grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, 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 (linguistics), catena) that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈ vocabulary). Examples are ''cat'', ''traffic light'', ''take ca ...

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 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, that is, double negatives 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 lects, 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 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 worked in foreign-language pedagogy, historical phonetics, and other areas, but is best known for his description of the grammar of the English language. Ste ...

and Edward Klima. 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) discovered that most English NPIs are licensed in

downward entailing In linguistics, 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 ...

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 corpuscle 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 s ...

, 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 *Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a conditional, a ...

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 i ...

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

comparative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...

s and

superlative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...

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

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

complements, some disjunctions, imperatives, and others (finally, only). Given that many of these environments are not strictly downward entailing, alternative licensing conditions have been proposed building on concepts such as Strawson entailment and nonveridicality (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 largely or exclusively carries a Literal and figurative language, figurative or non-literal meaning (linguistic), meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic speech, formulaic ...

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