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Title:Even-NPIs in yes/no questions
Authors:ID Guerzoni, Elena (Author)
Files:URL https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11050-004-8739-0
 
Language:English
Work type:Unknown
Typology:1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:UNG - University of Nova Gorica
Abstract:It has been a long-standing puzzle that Negative Polarity Items appear to split into two subvarieties when their effect on the interpretation of questions is taken into account: while questions with any and ever can be used as unbiased requests of information, questions with so-called `minimizers', i.e. idioms like lift a finger and the faintest idea, are always biased towards a negative answer (cf. Ladusaw 1979). Focusing on yes/no questions, this paper presents a solution to this puzzle. Specifically it is shown that in virtue of containing even (cf. Heim 1984), minimizers, unlike any, trigger a presupposition, which reduces the set of the possible answers to a question to the singleton containing the negative answer.
Keywords:NPIs, minimizers, polar questions, presupposition, negative bias
Publication date:01.01.2004
Year of publishing:2004
Number of pages:str. 319-343
Numbering:Vol. 12, issue 4
PID:20.500.12556/RUNG-8867 New window
COBISS.SI-ID:186213123 New window
UDC:81'1
ISSN on article:0925-854X
DOI:10.1007/s11050-004-8739-0 New window
NUK URN:URN:SI:UNG:REP:3XHXBQWP
Publication date in RUNG:20.02.2024
Views:1476
Downloads:3
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Record is a part of a journal

Title:Natural language semantics : an international journal of semantics and its interfaces in grammar
Shortened title:Nat. lang. semant.
Publisher:Kluwer Academic Publisher
ISSN:0925-854X
COBISS.SI-ID:40377344 New window

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