[REVIEW ] Expression and Interpretation of Negation: An OT Typology By Henriëtte de Swart, Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 77, Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York, 2010, xvii+279pp. KIYOKO KATAOKA Kanagawa University* Keywords: bidirectional Optimality Theory, negative concord, double nega- tion, universality, markedness 1. Introduction The work aims to give a unified view of negation, polarity, and con- cord across different languages, dialects and diachronic stages of a lan- guage. The author takes her work as providing a general theory of human language and cognition to account for cross-linguistic variation in synchronic terms as well as diachronic terms. The basic view comes from the thesis by Dahl (1979) that negation is a universal category of natural language and also the thesis by de Swart (2009) that it is presumably a universal category of human cognition. Though cross-linguistic variation is a major topic, from both a synchronic (typology) and a diachronic (language change) perspective, the book inves- tigates mainly the negative indefinites (so-called n-words, which de Swart refers to as Neg-expressions) to draw the whole picture of Negative Concord (NC), where more than one Neg-expression leads to a single negation, and Double Negation (DN), where two Neg-expressions lead to a double nega- tion. Under the assumption that knowledge of first-order logic is part of human cognition, de Swart concentrates on how propositional negation in sentence structure is derived involving Neg-expressions, and tries to con- struct the same underlying mechanisms to exploit the relations between form * I am very grateful to Jennifer L. Smith for her generous support to this review work. Her careful comments and insightful suggestions helped me understand the con- tent more deeply. I could not have completed this project without the meaningful dis- cussions with her. I also thank the reviewer for the careful comments and suggestions, which were very helpful in finishing this article. Of course, any remaining errors are mine. English Linguistics 29: 1 (2012) 155–165 －155－ © 2012 by the English Linguistic Society of Japan 156 ENGLISH LINGUISTICS, VOL. 29, NO. 1 (2012) and meaning in different ways, which lead to differences on the surface. In this review, I first summarize the main claims of the book and then give a brief illustration of how the proposed system works as a useful tool of description and analysis. I then point out some problematic issues from the theoretical point of view, and discuss empirical issues making use of negative expressions in Japanese, which is my native language. 2. Main Claims and the Proposed System 2.1. Basic Assumptions The basic view of negation by de Swart is as follows (Chapter 1). (1) Negation as a universal category: Negation is a universal category of natural language (Dahl 1979, Chapter 3), and presumably of human cognition (de Swart 2009). The most significant observation to support this view is that all natural lan- guages have ways to express negation, i.e. something that corresponds to the first-order logical connective ¬, and that it is a universal feature of human cognition that speakers are able to conceptualize the meaning ¬p as well as p and express both affirmation and negation in their mother tongue. The primary basic assumption is the markedness of negation (Chapter 3). (2) Markedness of negation Negation is formally and interpretationally marked compared to affirmation. This general assumption is rooted in the observation that the expression of negation involves special grammatical means, whereas the expression of af- firmation does not, for instance, not and zero forms in English. There is an asymmetry between the expression of p and its negative counterpart ¬p in that negation is always overtly marked. 2.2. Bidirectional Optimality Theory as a Model of Grammar The theoretical framework adopted in this study is Optimality Theory (OT) (Chapter 2). Its base is a connectionist cognitive architecture ad- vocated in Smolensky and Legendre (2006); complex cognitive functions are computed by the brain network—mathematical models of neural com- putation—and, when the network achieves a state of maximal harmony—a maximized measure of well-formedness—, it has optimally satisfied the constraints. For language, a possible linguistic structure is evaluated by a set of well-formedness constraints, each of which defines one desirable as- pect of an ideal linguistic representation. Since no structure meets all the REVIEWS 157 constraints, a mechanism is needed to decide which constraints are the most important, such that the structures that optimally satisfy the constraints are well-formed or grammatical. In an ordinal OT grammar, a set of constraints that are ranked in a strict domination hierarchy define the preferred characteristics of linguistic representations. The constraints themselves are universal, but their rank- ing varies across languages and the language specific rankings must be learned. Grammatical knowledge of a particular language is knowledge of