28.4106, Calls: Historical Ling, Ling Theories, Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax/Estonia

Fri Oct 6 17:06:33 UTC 2017

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4106. Fri Oct 06 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4106, Calls: Historical Ling, Ling Theories, Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax/Estonia

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Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2017 13:06:23
From: Pierre Larrivée [Pierre.Larrivee at Unicaen.fr]
Subject: The Constellation of Polarity Sensitive Items

Full Title: The Constellation of Polarity Sensitive Items 

Date: 29-Aug-2018 - 01-Sep-2018
Location: Tallinn, Estonia 
Contact Person: Pierre Larrivee
Meeting Email: Pierre.Larrivee at Unicaen.fr

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax 

Call Deadline: 07-Nov-2017 

Meeting Description:

The constellation of polarity sensitive items has been an object of
theoretical debates for the last fifty years (at least since Klima 1964).
These debates have centered around the nature of the polarity sensitive items,
their interpretations, their diachronic relations and their relation to other
grammatical paradigms (cf., among book-length treatments, Ladusaw 1979,
Giannakidou 1998, Zeijlstra 2004, Penka 2011, Chierchia 2013). Especially in
the last decade, the discussion has been substantially enriched and deepened
thanks to the contribution of cross-linguistic data (i.a. Progovac 1994,
Vallduví 1994, Déprez 1997, 2000, Haspelmath 1997, Lahiri 1998, Herburger
2001, Kratzer & Shimoyama 2002, Pereltsvaig 2004, Fǎlǎuş 2010, Szabolcsi 2013)
and diachronic studies (i.a. Hoeksema 1994, 1998, 2010, Ramat 1998, Jäger
2010, Gianollo 2016 and various contributions in Larrivée & Ingham 2012,
Willis et al. 2013, Hansen & Visconti 2014). 

One central debate is the extent to which, as opposed to Negative Polarity
Items (NPIs) like anyone, n-words that can be glossed by English no-one have a
negative meaning in and of themselves, or whether they inherit that value from
a clausal operator. Subcategories have been introduced in the degree of
strength for NPIs (weak, strong and superstrong), and for concording relations
that characterize ordinary n-words in Italian and French as opposed to
Negative Indefinites / Quantifiers in English and German. The underlying line
of reasoning is generally that degrees of lexical or featural negativity
should relate to the ability of an item to communicate negation on its own,
and to be used with other overt clause-mate negatives. The assessment of this
supposes the availability of reliable diagnostic to define membership of each
category. While locality, modification by almost and fragment answer have all
been alleged, counterexamples have been adduced.  

Relation between n-words and NPIs, and their various sub-types, is also
expressed in interpretative terms. Continuing a line of analysis going back to
Fauconnier (1975), Kadmon & Landman (1993), Lee & Horn (1994) and Krifka
(1995), the approach developed by Chierchia (2004, 2013 i.a.) accounts for the
existence of polarity phenomena on the basis of their semantic and pragmatic
contribution. It insists on the degree and type of exhaustification compatible
with different classes of NPIs, that is, on the interpretive effects emerging
through the interaction of NPIs with overt or covert clausal operators. The
approach predicts syntactic reflexes such as locality constraints, unlike the
productive line of research that separates pragmatic licensing of NPIs and
syntactic licensing of n-words (Zeijlstra 2004, Penka 2011). An
exhaustification-based approach has the potential to apply to Free-Choice
items, but whether it equally does to n-words, and beyond to positive polarity
items, remains to be articulated. 

Polarity sensitive items thus present a set of subcases and related categories
that raise the question of whether grammatical paradigms relating to
veridicality are similarly structured. Cases in point are wh-items and
quantification. Questions concerning the extent to which these have
referential force or are dependent on external operators arise, and whether
these operators make syntactic, semantic and pragmatic predictions. An
improved understanding of these aspects may elucidate parallels with
distinctions among polarity sensitive items, as well as clarify the relation
between negative and positive polarity items (Szabolcsi 2004, Larrivée 2012).

Call for Papers:

Novel contributions furthering the understanding of polarity sensitivity are
invited, whether from a synchronic, diachronic or typological perspective.
Analyses from all theoretical persuasion are welcome, and are expected to rely
on a substantial base of empirical data. A comparative (cross-linguistic and /
or diachronic) dimension is deemed essential to apportion the current debates
on the issue raised by polarity sensitive items. Abstracts of max. 300 words
(excluding references) should be sent to Pierre.Larrivee at Unicaen.fr before
November 7 2017.

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