Autore
Greco, Matteo

Titolo
Is expletive negation a unitary phenomenon?
Periodico
Lingue e linguaggio
Anno: 2019 - Volume: 35 - Fascicolo: 1 - Pagina iniziale: 25 - Pagina finale: 58

Expletive negation (EN) is commonly considered to be a unitary phenomenon cross-linguistically codified. In this article I provide empirical arguments to show that in fact EN consists of distinct subtypes and propose a twofold partition between weak and strong EN. More specifically, by investigating Italian, I show that weak EN structures maintain some features typically associated to standard negation (for example, they allow weak-NPIs and n-words) whereas strong EN structures do not, forming a natural class within. Moreover, I highlight a previous unnoticed case of Italian EN clauses I dubbed “Surprise Negation (SNEG) Sentencesµ. SNEGs are distinct from any other EN type sentences for their semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features. I will provide tests based on Ethical Dative, Expletive e, discourserelated constructions (like focus and topic phenomena) and mirativity value; moreover, I characterize them on the basis of intonational features showing that they blend interrogative and exclamative acoustic features.



SICI: 1720-9331(2019)35:1<25:IENAUP>2.0.ZU;2-E
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1418/95385
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1418/95385

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