Lexicalization of negative senses ...

• Main Author: Veselinova, Ljuba
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2013
• Subjects: nenets; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10144378; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10144378

The goal of this project is to identify which negated concepts, connected mainly to states and events, are expressed lexically across languages, cf. (i) English dunno < I don't know or (ii) Tundra Nenets jexerasj 'not know'. Both (i) and (ii) can be semantically decomposed into a negative component and a positive sense. Following (Brinton and Traugott 2005, Moreno-Cabrera 1998), such forms are considered instances of lexicalization. The term is used here in a synchronic sense. Lexicalizations of negation are mentioned in numerous works, some examples include Jespersen (1917: 13, in passim), Croft (1991), Payne (1985), van Gelderen (2008). De Haan (1997), Palmer (1995), van der Auwera (2001) cover lexicalizations of modal senses such as 'not be able to', 'need not', etc. Eriksen (2011) discusses negation strategies in non-verbal sentences which also include lexicalized expressions meaning 'not be'. However, a systematic cross-linguistic survey of lexicalized negative senses is missing both in the ...