Yes/no questions and the relation between tense and polarity in English and Finnish

Holmberg, Anders

doi:10.1075/livy.3.04hol

Article published In: Linguistic Variation Yearbook 2003
Edited by Pierre Pica
[Linguistic Variation Yearbook 3] 2003
► pp. 43–68

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Yes/no questions and the relation between tense and polarity in English and Finnish

Anders Holmberg | University of Durham and CASTL, University of Tromsø

Published online: 8 December 2004

https://doi.org/10.1075/livy.3.04hol

It is argued that the structure of the sentence in English as well as Finnish is C [Pol [T...]], where Pol(arity) has negative or affirmative value. Yes/no questions are derived, universally, by movement of a wh-marked Pol to C, deriving an operator-variable relation between C and Pol. No category with interpretable features can intervene between C and Pol, as it would block the crucial relation between C and Pol. It is argued, with reference to Finnish, that we do not need to assume any head with uninterpretable features such as AgrS between C and Pol, either. For English, the theory is based on Zwicky & Pullum’s 1983 arguments that the negation -n’t in English is an inflection, combined with the analysis of inflected words as derived by head movement and incorporation of a lexical head in the inflectional head.

Keywords: negation, questions, head movement, finiteness, AGR

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Cited by 28 other publications

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ISHIHARA, YUKI

2018. <i>The Syntax of Yes and</i><i> No </i>. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 35:1 ► pp. 184 ff.

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Holmberg, Anders

2015. The Syntax of Yes and No,

Newmeyer, Frederick J.

2014. Syntactic change. In The Sociolinguistics of Grammar [Studies in Language Companion Series, 154], ► pp. 37 ff.

Breitbarth, Anne

2009. A hybrid approach to Jespersen’s cycle in West Germanic. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 12:2 ► pp. 81 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 6 When Spading Met Swiping. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 68 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 2 Introduction. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 11 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 4 Theoretical Background: Splitting Up CP. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 29 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 1 Introduction. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 3 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 3 The Data. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 13 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 8 Expanding the Data Set. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 102 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 12 Theoretical Background. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 156 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 7 Previous Analyses. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 76 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 11 The Data. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 123 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 15 Conjugated ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in SDR-Dialects. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 208 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 9 Conclusion and Theoretical Implications. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 112 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 10 Short Do Replies. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 121 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 13 The Analysis. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 172 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 16 Conclusion and Theoretical Implications. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 239 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 5 The Analysis. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 47 ff.

Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van

2009. 17 General Conclusions. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 244 ff.

Van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen

2009. The Syntax of Ellipsis,

Nie, Da's & Da's Wel

2009. 14 Spelling Out the Proform. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. 188 ff.

[no author supplied]

2009. Preface. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. vii ff.

[no author supplied]

2009. Dedication. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. v ff.

[no author supplied]

2009. Copyright Page. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. iv ff.

[no author supplied]

2009. Abbreviations and Formats Used in Examples and Glosses. In The Syntax of Ellipsis, ► pp. xi ff.

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