Typological Variation in Negative Concord and the Scope of Negation

Joy Ruff

It is customary to draw a typological division between Double Negation (DN) and Negative Concord (NC)
languages. In the latter set, a further division is generally drawn between the widespread Strict NC
languages and Post-verbal (‘Non-strict’) NC languages, mainly found in Romance:

Strict NC: The negative marker is always overt in the presence of n-words.

Post-verbal NC: Post-verbal n-words must be accompanied by an overt negative marker;

pre-verbal n-words cannot be.

In this dissertation I provide evidence from the Kotoko languages of Central Chadic for a third type of NC,
showing the reverse distribution to Post-verbal NC:

Pre-verbal NC: Pre-verbal n-words must be accompanied by an overt negative marker;

post-verbal n-words cannot be.

I show that the typological variation, as it applies to both single and multiple n-words, is largely captured by
a licensing requirement (1), a context-sensitive spell-out rule (2) and parametric variation in the
interpretation of scope of negation (3):

(1) In NC languages, an n-word must be licensed by forming a negative chain, either with the negative
marker, or by forming a complex chain with an n-word in another negative chain.

(2) Avoid Negation Principle:

A negative marker is realised overtly iff it determines the scope of negation.

(3) Scope of Negation Parameter

a) The scope of negation is always determined by the negative marker. Æ Strict NC
b) The scope of negation is determined by the foot of the negative chain. Æ Pre-verbal NC
c) The scope of negation is determined by the head of the negative chain. Æ Post-verbal NC

Zero spell-out of the negative marker is motivated by the markedness of the expression of negation;
however, if, by the language-specific setting of the parameter in (3) it is the negative marker that determines
the scope of negation, recoverability requires the negative marker to be overt.

Concerning DN languages, I adopt an argument from Haspelmath (1997), based on the Jespersen Cycle
(Jespersen 1917), to explain why their negative markers are overwhelmingly adverbial. Taking this
argument into account, the fourth logical parametric setting in (d) naturally results:

(3) d) The scope of negation is always determined by any and all n-words. Æ DN