Negation and negative concord in romance

Abstract

This paper addresses the two interpretations a combination of negative indefinites can get in concord languages like French, namely a concord reading which amounts to a single negation, or a double negation reading. We develop an analysis in a polyadic framework, in which a sequence of negative indefinites can be interpreted as an iteration of quantifiers or as absorption. The first option leads to a scopal relation, interpreted as double negation. The second option leads to the construction of a polyadic negative quantifier, which corresponds to the concord reading. Given that negation participates in negative concord, we develop an extension of the polyadic approach which can deal with non-variable binding operators. The contribution of negation in a concord context is semantically empty, which is taken to explain the cross-linguistic variation we find in the participation of negation in negative concord. The semantic analysis is incorporated into a grammatical analysis formulated in HPSG, which crucially relies on the assumption that quantifiers can be combined in more than one way upon retrieval from the quantifier store.