linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, a polarity item is a

lexical item In lexicography, a lexical item is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words ( catena) that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈ vocabulary). Examples are ''cat'', ''traffic light'', ''take care of'', ''by the way' ...

that is associated with affirmation or negation. An affirmation is a positive polarity item, abbreviated PPI or AFF. A negation is a negative polarity item, abbreviated NPI or NEG. The linguistic environment in which a polarity item appears is a licensing context. In the simplest case, an affirmative statement provides a licensing context for a PPI, while negation provides a licensing context for an NPI. However, there are many complications, and not all polarity items of a particular type have the same licensing contexts.

In English

As examples of polarity items, consider the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

lexical items ''somewhat'' and ''at all'', as used in the following sentences: # I liked the film somewhat. # I didn't like the film at all. # *I liked the film at all. # *I didn't like the film somewhat. As can be seen, ''somewhat'' is licensed by the affirmative environment of sentence (1), but it is forbidden (anti-licensed) by the negative environment of sentence (4). It can therefore be considered to be a positive polarity item (PPI). On the other hand, ''at all'' is licensed by the negative environment of sentence (2), but anti-licensed by the positive environment of sentence (3), and is therefore considered a negative polarity item (NPI). Because standard English does not have negative

concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

, that is,

double negative A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, ...

s are not used to intensify each other, the language makes frequent use of certain NPIs that correspond in meaning to negative items, and can be used in the environment of another negative. For example, ''anywhere'' is an NPI corresponding to the negative ''nowhere'', as used in the following sentences: # I was going nowhere. (the negative ''nowhere'' is used when not preceded by another negative) # I was not going anywhere. (the NPI ''anywhere'' is used in the environment of the preceding negative ''not'') Note that double-negative constructions like ''I was not going nowhere'' take on an opposing meaning in formal usage, but that this is not necessarily the case in colloquial contexts and in various

lect In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, M ...

s, which parallels other languages which have negative concord. ''Anywhere'', like most of the other NPIs listed below, is also used in other senses where it is not an NPI, as in ''I would go anywhere with you''. *nobody/no one – anybody/anyone *nothing – anything *no/none – any *never – ever *nowhere – anywhere *no longer/no more – any longer/any more See also , and .

Determination of licensing contexts

The actual set of contexts that license particular polarity items is not as easily defined as a simple distinction between affirmative and negative sentences. Baker noted that

double negation In propositional logic, double negation is the theorem that states that "If a statement is true, then it is not the case that the statement is not true." This is expressed by saying that a proposition ''A'' is logically equivalent to ''not (not ...

may provide an acceptable context for positive polarity items: : I can't believe you don't fancy her somewhat. : John doesn't have any potatoes : *John has any potatoes. However, licensing contexts can take many forms besides simple negation/affirmation. To complicate matters, polarity items appear to be highly idiosyncratic, each with its own set of licensing contexts. Early discussion of polarity items can be found in the work of

Otto Jespersen Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language. Steven Mithen described him as "one of the greatest language scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth ce ...

and

Edward Klima Edward S. Klima (June 21, 1931 – September 25, 2008) was an American eminent linguist who specialized in the study of sign languages. Klima's work was heavily influenced by Noam Chomsky's then-revolutionary theory of the biological basis o ...

. Much of the research on polarity items has centered around the question of what creates a negative context. In the late 1970s, William Ladusaw (building on work by

Gilles Fauconnier Gilles Fauconnier () (19 August 1944 – 3 February 2021) was a French linguist, researcher in cognitive science, and author, who worked in the U.S. He was distinguished professor at the University of California, San Diego The University ...

) discovered that most English NPIs are licensed in

downward entailing In linguistic semantics, a downward entailing (DE) propositional operator is one that constrains the meaning of an expression to a lower number or degree than would be possible without the expression. For example, "not," "nobody," "few people," "at ...

environments. This is known as the Fauconnier–Ladusaw hypothesis. A downward entailing environment, however, is not a necessary condition for an NPI to be licensed—they may be licensed by some non-monotone (and thus not downward entailing) contexts, like "exactly N," as well. : *Some people have ever been on the moon. : Exactly three people have ever been on the moon. Nor is a downward entailing environment a sufficient condition for all negative polarity items, as first pointed out by Zwarts (1981) for Dutch "ook maar." Licensing contexts across languages include the scope of n-words (negative

particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from su ...

, negative quantifiers), the antecedent of

conditionals Conditional (if then) may refer to: *Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y *Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred *Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a co ...

question A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammar, grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are inte ...

s, the restrictor of universal quantifiers, non-affirmative verbs (doubt), adversative predicates (be surprised), negative conjunctions (without),

comparative In general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as wel ...

s and

superlative Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages t ...

s, ''too''-phrases, negative predicates (unlikely), some

subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...

complements, some disjunctions, imperatives, and others (finally, only). Given this wide range of mostly non-downward entailing environments, the Fauconnier-Ladusaw Hypothesis has gradually been replaced in favor of theories based on the notion of

nonveridicality In linguistics, veridicality (from Latin "truthfully said") is a semantic or grammatical assertion of the truth of an utterance. Definition Merriam-Webster defines "veridical" as truthful, veracious and non illusory. It stems from the Latin ...

(proposed by Zwarts and Giannakidou). Different NPIs may be licensed by different expressions. Thus, while the NPI ''anything'' is licensed by the

expression ''at most two of the visitors'', the

idiom An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...

atic NPI ''not lift a finger'' (known as a

minimizer In linguistics, a minimizer is a word or phrase that denotes a very small quantity which is used to reinforce negation. For example, "red cent" in the sentence "I'm not paying him a red cent" (meaning, "I'm not paying him any money") is a minimiz ...

) is not licensed by the same expression. : At most two of the visitors had seen anything. : *At most two of the visitors lifted a finger to help. While NPIs have been discovered in many languages, their distribution is subject to substantial cross-linguistic variation; this aspect of NPIs is currently the subject of ongoing research in cross-linguistic semantics.Giannakidou, Anastasia.
"Negative and positive polarity items: licensing, compositionality and variation".
Prepared for Maienborn, Claudia, Klaus von Heusinger, and Paul Portner (eds). ''Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (January 2008).

Notes

References

* * * * * *

External links

The Polarity Items Bibliography (Tübingen University)
* In the book, there is an introductory discussion of negative polarity items spanning several chapters, covering syntax, semantics, sociolinguistic aspects.
The Collection of Distributionally Idiosyncratic Items, containing German and Rumanian NPIs (Tübingen University)
{{formal semantics Logic Semantics Grammar Formal semantics (natural language)