Finnish polarity-sensitive items

Finnish has no negative quantifier: 'nobody' is the negative auxiliary with the polarity-sensitive indefinite kukaan, as in Kukaan ei usko minu-a 'No one believes me'. Kukaan is kuka 'who' with the clitic -kAAn '(not) either', which follows the case ending, as in ke-tä-än 'anyone' (partitive), and it occurs chiefly with the negative auxiliary and in questions. The wh-words with tahansa form free-choice items such as kuka tahansa 'whoever, anyone at all'. The positive polarity item vasta 'only then', the twin of German erst, is the punctual 'until' of a positive clause.

Main definitions

• Finnish.PolarityItems.kukaan, Finnish.PolarityItems.kukaTahansa, Finnish.PolarityItems.vasta: the entries.

Main results

• Finnish.PolarityItems.finnish_licensing_sound: every context of every entry licenses it.

References

• [Kar18]
• [Has97]
• [Kar74b]

NPI

def Finnish.PolarityItems.kukaan : PolarityItem

kukaan 'anyone, no one', kuka 'who' with the scalar clitic -kAAn, the -kaan series of [Has97].

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

FCI

def Finnish.PolarityItems.kukaTahansa : PolarityItem

kuka tahansa 'whoever, anyone at all', one cell of the paradigm of wh-words with tahansa, beside mikä tahansa 'whatever' and missä tahansa 'wherever', which has a literary alternant with hyvänsä.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

PPI

def Finnish.PolarityItems.vasta : PolarityItem

vasta 'only then', the punctual until of a positive clause, the twin of German erst and the positive counterpart of the negated ennen kuin ([Kar74b]). Its connective entry is Finnish.TemporalConnectives.vasta.

Equations

• Finnish.PolarityItems.vasta = { form := Finnish.TemporalConnectives.vasta.form, antiLicensor := some PolarityItem.DEStrength.antiMorphic }

def Finnish.PolarityItems.items : List PolarityItem

The entries.

Equations

• Finnish.PolarityItems.items = [Finnish.PolarityItems.kukaan, Finnish.PolarityItems.kukaTahansa, Finnish.PolarityItems.vasta]

theorem Finnish.PolarityItems.finnish_licensing_sound (e : PolarityItem) : e ∈ items → ∀ c ∈ e.licensingContexts, c.licenser.Admits e

Every context of every entry licenses it.