The Grammar of Polarity: Pragmatics, Sensitivity, and the Logic of Scales (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Series Number 127)

Many languages include constructions which are sensitive to the expression of polarity: that is, negative polarity items, which cannot occur in affirmative clauses, and positive polarity items, which cannot occur in negatives. The phenomenon of polarity sensitivity has been an important source of evidence for theories about the mental architecture of grammar over the last fifty years, and to many the oddly dysfunctional sensitivities of polarity items have seemed to support a view of grammar as an encapsulated mental module fundamentally unrelated to other aspects of human cognition or communicative behavior. This book draws on insights from cognitive/functional linguistics and formal semantics to argue that, on the contrary, the grammar of sensitivity is grounded in a very general human cognitive ability to form categories and draw inferences based on scalar alternatives, and in the ways this ability is deployed for rhetorical effects in ordinary interpersonal communication. THE GRAMMAR OF POLARITY......Page 2 CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS......Page 4 Title......Page 6 Copyright......Page 7 The more that I philosophize The more and more I realize That little things which I despise, Like peanut shells and grains of sand, Are very hard, hard to understand.......Page 8 Contents......Page 10 Figures......Page 13 Tables......Page 14 Acknowledgments......Page 15 Abbreviations......Page 17 1.1 As above, so below......Page 20 1.2 A quirk of grammar or a trick of thought?......Page 21 1.3 The hypothesis: sensitivity as lexical pragmatics......Page 26 1.4 Putting pragmatics in its place......Page 29 1.5 Pragmatics in a usage-based grammar......Page 33 2.1 The simplicity of negation......Page 39 2.2 The complexity of polarity......Page 40 2.3.1 Polarity items......Page 45 2.3.2 Polarity contexts......Page 48 2.4 Basic mysteries: three problems of polarity sensitivity......Page 49 2.5 Varieties of polarity sensitivity......Page 56 2.5.1 Semi-polarity items, sometime polarity items......Page 57 2.5.2 Polarity sensitive morphology......Page 60 2.5.3 Inherently negative idioms......Page 61 2.5.4 Negative concord and the Jespersen cycle......Page 62 2.6 The Scalar Model of polarity sensitivity......Page 66 3.1 What is a polarity context?......Page 67 3.2 Fauconnier’s insight......Page 68 3.3.1 Scalar reasoning and scalar implicature......Page 70 3.3.2 Cognitive foundations: conceptual scales......Page 73 3.3.3 Inferential mechanisms: scalar models......Page 76 3.4 Affectivity as a mode of scalar construal......Page 80 3.5 Syntactic constraints on scalar construals......Page 89 3.5.1 The precedence condition......Page 90 3.5.2 Intervention effects......Page 92 3.5.3 The paradox of double negation......Page 94 3.6 Polarity contexts are mental spaces......Page 97 4.1 Scalar operators......Page 98 4.2 Two scalar properties......Page 100 4.3 Four sorts of polarity items......Page 104 4.4 Sensitivity and the square of opposition......Page 111 4.5 The conspiracy theory of polarity licensing......Page 112 4.6 The anomaly of inverted polarity items......Page 114 5.1 The Informativity Hypothesis......Page 123 5.2 Quantitative semantics......Page 124 5.3 The pragmatics of informativity......Page 128 5.4 Assessing informativity......Page 135 5.4.1 Diagnostics of emphasis......Page 136 5.4.2 Diagnostics of attenuation......Page 138 5.5 Rhetorical coherence in polarity contexts......Page 139 5.6 Compositional sensitivities......Page 140 6.1 Paradigmatic predictions of the Scalar Model......Page 145 6.2 Modal polarity items......Page 146 6.3 Connective polarity items......Page 161 6.4 Aspectual polarity items......Page 170 6.5 The limits of diversity......Page 180 7.1 The many splendors of any......Page 182 7.2 Indefinite family resemblances......Page 183 7.3 Emphatic construals of indefinite any......Page 187 7.4 The effects of phantom reference......Page 199 7.5 Some uses of some......Page 207 7.6 The limits of free choice......Page 215 7.7 Indefinite conclusions......Page 219 8.1 High stakes Grammar......Page 221 8.2 Terms of the debate......Page 222 8.3 The syntactic approach......Page 225 8.3.1 Progovac: polarity and binding......Page 226 8.3.2 Linebarger: syntax and pragmatics......Page 228 8.4 Semantic approaches......Page 231 8.4.1 The Monotonicity Thesis......Page 232 8.4.2 A hierarchy of negative contexts......Page 235 8.4.3 Veridicality and nonveridicality......Page 240 8.4.4 Semantics and logical form......Page 243 8.5 Toward a more pragmatic approach......Page 246 9.1 Affectivity reconsidered......Page 252 9.2 Scalar construal......Page 254 9.3 Logical conditions are not sufficient......Page 256 9.3.1 Incoherent scalar models......Page 257 9.3.2 On the need for a scalar construal......Page 260 9.4.1 ‘Exact’ cardinals......Page 262 9.4.2 ‘Most’ and ‘few’......Page 265 9.4.3 ‘After’ effects......Page 267 9.5 Rhetorical coherence......Page 269 9.6 Affectivity reclaimed......Page 273 10 Visions and revisions......Page 275 1. The amount scale: quantitative polarity items......Page 277 3. The frequency scale: occasional polarity items......Page 278 6. The connection scale: connective polarity items......Page 279 9. The significance scale: mattering polarity items......Page 280 12. The inclination scale: desiderative polarity items......Page 281 15. The trouble scale: irritative polarity items......Page 282 18. Loquacity: talkative polarity items......Page 283 Morphological NPIs: words with an obligatory negative affix......Page 284 4 Sensitivity as inherent scalar semantics......Page 286 7 The family of English indefinite polarity items......Page 287 8 Polarity and the architecture of grammar......Page 288 Abbreviations......Page 289 General index......Page 304 Person index......Page 309 This book surveys a wide variety of polarity items, both negative and positive, commonly found in English and other languages to show that grammatical sensitivities arise regularly and only in semantic domains which are inherently scalar.