In:Perspectives on Negation and Polarity Items
Edited by Jack Hoeksema, Hotze Rullmann, Víctor Sánchez-Valencia and Ton van der Wouden
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 40] 2001
► pp. 79–97
Lexical sensitivity in negative polarity verbs
Published online: 17 May 2001
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.40.05fal
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.40.05fal
Four classes of negative polarity verbs in German (besides NPI-modals) are distinguished by their semantic and syntactic properties: abstentives, attractives, privatives and ±care-verbs. Relevant factors identified are factivity and counterfactivity, generalized implicature as a lexical process, and litotes. Abstentives and attractives are semantic mirror-images of one another, and share with ±care-verbs the import of a conveyed affective attitude. An attempt is made at elucidating the semantic mechanism by which it is the modal of possibility that comes to cluster together with verbal NPI-phrases.
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Hoeksema, Jack
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 november 2025. 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.