French polar response particles and neg movement

• Published in: Natural language semantics 2020-12, Vol.28 (4), p.255-306
• Main Author: Pasquereau, Jérémy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Humanities and Social Sciences; Linguistics; Philosophy of Language; Semantics; Social Sciences; Syntax
• ISSN: 0925-854X; 1572-865X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11050-020-09164-w

I present new data from European French involving embedded polar response particles (a.k.a. yes/no particles) in response to negative questions and develop a novel proposal which integrates the insights of previous analyses (e.g. Holmberg in Lingua 128:31–50, 2013; Roelofsen and Farkas in Language 91(2):359–414, 2015). The main puzzle has to do with the interpretation of non ‘no’ (bare or followed by a clause), which may assert its antecedent or the negation of its antecedent. It is shown that the meaning of non -responses varies as a function of the scope of negation with respect to various operators in its antecedent. Polar response particles in French are analyzed as the spell-out of a Polarity head which has moved from a lower position. The various interpretations of polar response particles are modelled as being constrained by the interaction between the necessity of the movement of the Polarity head and a constraint on scope preservation. The ramifications of this proposal for related phenomena (e.g. ‘low negation’ in English, N-word responses) are then discussed.