Classical NEG Raising: An Essay on the Syntax of Negation

7. NEG Deletion: Case Studies

NEG Deletion: Case Studies 7.1 Goal A key basis of our defense of syntactic approaches to Classical NR, especially that in chapter 16, depends on the concept of NEG deletion. This concept has also obviously played a key role in our analysis of reversals (chapter 4) and polyadic quantification (chapter 6). The basic idea of NEG deletion is that a deleted NEG has no direct morphological realization, and so is unpronounced. The idea of NEG deletion is not original here but goes back at least to Klima’s (1964) analysis of Classical NR in terms of “NEG absorption” (an account sharply different from our own). Another early analysis was by Fauconnier (1971:222), who proposed a rule of the form NEG NEG → ∅. In this chapter, we consider several cases that give plausible initial support for the existence of NEG deletion. Then in chapter 8, we briefly sketch a general theoretical conception of NEG deletion adequate for describing the cases in this monograph. 7.2 French Pas Deletion The standard French finite clause negation pattern is illustrated in (1): (1) Le ministre ne viendra pas. the minister PRT come.FUT NEG ‘The minister will not come.’ In such cases, negation is represented by the postverbal form pas, accompanied by the marker ne, glossed as PRT. In colloquial forms of French, especially in more recent decades, ne is frequently absent. In cases where there is a negative 7 60 Chapter 7 quantifier, ne is also found in more formal usage, as in (2), but again often absent in colloquial usage: (2) Personne ne viendra. no.one PRT come.FUT ‘No one will come.’ These data suggest that while historically derived from a true negative form, current French ne does not have that function. Nonetheless, the latter conclusion is partially controversial, as has long been observed. Thus, Martinon (1927:538–548) provided a section titled “The Negation Ne Employed Alone” that considered a restricted variety of cases where one might argue that ne functions as a negation, and not as a semantically redundant marker as in (1) and (2). In addition, Martinon claimed that exactly four verbs could be conjugated with ne without pas: pouvoir ‘can/be able’, cesser ‘cease’, oser ‘dare’, and savoir ‘know’. Martinon (1927:539– 540) gave these examples in particular (see also Muller 1991:230): (3) a. Il ne cessait (pas) de crier. he PRT ceased (NEG) of shout ‘He didn’t cease shouting.’ b. Tu ne sais (pas) ce que tu veux. you.FAM PRT know (NEG) what you.FAM want ‘You don’t know what you want.’ c. Cette circonstance ne pouvait vous dispenser de . . . that circumstance PRT could you exempt/excuse/avoid from ‘That circumstance can’t exempt you from . . .’ In addition to indicating the optionality of the phenomenon in all of these cases and others, Martinon noted many restrictions on the possibility of ne unaccompanied by pas, restrictions of apparently both a semantic and a syntactic order. We propose that such clauses involve NEG deletion, which brings about the covert status of pas. Focus on cases like the following: (4) a. La tête à Hollande Mr Bontaz ne peut la piffrer comme moi the head of Hollande Mr. Bontaz PRT can it stand like me d’ailleurs. moreover ‘Hollande, Mr. Bontaz can’t stand even seeing, just like me moreover.’ (actu-people.staragora.com/maroc-chaine-france.html) NEG Deletion: Case Studies 61 b. en clair plus personne ne peut la piffrer dans ma famille. to put it clearly more no.one PRT can her stand in my family ‘Frankly, no one in my family can stand her anymore.’ (lonelyness.journalintime.com/2010/04/22-ce-mercredi-ma-dit) In our terms, (4a) involves deletion of the NEG associated with peut ‘can’, which would otherwise show up as pas. It is the deleted form that actually provides the negative force seen in the translation. The particle ne is present but has no semantic function, just as it has none in (4b), where the form personne provides the negative force. Statement (5) represents the informal rule for NEG deletion in these cases: (5) A NEG in the context Verbx ___ is deleted by Verbx only if Verbx = pouvoir, cesser, oser, or savoir. We refer to this case of pas deletion as an instance of lexical NEG deletion since in each instance of this type of deletion, there is a specific lexical item that...