Hungarian polarity items

This file types the person members of the Hungarian negative and free-choice series of Hungarian.Indefinites as polarity items. senki 'nobody' is a strict negative-concord item: it requires clausemate negation, and under negation in a higher clause it gives way to valaki is, as Kenesei, Vago and Fenyvesi show (§1.4.3, §1.4.5), who call senki and semmi universal negative polarity items. akárki and bárki 'anyone' are free-choice items, as in Akárki jöhet a konferenciára 'Anyone may come to the conference'. Haspelmath (A.26.3) finds the two series mainly in the free-choice function, but also in comparatives, under indirect negation and, with an emphatic value, in conditionals, and stars both under direct negation and in questions.

Implementation notes

The comparative mint akárhol Európában 'than anywhere in Europe' is listed under the clausal comparative, the licensing theory's routing of a surface than NP; the indirect negation of Haspelmath's (A202), negation in a higher clause, has no licensing context. A weak negative polarity item is licensed under clausal negation and in questions, so the licensing theory admits both series where Haspelmath stars them (freeChoice_excluded_admitted); his implicational map describes the series by a region of functions instead.

References

• [Has97]
• [KVF98]
• [Rou01]

def Hungarian.PolarityItems.senki : PolarityItem

senki 'nobody', which needs clausemate negation.

Equations

• Hungarian.PolarityItems.senki = { form := Hungarian.Indefinites.senki.form, licensor := some PolarityItem.DEStrength.antiMorphic, licensingContexts := [PolarityItem.LicensingContext.negation] }

def Hungarian.PolarityItems.akárki : PolarityItem

akárki 'anyone', a free choice item attested under a possibility modal, Akárki tanulhatott 'Anybody could learn', and, in its series, in the free relative Akármit mondasz, elindulok holnap 'No matter what you say, I'm leaving tomorrow', in comparatives and in conditionals, and starred under direct negation and in questions ([Has97] A199a, A200–A204).

Equations

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

def Hungarian.PolarityItems.bárki : PolarityItem

bárki 'anyone', a free choice item attested under a possibility modal and, in its series, in comparatives and in conditionals, and starred under direct negation and in questions ([Has97] A199a, A201, A203, A204).

Equations

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

theorem Hungarian.PolarityItems.senki_licensing_characterized (c : PolarityItem.LicensingContext) : c.licenser.Licenses senki ↔ c.licenser.Carries PolarityItem.DEStrength.antiMorphic

Senki needs clausemate negation, so it is licensed exactly by the contexts carrying anti-morphic strength, which among the named contexts is clausal negation alone.

theorem Hungarian.PolarityItems.freeChoice_licensing_sound (e : PolarityItem) : e ∈ [akárki, bárki] → ∀ c ∈ e.licensingContexts, c.licenser.Admits e

The free-choice items are admitted in every context they are attested in.

theorem Hungarian.PolarityItems.freeChoice_excluded_admitted (e : PolarityItem) : e ∈ [akárki, bárki] → ∀ c ∈ e.excludedContexts, c.licenser.Admits e

The licensing theory admits both free-choice series under clausal negation and in questions, where [Has97] stars them, since a weak negative polarity item is licensed in both.