Exploring a 'Pragmatic Ambiguity' of Negation

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2990463
AutoresAlyson Pitts (autor correspondente)
Ano2011
Volume87
Fascículo2
Páginas346-368
Data de publicação2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoLanguage (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665
EditoraProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/lan.2011.0035
OpenAlexW1975126961
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14
Referências citadas52

This article explores a 'pragmatic ambiguity' of negation in English, first discussed by Horn (1985, 1989:Ch.6) in his appeal to an intuitive division between ordinary, 'descriptive' negation and marked, 'metalinguistic' uses of negation in everyday language. The main agenda is to better understand what such a pragmatic ambiguity of negation really amounts to: are there sufficient grounds to posit two types of negation, and what prevents Horn's pragmatic ambiguity from being semantic in its nature? In this article, I review the key features promoted by Horn as characteristic of the purported duality in negation-particularly those posited for marked, metalinguistic uses of negation, such as resistance to prefixal incorporation, failure to trigger negative polarity items, and employment of the paradigmatic not X but Y construction. I then consider and evaluate subsequent attempts to posit a finer-grained analysis of metalinguistic negation, as endorsed by Foolen (1991) and Geurts (1998). The article concludes by upholding the so-called pragmatic ambiguity, but advises due caution with regard to Horn's diagnostics when appealing to this intuitive distinction of negation within use

Ambiguity · Epistemology · Linguistics · Negation · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation