The Grammar of Polarity: Pragmatics, Sensitivity, and the Logic of Scales

by Michael Israel

Book Overview

Many languages include constructions which are sensitive to the expression of polarity: that is, negative polarity items, which cannot occur in affirmative clauses, and positive polarity items, which cannot occur in negatives. The phenomenon of polarity sensitivity has been an important source of evidence for theories about the mental architecture of grammar over the last fifty years, and to many the oddly dysfunctional sensitivities of polarity items...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521792401
• ISBN13: 9780521792400
• Release Date: May 2011
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 314 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.0"