Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-npj9w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-08T13:27:49.493Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Negatives in Comparatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Donna Jo Napoli  and
Marina Nespor
Donna Jo Napoli
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Marina Nespor
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The negative element non appears in Italian comparatives when the speaker presupposes that his statement contradicts someone else's or his own previously held belief. Though this non appears in the comparative clause in the surface, it originates in a higher abstract S in embedded position. By proposing an abstract S in embedded position, we can account in a unified way for many sets of facts which would go unrelated in either a presupposition-dependent syntax model or an interpretive approach. This use of non is thus an example of a presuppositional fact which is accounted for by a syntactic analysis.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 811 - 838
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Antinucci, Francesco, and Puglielli, Annarita. 1971. Struttura della quantificazione. Grammatica trasformazionale italiana, ed. by Medici, Mario & Simone, Raffaele, 47–62. Rome: Bulzoni.Google Scholar
Battaglia, S., and Pernicone, V. 1951. La grammatica italiana. Torino: Chiantore.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1968. Aspects of language. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan. 1973. Syntax of the comparative clause construction in English. Linguistic Inquiry 4. 275–344.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1971. Deep structure, surface structure, and semantic interpretation. Semantics, ed. by Steinberg, D. & Jakobovits, L., 183–216. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Grosu, Alexander. 1972. The strategic content of island constraints. (Working papers in linguistics, Ohio State University, 13.) Columbus.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence. 1969. A presuppositional analysis of only and even. Papers from the 5th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 98–107.Google Scholar
Huckin, Tom. 1974. Abstract negation in the English comparative sentence. Papers presented at the 4th Western Conference on Linguistics, Seattle.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and other languages. Copenhagen. [Reprinted in his Selected writings, 3–151. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960.]Google Scholar
Karttunen, Lauri. 1973. Presuppositions of compound sentences. Linguistic Inquiry 4. 169–93.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward. 1971. Two kinds of presupposition in natural language. Studies in linguistic semantics, ed. by Fillmore, C. & Langendoen, D. T., 45–54. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul, and Kiparsky, Carol. 1970. Fact. Progress in linguistics, ed. by Bierwisch, M. & Heidolph, K. E., 143–73. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1971. Presupposition and relative well-formedness. Semantics, ed. by Steinberg, D. & Jakobovits, L., 329–40. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 1968. Abstract syntax and Latin complementation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 1972. Language in context. Lg. 48. 907–27.Google Scholar
Morgan, Jerry. 1969. On the treatment of presupposition in transformational grammar. Papers from the 5th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 167–77.Google Scholar
Napoli, Donna Jo. MS. Indefinite subject sentences in Italian.Google Scholar
Nespor, Marina, MS. The head of the comparative construction in Italian.Google Scholar
Rivero, Maria Luisa. 1971. Mood and presupposition in Spanish. Foundations of Language 7. 305–36.Google Scholar
Ross, John Robert. 1969. A proposed rule of tree-pruning. Modern studies in English, ed. by Reibel, D. A. & Schane, S. A., 288–99. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Saltarelli, Mario. 1974a. Reference and mood in Italian. Linguistic studies in Romance languages, ed. by Campbell, J., Goldin, M., & Wang, M., 203–18. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Saltarelli, Mario. 1974b. Postulati per una teoria semantica delle proposizioni comparative. Fenomeni morfologici e sintattici nell'italiano contemporaneo, ed. by Medici, Mario & Sangregorio, Antonella, 283–99. Rome: Bulzoni.Google Scholar
Seuren, Pieter. 1969. Il concetto di regola grammaticale. La sintassi, Atti del III Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Società di Linguistica Italiana, 125–41. Rome: Bulzoni.Google Scholar
Van Valin, Robert. 1975. A pragmatic analysis of German doch. Master's thesis. Berkeley: University of California.Google Scholar