NEG Raising

[Bjoern Wiemer]

Dear Christopher (and all),
thanks for raising the issue of NEG-raising! In light of your mail and 
the response by David Gil I would like to make two comments and one 
request on what you two observed.
     In his classical paper on complementation Noonan (2007 [1985]: 
100f.) gave examples with NEG-raising in English with the CTP-verbs 
"think, believe, want". He gave the examples cited below, the first pair 
coincides with yours. Now, in a footnote (f. 21) Noonan remarked that 
sentence (214b) is ambiguous, since it allows for both a reading with 
and without NEG-raising (i.e. in the latter case there would only 
negation of the CTP). He added that this ambiguity might be conditioned 
by "a commitment/non-commitment interpretation of the speaker's 
evaluation of the complement proposition" (with further references).

(214a)    I think that Floyd didn't hit Roscoe.
(214b)    I don't think that Floyd hit Roscoe.

(215a)    Zeke believes that Martians don't live in caves.
(215b)    Zeke doesn't believe that Martians live in caves.

(216a)    Hugh wants Mary Ann not to win.
(216b)    Hugh doesn't want Mary Ann to win.

David Gil wrote that "'I don't think John is a werewolf' cannot mean 'I 
think that John is not a werewolf'". Would other native speakers judge 
the same way?

Thus, two questions arise (in my view). First, wouldn't this judgment 
depend on how much commitment you ascribe to your epistemic attitude 
toward the proposition in the complement? Second, do such ambiguities 
(and possible differences in judgments between native speakers of the 
same language) show up with other verbs of the same conceptual domain 
(epistemic attitude, report on speech acts, volition, etc.)? Noonan made 
his remark quoted above only with respect to "think", "believe" seems to 
behave differently. What about other verbs denoting epistemic attitudes 
in English?
     From this my request arises: Has anybody  worked on such 
ambiguities and tried to make up a classification of CTP-verbs (of 
epistemic attitude, volitional, etc.) within ONE language, and be it 
English. That is to say: apart from _cross_linguistic variation with 
respect to the liability toward complementation in general (and the way 
complementation is marked syntactically or by lexical means), it would 
be interesting to understand whether predicates denoting epistemic 
attitudes show variation within even one language, and what are the 
conditions.
     I would be ready to collect such information and make a small 
digest out of it, if anybody sends me pertinent references or reports. 
Anyway, I'd be grateful to know more about this issue.

Best regards,
Björn Wiemer.


> Dear Typologists,
>
> Could you tell me if there are languages that you know or know of that 
> do not permit NEG Raising.
> On a NEG Raising reading of (a), it is felt to mean the same thing as (b):
>
> a. I don't think John is a werewolf
> b. I think that John is not a werewolf
>
> Also, strict NPIs are licensed:
>
> c. John won't be here until 6:00
> d. I don't think John will be here until 6:00
>
> In these sentences 6:00 is a strict NPI, and it needs a negation.
> (d) contrasts with (f):
>
> e. I regret that John won't be here until 6:00
> f. *I don't regret John will be here until 6:00
>
> Other NEG Raising predicates include: think, believe, imagine, intend, 
> want.
>
> Chris Collins
>


-- 
Björn Wiemer
Professor für Slavische Sprachwissenschaft
Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität
Institut für Slavistik
Jakob-Welder-Weg 18
D- 55099 Mainz
tel. ++49/ 6131/ 39 -22186
fax ++49/ 6131/ 39 -24709
e-mail: wiemerb at uni-mainz.de
http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/wiemerb/

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