Page 430 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory ^bitlMany arrows] hit the target]
(2)
ing if it is in the scope of MEG(ikke), as in the answer of (8a) and in the question of (8b).
2. Negation andPresuppositions
Commenting on (5), reference has been made to the presuppositions which make a sentence felicitous or not (in Grice's sense). As may be argued from the 'tag question' at the end of:
They almost sold it, didn 't they? (9)
the sentence is felt to be positive, even though the proposition it asserts entails the negative state of affairs that they did not sell it (see Taglicht 1983:108).
Conversely, (5) does not imply that Mary does not drive, but, on the contrary, that she drives (cf., also (lb)). What determines the negative effect of TTNEG and its applications are the pragmatic presuppositions at the discourse and situation level.
3. TypologyofNegation
The means for realizing TTNEGS show a large crosslin- guistic variety, as may easily be seen by comparing the simple declarative negative English sentence (lOa) with its translations in various languages:
408
" many arrows] hit the target];
£Afany stars are pRED[fH»6/e]] (3)
->•^Many starsare nNEGfREIJ[invisible]];
^ja>v[Consciously,] Mary smiled} (4) n
-* s[ NEGfLD\[Unconsciously,] Mary smiled]; etc.
Examples (2)-(4) are affirmative sentences (a nega- tive counterpart of (2) would be 'Many arrows didn't hit the target').
It may be concluded that the phrase/lexeme negation operates by applying a TTNEG to the phra- se/lexeme to be negated, i.e., by negating the truth condition or the existence of that phrase/lexeme.
But in the following:
Mary doesn't drive dangerously /like a stunt car driver (5)
NEC has in its scope just the modal and the sentence makes sense only if the presupposition is that Mary is capable of driving. Only when NEC applies to S and its predicative nexus does a negative sentence occur.
The English sentence:
You may not read the newspaper today (6)
has two different intonations (suprasegmental traits) which correspond to two different readings: 'You are not allowed to read the newspaper today' and 'You have the option of not reading the newspaper today.' Only the first interpretation gives a negative sentence; and, in fact, the scope of MEGincludes in this case the entire predication. This is not the case with the second interpretation. This is precisely why negative quan- tifiers (the so-called 'negative pronouns') make a sen- tence negative (see Sect. 6):
Nobody knowsmysorrow. (7a) In other words, "There is no x such that x knows my
sorrow'—the entire predication lies in the scope of 'Nobody'. Note that this holds true also for negative quantifiers in object position:
John had nothing, he knew nobody. (7b) Not every language possesses this kind of quantifier.
For example, Danish:
Har du set noget?—Nej, jeg har ikke set noget. (8a) Have you seen something?—No, I have not seen some- thing.
'Have you seen anything?—No, nothing/
versus
Har du ikke set noget?—Jo, jeg har set noget. (8b) Have you not seen something?—Yes, I have seen
something.
'Haven't you seen anything?—Yes, I have seen
something.'
The opposition between 'nothing' and 'some- thing/anything' is realized syntactically in the context and not lexically, and noget acquires a negative mean-
John doesn 't eat fish
(lOa)
(lOb)
(lOc)
(10d)
(lOe)
(lO f)
(10g)
(10h)
French
Jean
J.
German
Hans iftt keinen Fisch
3.
Finnish
Jukka ei
P ART+ART
(vs. Hans iftt
J. eats fish)
syd kalaa
ne mange pas de
poisson
NEC Cats MEG PART fish
(vs. Jean mange du
poisson
)
eats no: ADJ fish
J. NEG-Sso eat fish
Turkish
John balik yemiyor
(vs. Jukka syd kalaa J. eats fish)
J. fish
Japanese
eat-NEG-PRES(3SG)
(vs. John baltk yiyor J. fish eats)
Welsh
Russian
John wa sakana wo tabenai
J. TPC
fish OBJ eat-NEG
(vs. John wa sakanawo taberu
Nid yw John yn bwyta pysgod
NEC is
J. in (vs. Y
eat fish
Ivan ne est rybu J. NEC eats fish
DECL is
J.
in eat
fish )
J. fish
eats)
mae John yn bwyta pysgod
Fisch