11.1674, Qs: Negative Polarity Items

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-11-1674. Tue Aug 1 2000. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 11.1674, Qs: Negative Polarity Items

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1)
Date:  Tue, 1 Aug 2000 20:29:25 -0700 (MST)
From:  Andrew Carnie <carnie at U.Arizona.EDU>
Subject:  Negative Polarity Items

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

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

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