This article aims to better understand how Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) come into existence and how they change over time. It argues that an expression can become an NPI if its semantics makes it pragmatically useful in negative or downward entailing contexts, often because the meaning leads to pragmatic strength, but sometimes because its semantics leads to pragmatic attenuation. Special attention is given to two patterns involving pragmatic strength that can emerge historically: Negative Concord (NC) and what I call NPI Dualization. Both patterns, I argue, involve a pairing between an NPI that has an existential-like or low scalar semantics with a homophonous but semantically different expression with a freer distribution; the homophone is semantically negative in Negative Concord but semantically universal in NPI Dualization. The article argues that pragmatic strength plays an important role in the history of NPIs, both in their origin and in NPI Dualization, but is not directly relevant for their licensing synchronically. Instead, it argues for a return to the view that NPIs are lexically marked by a semantically meaningless distributional feature that needs to be valued syntactically. On a conceptual level, the article argues that historical shifts may be matters of likelihood.

In this paper, we revisit the phenomenon of Negative Concord focusing on the Strict vs. Non-Strict divide. With Catalan as a case in point, we show that Negative Concord Items (NCIs) are not negative quantifiers (NQs) or polarity items (PIs) but inherently negative indefinites by virtue of carrying a negative feature [neg] that contributes a negative semantics to the proposition and is subject to a syntax–phonology constraint that forces it to overtly c-command Tense in compliance with Jespersen’s NegFirst principle. We argue that to satisfy such constraint, [neg] can disembody from the NCI via overt Move F(eature) to adjoin at a pre-Infl(ection) position and be Spelled-Out homophonous to the negative marker. The Strict vs. Non-Strict contrast follows from whether [neg] always moves independently from the rest of the NCI via Move F (Strict Negative Concord) or predates, whenever possible, on another movement of the NCI that places [neg] in the required pre-Infl position (Non-Strict Negative Concord) thus not having to disembody.

This article addresses locality conditions on Negative Concord (NC) in Russian. We examine long-distance licensing of “negative” ni-pronouns in subject- and object-control infinitives. Existing theories of negative concord rely in one way or another on the movement of negative concord items (NCI): either as a direct licensing condition, or as a prerequisite for entering a local configuration with the licensor. Consequently, theories predict that ni-pronoun movement to the matrix clause (i.e., the local domain of the matrix licensor) would increase acceptability of ni-licensing. Using experimental data, we explore various linear positions available for ni-pronouns in the matrix clause and in embedded infinitival clauses. We show that movement is not required for long-distance licensing, and that derived positions of ni-pronouns are independent of ni-licensing. We argue that although ni-licensing and movement both obey locality constraints, they differ as to the type of locality required. This article presents evidence for recent proposals that movement and agreement have different properties with respect to locality constraints.

This paper uses eye-tracking while reading to examine Standard English speakers’ processing of sentences with two syntactic negations: a negative auxiliary and either a negative subject (e.g., Nothing didn’t fall from the shelf) or a negative object (e.g., She didn’t answer nothing in that interview). Sentences were read in Double Negation (DN; the ‘she answered something’ reading of she didn’t answer nothing) and Negative Concord (NC; the ‘she answered nothing’ reading of she didn’t answer nothing) biasing contexts. Despite the social stigma associated with NC, and linguistic assumptions that Standard English has a DN grammar, in which each syntactic negation necessarily contributes a semantic negation, our results show that Standard English speakers generate both NC and DN interpretations, and that their interpretation is affected by the syntactic structure of the negative sentence. Participants spent more time reading the critical sentence and rereading the context sentence when negative object sentences were paired with DN-biasing contexts and when negative subject sentences were paired with NC-biasing contexts. This suggests that, despite not producing NC, they find NC interpretations of negative object sentences easier to generate than DN interpretations. The results illustrate the utility of online measures when investigating socially stigmatized construction types.

In two recent articles, Norihiro Kamide introduces unusual variants of Nelson’s paraconsistent logic and its classical extension. Kamide’s systems, IP and CP, are unusual insofar as double negations in these logics behave as intuitionistic and classical negations, respectively. In this article we present Hilbert-style axiomatizations of both IP and CP. The axiom system for IP is shown to be sound and complete with respect to a four-valued Kripke semantics, and the axiom system for CP is characterized by four-valued truth tables. Moreover, we note some properties of IP and CP, and emphasize that these logics are unusual also because they are contra-classical and inconsistent but nontrivial. We point out that Kamide’s approach exemplifies a general method for obtaining contra-classical logics, and we briefly speculate about a linguistic application of Kamide’s logics.

This article presents a novel analysis of Negative Auxiliary Inversion (NAI) constructions such as didn't many people eat, in which a negated auxiliary appears in pre-subject position. NAI, found in varieties including Appalachian, African American, and West Texas English, has a word order identical to a yes/no question, but is pronounced and interpreted as a declarative. We propose that NAI subjects are negative DPs, and that the negation raises from the subject DP to adjoin to Fin (a functional head in the left periphery). Three properties of NAI motivate this analysis: (i) scope freezing effects, (ii) the various possible and impossible NAI subject types, and (iii) the incompatibility of NAI constructions with true Double-Negation interpretations. Implications for theories of Negative Concord, Negative Polarity Items, and the representation of negation are discussed.