Cover not available
Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2018: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 32, Utrecht
Edited by Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen and Luisa Meroni
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 357] 2021
► pp. 287–302

Chapter 15
Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony

| Institut Jean Nicod, DEC, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University
This paper investigates the distribution of expletive negation in the complement clause of craindre (“fear”) in French. Building on Anand & Hacquard’s (2013) proposal that fear verbs are hybrid attitude verbs, featuring both a doxastic and a (dis)preferential component, this paper argues that these two components are conveyed by different layers of meaning (in line with Giannakidou & Mari (2020)). More precisely, I argue that, in actual discourse context, craindre may receive two main interpretations: a volitive (dispreference-related) or a psychological (belief-related) interpretation, depending on whether the verb asserts or presupposes dispreference. Based on a diachronic corpus study of the distribution of expletive negation, I show that expletive negation, in the earliest stages of French, places semantic restrictions on the main verb, which are met when the interpretation of craindre is volitive.
Keywords: expletive negation, modality, mood, diachronic semantics, French
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Psychological and volitive readings of craindre
    • 2.1Inquisitive craindre que
      • Practical goal
      • Presupposition projection under negation
      • Mood selection behavior
    • 2.2Admonitive craindre que … ne
      • Practical goal
      • Presupposition projection
      • Mood selection behavior
    • 2.3Reprehensive craindre que … ne
      • Practical goal
      • Compatibility with the speaker’s knowledge that p
  • 3.Corpus
  • 4.Diachronic analysis
    • 4.1The original semantics of ne: A speech-act negation
    • 4.2The gradual loss of ne’s speech-act potential
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 17 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.357.15tah
References (31)
References
Ageno, Franca. 1955. L’uso pleonastico della negazione nei primi secoli. Studi di Filologia Italiana 13. 339–361.Google Scholar
Anand, Pranav & Valentine Hacquard. 2013. Epistemics and attitudes. Semantics and Pragmatics 6. 1–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chatzopoulou, Katerina. 2012. Negation and Nonveridicality in the history of Greek. Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Condoravdi, Cleo. 2002. Temporal orientation of modals: Modals for the present and for the past. In David Beaver, Stefan Kaufman, Brady Clark & Luis Casillas (eds.), The construction of meaning, 59–88. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew. 1996. Focus, pragmatic presupposition, and activated propositions. Journal of Pragmatics 26. 475–523. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ducrot, Owald. 1985. Le dire et le dit. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Espinal, Maria Teresa. 2007. Licensing expletive negation and negative concord in Catalan and Spanish. In Florain Floridic (ed.), La négation dans les langues romanes, 47–74. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farkas, Donka. 1985. Intensional descriptions and the Romance dubjunctive mood. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
. 1992. On the semantics of subjunctive complements. In Paul Hirschbühler & Konrad Koerner (eds.), Romance languages and modern linguistic theory, 69–105. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gaatone, David. 1971. Etude descriptive du système de la négation en français contemporain. Geneva: Droz.Google Scholar
Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1998. Polarity sensitivity as (non)veridical dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1999. Affective dependencies. Linguistics and Philosophy 22(11). 367–421. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giannakidou, Anastasia & Alda Mari. 2016. Emotive predicates and the subjunctive: A flexible mood OT account based on (non)veridicality. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 19. 288–305.Google Scholar
. 2017. A unified analysis of the future as epistemic modality. Natural Language Linguistic Theory 36(1). 85–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020. Veridicality in grammar and thought: Modality, propositional attitudes and negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Giorgi, Alessandra & Fabio Pianesi. 1997. Tense and aspect: From semantics to morphosyntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and other languages. Copenhagen: A.F.Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 1968. Abstract syntax and Latin complementation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Larrivée, Pierre. 1994. Commentaires explétifs à propos d’un certain emploi de ne. Lingvisticae Investigationes 18(1). 175–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. The pragmatic motifs of the Jespersen cycle: Default, activation and the history of negation in French. Lingua 120. 2240–2258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lichtenberk, Frantisek. 1995. Apprehensional epistemics. In Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (eds.), Modality in grammar and discourse, 293–328. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mari, Alda & Chloé Tahar. 2020. Negative priorities: Evidence from prohibitive and expletive negation. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 24. 56–71.Google Scholar
Muller, Claude. 1991. La négation en français. Geneva: Droz.Google Scholar
Parry, Mair. 2013. Negation in the history of Italo-Romance. In Anne Breitbarth, Lucas Christopher & David Willis (eds.), The history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, Volume I: Case Studies. 59–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Portner, Paul. 2009. Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Portner, Paul & Aynat Rubinstein. 2012. Mood and contextual commitment. In Proceedings of SALT, 22. 461–487. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John. 1969. Speech acts. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van der Wurff, Wim. 1999. On expletive negation with adversative predicates in the history of English. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Gunnel Tottie & Wim van der Wurff (eds.), Negation in the history of English, 295–328. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Villalta, Elizabeth. 2008. Mood and gradability: An investigation of the subjunctive mood in Spanish. Linguistics and Philosophy 31(4). 467–552. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yanovich, Igor. 2013. Four pieces for modality, context and usage. Ph.D. Dissertation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Yoon, Suwon. 2011. Not in the mood: The syntax, semantics and pragmatics of evaluative negation. Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Tsiakmakis, Evripidis, Joan Borràs-Comes & M. Teresa Espinal
2023. Greek non-negative min, epistemic modality, and positive bias. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 41:3 ► pp. 1257 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.