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SUMMARY:Negation and negative concord in Greek: evidence for a tripartite 
 'cycle' for negative indefinites - Geoff Horrocks\, University of Cambridg
 e
DTSTART:20150122T170000Z
DTEND:20150122T183000Z
UID:TALK54379@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jamie Douglas
DESCRIPTION:In Ancient Greek a single indefinite enclitic pronoun tis/ti w
 as used indifferently in both negative/affective environments in the manne
 r of a negative polarity item (henceforth NPI\, cf. anyone/anything)\, and
  in positive ones in the manner of a positive polarity item (henceforth PP
 I\, cf. someone/something).  At the same time the negative pronoun oudeís
 /oudén was used both as a true negative quantifier (henceforth NQ\, cf. n
 o one/nothing) and as an emphatic NPI with negative concord (cf. substanda
 rd I didn't see nothing).\n  \nThe functions of each pronominal class - i.
 e. PPI-like vs NPI-like for indefinites\, NQ vs NPI for negatives - were d
 etermined by syntactic distribution in relation to the presence or absence
  of a sentential negative marker (henceforth NM).  As expected\, in positi
 ve\, non-modal statements indefinites and negatives functioned in all posi
 tions as PPIs and NQs respectively.  By contrast\, an indefinite before a 
 NM functioned like a PPI (cf. something didn't fit the evidence) and after
  a NM like an NPI (cf. the evidence didn't amount to anything)\, while a n
 egative pronoun before a NM was a true NQ (i.e. with double negation\, cf.
  no one didn't see the problem) and after a NM a 'strong' NPI (i.e. withou
 t double negation\, cf. again substandard I didn't see nothing).\n \nThis 
 pattern was increasingly at odds with a clause structure in which focal co
 nstituents were often contrastively stressed and fronted to the left perip
 hery: neither indefinite nor negative pronouns could be routinely focalise
 d in this way because of the various prosodic and/or semantic restrictions
  on their distribution.  The deficiency was remedied in the early middle a
 ges by (i) formal/prosodic recharacterisation of the indefinites (distinct
  sets of PPIs and NPIs eventually emerged\, cf. Modern Greek 'kapjos 'some
 one' vs. ka'nis 'anyone')\, (ii) the loss of NQs and (iii) the generalisat
 ion of NPIs in negative sentences to all syntactic positions available to 
 other DPs\, including the focus position\, a process that entailed their r
 einterpretation as involving universal quantification over negation ('for 
 any X it is not the case that...') rather than\, as before\, existential q
 uantification under negation ('it is not the case that there is an X such 
 that...').\n \nThe final outcome is typologically to be expected in so far
  as NQs are clearly redundant in a system in which NPIs can appear both be
 fore and after NMs.  It is suggested that there are only three logically p
 ossible systems for the interaction of sentence negation with negative ind
 efinites (i.e NQs and/or NPIs)\, and that there is a characteristic cycle 
 of diachronic development - even though no particular stage in the cycle i
 s more inherently 'unstable' than any other.\n
LOCATION:Lecture Block\, Room 5\, Sidgwick Site
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