Compromising Positions and Polarity Items

Compromising Positions and Polarity Items

This paper looks at two theories of polarity licensing that utilize a downward entailment relation (DE) in their explanations of the polarity item distribution question. I illustrate that various compromising adverbs such as pretty much, virtually, practically, basically, etc., disrupt downward entailment yet do not interfere with polarity licensing, which raises problems for theories depending...

Vagueness and Adverbial Polarity Items

However, mattaku and zenzen are not uniform in terms of scalarity and polarity. In sentence (1), zenzen is natural in a situation where the speaker actually has a little money, whereas mattaku is unacceptable in such a situation. Descriptively, we can summarize this distinction as follows: ‘Zenzen not P’ implies ‘a little P’ but ‘mattaku not P’ entails ‘completely not P.’ (P= gradable predicate...

Polarity Items in Resour

Compromising positions: emergent neo-Fordisms and embedded gender contracts.

This paper adopts a regulation framework to chart the emergence of neo-Fordism as a flexible accumulation regime and mode of social regulation. Neo-Fordism relies on old Fordist principles as well as incorporating new models of emergent post-Fordisms; old and new social relationships, in their particular combination, specify the trajectory of national variants. I argue that Fordist bargains ins...

Japanese Negative Polarity Items and Negative Concord

Negative polarity items (NPIs) are a class of expressions whose distribution is restricted to affective contexts, especially to the negative context (Kato (1985)). Examples of the expressions traditionally counted as Japanese negative polarity items are: kessite ('ever'), nannimo ('anything'), daremo (`anyone'), dokomo (`anywhere'), tittomo (`not at all'), and sika ('only') (Ikeya and Kawamori ...