Polarity element
In linguistics , a polarity element describes a term that may only appear in a certain environment, a “licensing” (or “anti-licensing”) context. Polarity elements are already dealt with in the works of Otto Jespersen and Edward Klima (see references below and the external link).
The most well-known elements of polarity are those that are sensitive to negative (and similar) contexts. This polarity elements are divided into those who are "somewhat negative" in a context arise need (negative polarity item, "negative polarity item" NPI) and those that just are not allowed (positive polarity item, "positive polarity item" PPI).
An example of an NPI is the English word any . It is ungrammatical when it occurs outside of a “negative” context. (An asterisk "*" at the beginning of a sentence means that the sentence is ungrammatic or not well-formed.):
- John doesn't have any potatoes.
- * John has any potatoes.
The fact that the occurrence of an NPI like any is permitted by negation is known as licensing; it is said that the negation licenses the NPI. NPIs are also usually licensed in issues, such as in:
- Does John have any potatoes?
In German , for example, there are ever , special, or can handle NPIs.
An example of a PPI is quite . If it is preceded by a negation (especially in the semantic representation, the logical form), the sentence is ungrammatic.
- Hans was thoroughly satisfied.
- * Hans was not entirely satisfied.
It is said that a PPI is "anti-licensed" through negation. Other examples of PPIs are pretty , downright and affirm . In general, PPIs are also anti-licensed through questions:
- * Was Hans completely satisfied?
Most of the research on elements of polarity is concerned with the question of which contexts are considered “negative” and therefore licensing. In the late 1970s, William Ladusaw (building on the work of Gilles Fauconnier) made the generalization that most NPIs are licensed in downwardly monotonous contexts. This is known as the Fauconnier-Ladusaw hypothesis. However, there are cases in which certain non-monotonous contexts also license NPIs. So exactly N can ever appear under the expression if this expression is to say that there are few cases:
- * Some astronauts have ever been to the moon.
- Exactly three astronauts have ever been to the moon.
- ?? Exactly thirty thousand astronauts have ever been to the moon.
Typically, NPIs in German are licensed in the following contexts:
- under sentence negation (e.g. with not ),
- under negative indefinita (e.g. nobody , nothing ),
- in the antecedent (protasis) of conditional clauses ,
- in questions and interrogative sentences ,
- in the restrictor of universal and negative quantifiers,
- in the superlative restrictors ,
- in the predicate of comparatives ,
- in with without introduced infinitive clauses,
- in complementary sentences of counterfactual predicates (e.g. refuse ),
- under expressions that denote a small extent (e.g. few , seldom ),
- below only / first + focus ,
- in temporal clauses that are introduced with before ,
- in complementary sentences of adverse predicates (e.g. be surprised , regret ),
However, it depends on the individual polarity element which contexts are considered (anti) licensers. For example, while the NPI “Menschenseele” is licensed through the downward monotonous “hardly”, “Aas” in the sense of “anyone” cannot appear in this context:
- Hardly a soul was to be found there.
- * Hardly any carrion was interested in his pictures.
It also happens that an expression that otherwise behaves like an NPI can appear in very specific additional contexts.
On the basis of this observation, there are proposals to create subclasses of NPIs that have to meet stronger or weaker licensing conditions. In part, however, it also seems to be about idiosyncrasies .
bibliography
- Otto Jespersen: Negation in English and Other Languages . Hoest, København 1917.
- E. Climate: Negation in English . In: JA Fodor, JJ Katz (eds.): The Structure of Language . Prentice-Hall, New York 1964, pp. 246-323 .
- Gilles Fauconnier: Polarity and the scale principle . In: Chicago Linguistic Society . tape 11 , 1975, p. 188-199 .
- William A. Ladusaw: Polarity Sensitivity as Inherent Scope Relations , Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas, Austin 1979.
- Anke von Bergen, Karl von Bergen: Negative Polarity in English . Gunter Narr, Tübingen 1993.
- Ton van der Wouden: Negative Contexts . University of Groningen, 1994 ( rug.nl [PDF] dissertation).
- Ton van der Wouden: Polarity and 'Illogical Negation' . In: Makoto Kanazawa and Christopher J. Piñón (eds.) (Eds.): Dynamics, Polarity, and Quantification . CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA 1994, pp. 17-45.
- Frans Zwarts: Three Types of Polarity . In: Fritz Hamm, Erhard W. Hinrichs (Eds.): Plurality and Quantification . Kluwer, Dordrecht 1997, p. 177-238 .
- Anastasia Giannakidou: The Meaning of Free Choice . In: Linguistics and Philosophy . tape 24 , 2001, p. 659-735 .