Towards a Neg-Lowering Analysis of Neg-Raising in English

Abstract

This paper investigates the phenomenon of Neg-Raising (NR) in English. There are two approaches to this phenomenon. One is the traditional syntactic NR approach, where the negation is raised to the matrix NR-allowing predicate. The other is the semantico-pragmatic approach, where via the exclusive middle inference, the negation base-generated in the matrix predicate is construed in the lower clause. This paper departs from these two approaches, arguing that the negation generated in the matrix clause undergoes syntactic Neg-Lowering (NL) to the embedded clause at LF. This argument is based on the NL and negative polarity item (NPI) interaction under VP or TP ellipsis. We reinforce this argument by drawing on the fact that NL is sensitive to the type of quantifiers in embedded subject positions. We then provide an NL analysis for some issues that can pose challenges to the previous approaches to NR.