the constraint hierarchy, and use of the knowledge consists of determining which linguistic structures optimally satisfy the hierarchy. Thus the model of a grammar in OT is explicitly embedded in a broader cognitive architec- ture, and can capture the generalization that languages make use of the same underlying mechanisms, but are different in the relations between form and meaning, which is the key insight of the book. The particular model adopted is a bidirectional OT. The empirical phe- nomenon of negation is situated at the syntax-semantics interface, and thus optimization is needed in two directions (from meaning to form and from form to meaning); expressive optimization is needed for a theory of syntax, and interpretive optimization is needed for a theory of semantics, allowing the theory to work in two directions. Ordinal and strong bidirectional OT is used whenever possible, and extensions to stochastic OT (Boersma and Hayes 2001) or weak bidirectionality are adopted only when a strict and strong model cannot work as in intermediate cases (see 2.3.3). 2.3. Proposed System 2.3.1. Universally Ranked Constraints In addition to the markedness of negation, de Swart assumes that human speakers wish to distinguish between affirmative and negative statements in their language. The proposed system translates those assumptions into the model as two general constraints of faithfulness and markedness (Smolensky and Legendre (2006)), FNEG and *NEG (Chapter 3). (3) FNEG Be faithful to negation, i.e. reflect the nonaffirmative nature of the input in the output. (4) * NEG Avoid negation in the output. The desire to distinguish the two kinds of statement leads to the universal ranking FNEG >> *NEG . *NEG works as an economy constraint. Under strong evolutionary pressure, languages form optimal systems of communi- cation, which is reflected in Horn’s (1984) principle that natural languages respect the speaker’s division of pragmatic labor. According to this prin- 158 ENGLISH LINGUISTICS, VOL. 29, NO. 1 (2012) ciple, unmarked/simple meanings (affirmation) pair up with unmarked forms (zero), and marked/complex meanings (negation) with marked forms. Due to economy, the use of marked forms/meanings tends to be avoided or rela- tively infrequent. 2.3.2. Variation in Ranking (I): Sentential Negation The universal ranking FNEG >> *NEG requires negation to be overtly expressed in all languages, and thus accounts for Dahl’s (1979) typologi- cally based observation that negation is a universal category of natural lan- guage. This ranking, however, leaves a wide range of variation as to the means to express negation, and the integration of the negation marker in the grammar of a particular language, such as preverbal, postverbal, and dis- continuous negation. Concentrating on propositional negation in sentence structure, two constraints are added to govern the placement of negation. (5) NEG FIRST Negation precedes the finite verb. (6) FOCUS LAST New information comes last in the sentence. It is how the constraints in a higher rank are optimally satisfied that will decide which structure is the most well-formed. A higher ranking of NEG - FIRST leads to preverbal negation (Italian); a higher ranking of FOCUS LAST leads to postverbal negation (German). If both outrank *NEG and those two are not in competition, discontinuous negation emerges (written French, Tableau 8 in Chapter 3, 3.3.2). The typology can be interpreted in a synchronic as well as a diachronic perspective as the result of re-ranking the three constraints with respect to each other. Thus the three main phases of the Jespersen cycle (Chapter 1), which formulates the diachronic pattern of negation—a shift from preverbal to postverbal via a discontinuous stage—are also accounted for by the sys- tem. Even with intermediate stages, for instance, where a preverbal nega- tion is obligatory but a postverbal marker is optional, or where a postverbal negation is obligatory but a preverbal marker is optional, languages eventu- ally stabilize on an ordinal ranking. Since those processes are diachronic- ally unstable according to Haspelmath (1997), an extension toward stochas- tic OT is required to allow overlapping ranges of constraints in the rankings and to deal with the intermediate stages. 2.3.3. Variation in Ranking (II): Negative Indefinites In Chapters 4, 5 and 6, after illustrating the distributional phenomena of negative indefinites (called Neg-expressions) and how DN and NC readings ensue, de Swart provides the relevant constraints and their rankings to ac- REVIEWS 159 count for variations diachronically as well as synchronically. Her starting point is the claim by Dahl (1979) and Horn (1989) that all languages have, in addition to ways to express propositional negation, pronominal or adver- bial expressions negating the existence of individuals having a certain prop- erty. Following the idea by Jespersen (1917) that negation is frequently attracted to an argument, a constraint NEG ATTRACT is introduced. (7) NEG ATTRACT Realize (clausal) negation on an indefinite in argument or adjunct position.