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Negation and Contact: With special focus on Singapore English
Edited by Debra Ziegeler and Zhiming Bao
[Studies in Language Companion Series 183] 2017
► pp. 81–114

Chapter 5
What is Strict Negative Concord

Lessons from French Based Creoles

| Rutgers University, L2C2, CNRS, Université de Lyon

Two empirical predictions derive from current accounts of Strict Negative Concord; either their NCI should be universal expressions out-scoping negation, or their doubling negation should be expletive. Based on a comparative analysis of Strict NC in Haitian Creole (HC) and Mauritian Creole (MC), the paper shows that neither prediction is confirmed. On the one hand, both HC and MC NCIs are non-negative expressions with existential, not universal, force. On the other hand, although HC, but not MC, features expletive negation, these obey a finiteness constraint not enforced in HC Strict NC. Concluding that expletive negation is not its hallmark characteristic, I argue that Strict NC features rather a particular type of existential NPIs whose licensing requirement can be satisfied under reconstruction (Déprez et al. 2015).

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Comparative properties of HC and Mauritian Creole NCIs
    • 2.1Where Haitian and Mauritian NCIs beg to differ
      • 2.1.1Haitian NCIs in NPI contexts
      • 2.1.2Mauritian Creole NCI in NPI contexts
    • 2.2Similarities between Haitian and Mauritian NCIs
      • 2.2.1Modification
      • 2.2.2Subject doubling and fragment answers
  • 3.A theoretical proposal: NCIs in Strict NC are NPIs that can be licensed under reconstruction
    • 3.1Licensing in preverbal subject position
    • 3.2Fragment answers
  • 4.Expletive negation
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 31 May 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.183.05dep
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Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Déprez, Viviane
2018. What is negative in Haitian Creole? Negative Concord Items, sentential, constituent and expletive negation. In Negation and Negative Concord [Contact Language Library, 55], ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Déprez, Viviane & Fabiola Henri
2018. Conclusions. In Negation and Negative Concord [Contact Language Library, 55], ► pp. 313 ff. DOI logo
Déprez, Viviane & Fabiola Henri
2018. Negation and negative concord. In Negation and Negative Concord [Contact Language Library, 55], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Déprez, Viviane & Jeremy Daniel Yeaton
2022. On the prosody of French ambiguous multiple negative sentences.. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 7:1 DOI logo
ESPINAL, M. TERESA, ELOI PUIG-MAYENCO, URTZI ETXEBERRIA & SUSAGNA TUBAU
2023. On the status of NCIs: An experimental investigation on so-called Strict NC languages. Journal of Linguistics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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