Negative Indefinites

Doris Penka delivers a unified analysis of the semantics and syntax of negative indefinites - as in the expressions nobody, nothing, never and nowhere - and their counterparts in other languages. Contrary to standard assumptions, the author argues that these expressions are not inherently negative and are only licensed by a covert negation.

In this book, Doris Penka delivers a cross-linguistic, unified analysis of the semantics and syntax of negative indefinites, as in the expressions nobody, nothing, no (as determiner), never and nowhere and their counterparts in other languages. While it is standard to assume that negative indefinites behave like negative quantifiers, the author argues that these expressions are not inherently negative and are only licensed by a covert negation. In an analysis motivated by three phenomena found in the structure and semantics of negative indefinites in different languages - namely negative concord (in which multiple occurrences of negative constituents express a single negation), split readings (in which negative and indefinite parts take scope independently of each other), and the limited distribution of negative indefinites in Scandinavian languages - Doris Penka considers data from a wide range of languages and reviews the most recent literature on the semantics and syntax of negative indefinites. Her book will interest all linguists working on negation in particular and the syntax-semantics interface more generally.