From hell to polarity: Aggressively Non-D-Linked wh-phrases as polarity items
| Abstract | Pesetsky’s (1987) ‘‘aggressively non-D-linked’’ wh-phrases (like who the hell; hereinafter, wh-the-hell phrases) exhibit a variety of syntactic and semantic peculiarities, including the fact that they cannot occur in situ and do not support nonecho readings when occurring in root multiple questions. While these are familiar from the literature (albeit less than fully understood), our focus will be on a previously unnoted property of wh-the-hell phrases: the fact that their distribution (in single wh-questions) matches that of polarity items (PIs). We lay out the key data supporting this claim, embed the PI nature of wh-the-hell phrases in the theory of polarity developed in Giannakidou 1998, 1999, 2001, and establish the link between the lexical content of these phrases and their PI status by identifying wh-the-hell as a dependent PI. We subsequently exploit the PI status of wh-the-hell to explain the more familiar puzzles mentioned above, showing that these are not peculiarities specific to wh-the-hell but manifestations of the general properties of the class of PIs that wh-the-hell belongs to. The syntactic aspects of the polarity analysis of wh-the-hell are shown to have important consequences for the fundamental properties of wh-movement in English | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesKenneth Einar Himma (2003). Eternally Incorrigible: The Continuing-Sin Response to the Proportionality Problem of Hell. Religious Studies 39 (1):61-78.
Jo-Wang Lin (2004). Choice Functions and Scope of Existential Polarity Wh-Phrases in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics and Philosophy 27 (4):451-491.
Andrei A. Buckareff & Allen Plug (2005). Escaping Hell: Divine Motivation and the Problem of Hell. Religious Studies 41 (1):39-54.
Wilko Van Holten (1999). Hell and the Goodness of God. Religious Studies 35 (1):37 - 55.
Jonathan L. Kvanvig (1993). The Problem of Hell. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jack Hoeksema (2008). There is No Number Effect in the Licensing of Negative Polarity Items: A Reply to Guerzoni and Sharvit. Linguistics and Philosophy 31 (4):397-407.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads28 ( #44,147 of 549,224 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,418 of 549,224 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
