Negation Licensing and Clausal Organization

摘要大多数语言，如果不是全部的话，都有需要“否定许可”的结构，它的出现依赖于否定表达在从句中其他地方的出现。本项目探讨了几种具有不同小句结构的语言中的否定许可现象，强调了否定许可的不同之处在于这些语言表达否定的普遍语义和语用范畴的不同方式。这项研究为当前句子句法结构与语义结构关系的理论提供了一个富有成效的试验场。有相当多的证据表明，否定许可现象的跨语言变异很大程度上可以归因于不同语言中否定的表层位置。研究者使用否定许可模式来考察否定成分在小句句法组织中的作用。该项目将导致对英语、爱尔兰语和其他几种语言中的几种方言中的否定系统进行详细的分析，并增加我们对世界语言中小句结构类型的总体理解。

ABSTRACT Most, if not all, languages have constructions which require 'negative licensing', constructions whose occurence depends on the appearance of an expression of negation somewhere else in the clause. This project explores the phenomenon of Negative Licensing in several languages with differing clause structures, highlighting the differences in Negative Licensing which follow from the different ways in which these languages express the universal semantic and pragmatic category of negation. The Research provides a fruitful testing-ground for current theories of the relationship between the syntactic structure of a sentence and its semantic structure. There is considerable evidence that much of the crosslinguistic variation in Negative Licensing phenomena can be attributed to the surface position of negation in different languages. The investigators use the pattern of Negative Licensing as a probe in the investigation of the role played by the negation-element in the syntactic organization of the clause. The project will result in detailed analyses of the system of negation in several dialects of English, in Irish, and in several other languages in addition to increasing our general understanding of the typology of clause structure in the languages of the world.