Italian Polarity-Sensitive Items

@cite{chierchia-2006} @cite{chierchia-2013}

Lexical entries for Italian PSIs, typed by the theory-neutral categories from Typology.PolarityItem.

The Italian PSI system

Italian lexicalizes the NPI/FCI distinction that English any collapses:

• nessuno/niente/mai: Pure NPIs (negative concord, DE only)
• qualsiasi/qualunque: Pure universal FCIs (FC only, positive polarity)
• un N qualsiasi: Existential FCIs (FC under modals)

def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.nessuno : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

nessuno/nessuna — N-word, pure NPI. Requires negative concord (postverbal: non ... nessuno). Base existential force; negative force from concord, not lexical.

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.niente : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

niente/nulla — N-word for non-human, pure NPI.

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.mai : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

mai — Temporal pure NPI (= English ever). Disallows FC use (contrast with English any).

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.alcuno : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

alcuno — Pure NPI (formal register). Listed in @cite{chierchia-2006} table (76)/(94) alongside mai and ever. Restricted distribution: negation + formal contexts.

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.neanche : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

neanche/nemmeno/neppure — Additive focus NPI (not even). Three near-synonymous register variants.

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.mica : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

mica — Emphatic negation reinforcer / colloquial NPI. Co-occurs with non postverbally to add emphasis: Non mi piace mica "I don't like it AT ALL". The load-bearing diagnostic in @cite{cinque-1999}'s adverb hierarchy and Zanuttini's NegP cartography: mica sits in a dedicated functional projection above the lexical-VP negation slot. Morphologically a frozen noun ("crumb"), grammaticalized into a focus particle in northern Italian especially. Distinct from additive neanche (which adds a discourse-given alternative) — mica contradicts an inferred prior expectation.

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.pur : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

pur (in con tutta la fantasia che pur si possa avere, "with all the fantasy in the world that one could have") — weak NPI licensed in DE/comparative environments where the speaker presupposes a contradicted prior belief.

@cite{napoli-nespor-1976} §3.11 ex. 46–48: licensed under comparative non₂ alongside subjunctive co-occurrence and neanche-conjunction. Treated by N&N as a diagnostic for underlying negation in the comparative clause: where pur surfaces, non₂ is licensed too.

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.affatto : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

affatto ("at all", "completely") — weak NPI requiring precise knowledge of the listener's belief; blocked in N&N's comparative non₂ on independent precision grounds.

@cite{napoli-nespor-1976} §3.22 fn (i): affatto is not licensed by bias-conditioned negation, even though it is a weak NPI elsewhere. The block is semantic — affatto requires the listener's belief to be explicit, which fails N&N's "imprecise/inferred" Condition 4. The distributional fact is therefore orthogonal to NPI licensing. Bottom-line: affatto is licensed by negation in general but blocked by the imprecise condition that bias-conditioned negation requires.

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theorem Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.pur_licensed_in_comparative : pur.licensingContexts.contains Features.LicensingContext.comparativeS = true

N&N's central diagnostic: pur is licensed in comparative-clause contexts (which encode bias-conditioned negation in Italian), affatto is not. The contrast is structural in the registry — pur's licensingContexts includes .comparativeS while affatto's does not, so the Italian Fragment alone witnesses the distributional contrast that motivated the non₂ analysis.

.comparativeS (clausal-comparative) is the relevant slot: @cite{hoeksema-1983} establishes that surface NP-comparatives are Boolean homomorphisms (monotone) and not NPI environments — .comparativeNP therefore licenses nothing.

theorem Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.affatto_not_licensed_in_comparative : affatto.licensingContexts.contains Features.LicensingContext.comparativeS = false

def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.qualsiasi : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

qualsiasi — Pure universal FCI. Universal force in positive/modal contexts. Under negation: only rhetorical ¬∀ reading ("not just any"). Does NOT have NPI use (unlike English any).

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.qualunque : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

qualunque — Pure universal FCI (post-nominal only).

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.uno_qualsiasi : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

un N qualsiasi — Existential FCI. Both domain and scalar alternatives active. Requires modal context; ungrammatical in plain episodic.

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def Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.items : List Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry

The Italian polarity-item inventory: the Fragment-side joint listing every polarity item this fragment defines. Every Fragments/{Lang}/PolarityItems.lean exposes def items of this type (see the operator/lexical-reactive split in Core/Lexical/NegMarker.lean).

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theorem Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.mai_qualsiasi_distinct : mai.polarityType ≠ qualsiasi.polarityType

Italian lexicalizes the NPI/FCI distinction: mai ≠ qualsiasi.

theorem Fragments.Italian.PolarityItems.italian_npis_strengthening : ([nessuno, niente, mai, alcuno, neanche].all fun (e : Typology.PolarityItem.PolarityItemEntry) => e.scalarDirection == Typology.PolarityItem.ScalarDirection.strengthening) = true

All Italian NPIs have strengthening scalar direction.