Polarity items

A polarity item is a lexical item with a defective distribution, as van der Wouden puts it: a negative polarity item occurs only in a negative context and a positive polarity item cannot occur in one. Both are graded by Zwarts's strengths of negation, Negation.Strength: a negative polarity item needs at least some strength, which licenses it, and a positive polarity item is blocked by at least some strength, which anti-licenses it. The two are independent, and an item with both, like Dutch ooit 'ever', is bipolar. A free choice item is licensed in the generic contexts instead, after Kadmon and Landman and Dayal; English any is both a negative polarity item and a free choice item.

The record also holds the contexts in which the item is attested and those in which it is attested to be out, the data against which Semantics/PolarityItem/Licensing.lean checks the theory.

References

• Zwarts 1998, Three Types of Polarity
• van der Wouden 1997, Negative Contexts: Collocation, Polarity and Multiple Negation formalized
• Kadmon & Landman 1993, Any formalized
• Dayal 1996, Locality in WH Quantification: Questions and Relative Clauses in Hindi