LINGUIST List 11.1674

Tue Aug 1 2000

Qs: Negative Polarity Items

Editor for this issue: Andrew Carnie <carnielinguistlist.org>

We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.

Directory

Andrew Carnie, Negative Polarity Items

Message 1: Negative Polarity Items

Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 20:29:25 -0700 (MST)
From: Andrew Carnie <carnie

U.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Negative Polarity Items


Colleagues,

I've been trying to track down the source where the following observation
was first made about negative polarity items. Any pointers to the original
reference for this would be greatly appreciated. (The data is taken
from a problem set I've been assigning to my students for years).

The observation is that NPIs can be licensed by a negative word adjective
like "unaware" when the the NPI is a complement:

	John is unaware of a single problem

But adjunct NPIs are bad:

	*John is unlucky at a single sport he plays

I know I got this data from somewhere, but I can't find it now. 

Thanks for any help you can give. 

Andrew


- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 O O O O O 		Andrew Carnie, Ph.D.
 <|\/|\/|\/|\/|> 		Asst. Professor of Linguistics
 = = = = = 		Department of Linguistics
 << << << << << 		Douglass 200E, University of Arizona
 ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ 		Tucson, AZ 85721

				Tel: (520) 621 2802
				Cell: (520) 971 1166
				http://linguistlist.org/~carnie

Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue