[Lingtyp] Expletive NEG and scalar additive 'until' clauses

[Volker Gast]

Hi Jesús,
expletive negation in combination with scalar additive operators is not 
uncommon, but only in downward entailing / non-veridical contexts.

The following example from Quebec French, quoted from Labelle (2023, ex. 
[26c]), illustrates expletive negation in a relative clause modifying a 
superlative NP.

'Sept générations de petits nés dans les pires conditions que tu peux 
même pas imaginer.'

'Seven generations of kids born in the worst conditions that you 
can(not) even imagine.'

Expletive negation may certainly generalize from downward entailing to 
upward entailing contexts, specifically if mirativity or exclamation is 
involved (see Jürgen's comment).

I agree with Pier Marco that your example looks strange. Was it taken 
from a (written) narrative? And do you have similar examples of that 
type? You'd have to rule out a temporal interpretation, as Pier Marco 
wrote, and ideally you should have intonational information, to 
understand any emotive meaning conveyed.

It would also be good to have more information about the entire polarity 
system of Huasteca Nahuatl, and the distibution of expletive negation 
(for a typological approach, see for instance Jin & Koenig 2020).

In any case, I do not consider it unlikely that expletive negation is 
found in combination with scalar additive operators in upward entailing 
contexts; but I would predict that in such cases, it will be found in 
downward entailing contexts, too.

Best,
Volker

References

Labelle, M., (2023) “Apparent expletive negation, silent comparatives, 
and domain widening in Quebec French superlative and universal 
constructions”, /Glossa: a journal of general linguistics/ 8(1). doi: 
https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.9549.

Jin, Yanwei and Koenig, Jean-Pierre. "A cross-linguistic study of 
expletive negation" /Linguistic Typology/, vol. 25, no. 1, 2020, pp. 
39-78. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2020-2053

Am 07.09.2023 um 00:00 schrieb Jesus Francisco Olguin Martinez:
> Dear all,
>
> I was wondering if you know any languages in which expletive negation 
> appears in scalar additive constructions, as in (1).
>
> Huasteca Nahuatl
>
> (1) /huankino hualah-ki                     kuatochi/,
>
>             and.then come-pfv                     bunny
>
>             ‘The bunny came to the party,
>
> /hua *asta* *amo* //hualah-ki     koxua-li/.
>
> and      until neg come-pfv turtle-abs
>
>                 and even the turtle.’
>
>
> The expletive negative marker in (1) seems to have an interesting 
> discourse function in scalar additive 'until' clauses, and it seems 
> that other Mesoamerican languages have developed similar constructions 
> due to language contact.
>
> The fact that temporal ‘until’ markers may develop into scalar 
> additive operators has not gone unnoticed (König 1991; 
> Jasionytė-Mikučionienė 2019: 293). However, to the best of my 
> knowledge, scalar additive ‘until’ clauses with expletive negation 
> seem to be rare cross-linguistically.
>
> Best,
>
> *References*
> Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika. 2019. Subordinating conjunctions as 
> discourse markers in Lithuanian. /Corpus Pragmatics/ 3. 285–301
>
> König, Ekkehard. 1991. /The meaning of focus particles: A comparative 
> perspective/. London: Routledge.
>
>
> --
> Jesús Olguín Martínez
> Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Theoretical Linguistics
> Illinois State University English Department
> Alexander von Humboldt alumnus
> Jesús Olguín Martínez | Illinois State University - Academia.edu 
> <https://ilstu.academia.edu/Jes%C3%BAsOlgu%C3%ADnMart%C3%ADnez>
>
> Recent publications:
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2023. Semantically negative clause-linkage: 
> ‘Let alone’ constructions, (expletive) negation, and theoretical 
> implications. /Linguistic Typology/ published online July 2023.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2023. Areality of clause-linkage: The 
> consecutive construction in Mesoamerican languages. /Voprosy 
> Jazykoznanija/ (‘Topics in the Study of Language’) 3. 122-142.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2023. A typological study of tail-head linkage 
> constructions.  In /Discourse phenomena in typological perspective/, 
> Alessandra Barotto and Simone Mattiola (eds.), 403-432. John 
> Benjamins: Studies in Language Companian Series.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Manuel Peregrina Llanes. 2022. ‘Without 
> V-ing’ clauses: Clausal negative concomitance in typological 
> perspective. /Folia Linguistica/. /Acta Societatis Linguisticae 
> Europaeae/ published online December 2022.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Alonso Vásquez. 2022. The contribution of 
> Amazonian languages to the typology of purpose clauses. /LIAMES: 
> Línguas Indígenas Americanas/ 22. 1-21
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2022. Contact-induced language change: The 
> case of Mixtec adverbial clauses. /Journal of Language Contact. 
> Evolution of Languages, Contact and Discourse/ 15. 1-70.
>
>
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