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Inversion Patterns with Fronted Quantifier Phrases

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Inversion Patterns with Fronted Quantifier Phrases INVERSION PATTERNS WITH FRONTED QUANTIFIER PHRASES THE INFLUENCE OF (C)OVERT SYNTACTIC NEGATIVE FEATURES Timo Verhulst Stamnummer: 01200994 Promotor: Prof. Dr. Karen De Clercq Masterproef voorgelegd voor het behalen van de graad master in de richting Taal- en Letterkunde: Engels Academiejaar: 2016 – 2017 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, prof. Dr. Karen De Clercq, for the considerable amount of time she has invested in my research. Her insight and feedback have proven extremely valuable in the writing process. This work would certainly not have been possible without her guidance. I would also like to thank my family and friends; especially my parents, who have provided me with the opportunity to pursue the education that I wanted and have always supported me in every step of the way, and Elise, who (with my “permission”) forced me to spend numerous hours in the library and, during the probably one hundred coffee breaks, assured me again and again that we would get there eventually. ii Table of Contents List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………………………………v List of Figures…………………………………………………..……………………………………............vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Theoretical background ...................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Quantifiers and negativity .................................................................................................................. 4 1.1.1 Quantifier classification ......................................................................................................... 4 1.1.2 Negativity tests ...................................................................................................................... 7 1.1.3 Syntactic hierarchy of negation ............................................................................................. 9 1.1.4 Nonmonotonic QPs ............................................................................................................. 10 1.2 Inversion in Generative Grammar .................................................................................................... 11 1.2.1 SAI patterns ......................................................................................................................... 11 1.2.2 WH-/NEG-criterion ............................................................................................................. 12 1.2.3 The split CP ......................................................................................................................... 14 1.2.4 Topic – Focus distinction .................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 2 Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 3 Results and discussion ....................................................................................................... 22 3.1 Overview .......................................................................................................................................... 22 3.2 Quantifier-auxiliary combinations .................................................................................................... 26 3.2.1 Anti-additive/antimorphic QPs ............................................................................................ 26 3.2.2 Downward entailing QPs ..................................................................................................... 27 3.2.3 Nonmonotonic QPs ............................................................................................................. 29 3.3 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 29 iii Chapter 4 Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 30 4.1 General overview ............................................................................................................................. 30 4.1.1 Ambiguous constituents ...................................................................................................... 33 4.2 Corpus data analysis ......................................................................................................................... 36 4.2.1 Anti-additive/antimorphic QPs ............................................................................................ 36 4.2.1.1 [NEG]-feature ...................................................................................................................... 39 4.2.2 Downward entailing QPs ..................................................................................................... 40 4.2.2.1 [NEG]-feature ...................................................................................................................... 43 4.2.3 Nonmonotonic QPs ............................................................................................................. 44 4.2.3.1 [NEG]-feature ...................................................................................................................... 47 4.2.3.2 Exactly .................................................................................................................................. 53 4.2.4 “Misbehaving” quantifiers ................................................................................................... 54 4.2.4.1 Nothing ................................................................................................................... 54 4.2.4.2 Zero ......................................................................................................................... 56 4.2.4.3 Only ...................................................................................................................................... 57 4.2.4.4 DE quantifiers: rarely .......................................................................................................... 59 4.3 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 61 Conclusion 63 Bibliography 66 Word count: 21.139 iv List of Tables Table 1 QPs ...................................................................................................................................... 20 Table 2 Auxiliary tags ...................................................................................................................... 20 Table 3 BNC results ......................................................................................................................... 22 Table 4 COCA results ....................................................................................................................... 23 Table 5 Overview results .................................................................................................................. 24 Table 6 Inversion and topicalization structures ................................................................................ 36 Table 7 N-word morphology ............................................................................................................ 39 v List of Figures Figure 1 SAI patterns in GG .............................................................................................................. 12 Figure 2 Split CP-structure ................................................................................................................ 15 Figure 3 Search entry ......................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 4 Graph overview ................................................................................................................... 24 Figure 5 Results (never) ..................................................................................................................... 26 Figure 6 Results (rarely) .................................................................................................................... 27 Figure 7 Results (seldom) .................................................................................................................. 27 Figure 8 Results (few) ........................................................................................................................ 28 Figure 9 Results (zero) ....................................................................................................................... 28 Figure 10 Results (only) ....................................................................................................................... 29 Figure 11 Focalized anti-additive QP structure (never) ....................................................................... 38 Figure 12 Focalized anti-additive QP structure (nothing).................................................................... 38 Figure 13 Focalized downward entailing QP structure (rarely) .......................................................... 42 Figure 14 Focalized nonmonotonic QP structure (only) ...................................................................... 46 vi Introduction It is widely accepted that (constituents with) purely negative quantifiers (e.g. no, never and the negative marker not) give rise to subject-auxiliary inversion when preposed (Biber 2000; Büring 2004; Collins & Postal 2014; De Clercq et al 2012; Haegeman
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