Crosslinguistic variation in constituent negation

Negative particles can target non-clausal constituents, giving rise to a number of configurations in which the negation particle immediately precedes the negated term. One well-known instance are sequences in which negation precedes a quantifier. Different ways of analysing these sequences have been proposed. A relatively straightforward way is to interpret these sequences as involving Merge of the negation particle and the Quantifier Phrase. But one of the first attempts to make sense of the distribution of these sequences (Lasnik 1972), claimed that the sequences follow a rebracketing operation that involves a clause external negation and a fronted quantifier phrase. We propose, on the basis of data coming from Spanish and Basque, that those two alternatives are needed, and provide an up-to-date version of Lasnik’s early analysis. Languages may use different means to delimit the relative scope of negation and QPs, and Direct Merge between negation and the quantifier phrase is just unattested for many languages. We claim that Negation and QPs can combine by two means: (i) Association with Focus, generally available in all languages, that may or may not involve fronting to a position adjacent to a high, clause-external negation; (ii) Direct Merge of Negation and QP. The two options are shown to be productively available in Spanish. Basque, on the other hand, resorts to association with focus as the general means to construct subclausal negation, even when the relevant constructions show adjacency between negation and the quantifier phrase.