pronouns thus does not depend on semantic differences alone: Morphological differences are at least as much telling. The interplay between morphological and semantic properties can provide serious answers to how to define indefinites and the various forms and functions that these may take on.

Negation in Old High German

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes Jäger
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Specific Question ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Negative Indefinites

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to give a syntactic analysis of sentential negation in the history of German with special emphasis on Old High German. This analysis attributes the main changes in the syntax of negation not to a change in syntactic structure but to changes in the lexical filling of the head and specifier of NegP. In addition, the more specific question of negative indefinites and negative concord (NC) in Old High German is discussed. It is argued that negative indefinites should be analysed as semantically non-negative but simply formally neg-marked. It is assumed that there is no obligatory movement of n-indefinites to SpecNegP, neither overtly nor covertly.

scholarly journals Linguistic Data Model for Natural Languages and Artificial Intelligence. Part 6. The Еxternal Logic

Discourse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-134
Author(s):  
O. M. Polyakov
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Negative Particle ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Linguistic Model ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
Language Interpretation ◽  
General Rules

Introduction. The article continues a series of publications on the linguistics of the relationship (hereafter R-linguistics) and is concerned with the semantic interpretation in terms of the linguistic model that is the initial stage to consider the logic of natural language (external logic).Methodology and sources. The results obtained in the previous parts of the series are used as research tools. In particular, the verbal categorization method is used to represent concepts and verbs. To develop the necessary mathematical representations in the field of logic and semantics of natural language, the previously formulated concept of the interpretation operator is used. The interpretation operator maps the sentences of the language into the model, taking into account the previously interpreted sentences.Results and discussion. The problems that arise during the operation of the natural language interpretation operator are analyzed using examples of text translation and utterance algebra. The source of problems is the dependence of the interpretation of sentences on the already accumulated results of interpretation. The features of the interpretation of negation and double negation in the language are analyzed. In particular, the negation of a sentence affects the interpretation of previous sentences, and double negation usually denotes a single negation with an indication of its scope. It is shown that even from the point of view of classical logic, linguistic negation is not unconditional, and the operation of concatenation is not commutative and associative. General rules of text interpretation in the form of step-by-step mapping of sentence elements into a linguistic model are formulated.Conlcusion. From the considered examples of the implementation of the interpretation operator, it follows that the negation of a sentence requires a change in the meaning of the operation of attributing sentences in the text. For this reason, the negative particle ”not” in the language is actually a label for changing the interpretation rule. The double negation rule in sentence logic does not hold, so sentences containing double negations are likely to contain information about the scope of the sentence negation in the text. Based on the analysis, the contours of the interpretation operator for the linguistic model are indicated.

scholarly journals The adicities of thematic separation

2015 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Terje Lohndal
Keyword(s):  
Logical Form ◽  
Mapping Hypothesis ◽  
Event Variable

This paper discusses whether or not verbs have thematic arguments or whether they just have an event variable. The paper discusses some evidence in favor of the Neo-Davidsonian position that verbs only have an event variable. Based on this evidence, the paper develops a transparent mapping hypothesis from syntax to logical form where each Spell-Out domain corresponds to a conjunct at logical form. The paper closes by discussing the nature of compositionality for a Conjunctivist semantics.

scholarly journals Neg-phrases in Eton (Bantu): An HPSG-analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Form
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Lexical Resource ◽  
Negative Indefinites ◽  
Resource Semantics

This paper presents a study of so-called neg-phrases in Eton, a negative concord language spoken in Cameroon. These phrases strongly resemble negated noun phrases that consist of a negative determiner and a noun, however, I will show that Eton neg-phrases are built differently. Reconciling the non-negative approach to negative indefinites by Penka & Zeijlstra (2005) and the negative approach by Richter & Sailer (2004a,b, 2006), I will argue that Eton neg-phrases consist of an inherently negative modifier and a non-negative indefinite derived from a noun. Embedding the analysis in Lexical Resource Semantics, I will reveal the inherent negativity of Eton neg-phrases and account for their composition by using a lexical rule based on the semantic approach to noun phrases by Beavers (2003).

An analysis of focus and its role in the answering systems of polar questions in Chinese and English

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-70
Author(s):  
Mei-Ling Teresa Liou ◽  
Chen-Sheng Luther Liu
Keyword(s):  
Negative Particle ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Focus Association ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Chinese And English ◽  
Positive Particle ◽  
Sensitive Marker

Abstract Instead of classifying natural languages in terms of their answering systems for polar questions, this study investigates how languages construct the answering system for the polar questions with a special concentration on the answering system of the Chinese ma particle question and English polar questions. We argue that the primarily mechanism that natural languages adopt to construct an answering system is the focus mechanism which is based on the relationship between a focus sensitive marker and its association of focus. The different answering patterns to polar questions result from different scopes of focus. In a polar question, what is being focused by the focus sensitive marker or focus operator falls into question scope (focus association). The respondent answers the polar question based on the proposition in the question scope. Answering with a positive particle expresses agreement with that question proposition while answering with a negative particle conveys that the question proposition is not true.

On negative indefinites in Gallo

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Samantha Becerra-Zita ◽  
Hamida Demirdache
Keyword(s):  
Negative Concord ◽  
Negative Indefinites

Abstract This paper brings to bear primary fieldwork data from Gallo on negation and polarity related issues. We defend two correlated proposals. (i) The negative markers pas/pouint in Gallo are not inherently negative, but rather merely signal the presence of abstract semantic negation in their clause. (ii) In (at least) the Morbihan dialect of Gallo, the negative markers pas/pouint come in two variants: a plain and a scalar variant, both of which enter into a Negative Concord relation with abstract semantic negation. The scalar NPI variant corresponding to aoqhun across other Gallo dialects, or to aucun in Standard French, is pas/pouint aoqhun and it is the negator (minimizer) pas/pouint that provides the necessary scalarity component characteristic of N(P)Is (formally the scalar feature [+σ]) to the plain indefinite aoqhun. As a corollary, adapting Labelle & Espinal (2014), the shift from indefinite to (N)PI involves transfer of a scalar feature from a minimizer to an indefinite.

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