Double negation in Catalan and Spanish. Interaction between syntax and prosody

M. Teresa Espinal; Susagna Tubau; Joan Borràs-Comes; Pilar Prieto

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_7

Double negation in Catalan and Spanish. Interaction between syntax and prosody

M. Teresa Espinal^*, Susagna Tubau, Joan Borràs-Comes, Pilar Prieto

^*Corresponding author for this work

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

Research output: Chapter in Book › Chapter › Research › peer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

2 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This study focuses on the interaction between prosody and syntax in the interpretation of single negation and Double Negation in two Negative Concord languages, namely Catalan and Spanish. By means of two perception experiments, we investigate the role of two major formal conditions in the interpretation of Double Negation in Catalan and Spanish answers to negative wh-questions: (a) their intonation; and (b) their syntactic structure, which contain n-words such as Catalan ningú ‘nobody’ or Spanish nada ‘nothing’. The results reveal that (i) syntax and prosody interact: prosodic contours enhance processing of syntactic structures; (ii) isolated and preverbal n-words may convey DN interpretations when associated with a special intonation; and (iii) Catalan and Spanish hearers show form-meaning preferences between syntactic forms and prosodic contours: interestingly, hearers do not reject marked forms that should be discarded by a theory of grammar that only takes into account syntactic constituents and their merging possibilities according to their formal features, but they interpret them in the only way they can be interpreted, as a presupposition denial.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Negation and polarity: experimental perspectives
Editors	Larrivée, P., Lee, C. (eds.)
Place of Publication	Berlín (DE)
Publisher	Springer Nature
Pages	145-176
Number of pages	32
Volume	1
Edition	1
ISBN (Print)	978-3-319-17463-1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_7
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2016

Publication series

Name	Language, Cognition, and Mind
Volume	1
ISSN (Print)	2364-4109
ISSN (Electronic)	2364-4117

Keywords

Negative concord languages
n-words
Prosody
Catalan
Spanish
Double negation
Syntax

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_7

https://ddd.uab.cat/record/327752

Cite this

Espinal, M. T., Tubau, S., Borràs-Comes, J., & Prieto, P. (2016). Double negation in Catalan and Spanish. Interaction between syntax and prosody. In Larrivée, P., & Lee, C. (eds.) (Eds.), Negation and polarity: experimental perspectives (1 ed., Vol. 1, pp. 145-176). (Language, Cognition, and Mind; Vol. 1). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_7

@inbook{9d23c3ac4c8f4e4ea27f88dfc767d244,

title = "Double negation in Catalan and Spanish. Interaction between syntax and prosody",

abstract = "This study focuses on the interaction between prosody and syntax in the interpretation of single negation and Double Negation in two Negative Concord languages, namely Catalan and Spanish. By means of two perception experiments, we investigate the role of two major formal conditions in the interpretation of Double Negation in Catalan and Spanish answers to negative wh-questions: (a) their intonation; and (b) their syntactic structure, which contain n-words such as Catalan ning{\'u} {\textquoteleft}nobody{\textquoteright} or Spanish nada {\textquoteleft}nothing{\textquoteright}. The results reveal that (i) syntax and prosody interact: prosodic contours enhance processing of syntactic structures; (ii) isolated and preverbal n-words may convey DN interpretations when associated with a special intonation; and (iii) Catalan and Spanish hearers show form-meaning preferences between syntactic forms and prosodic contours: interestingly, hearers do not reject marked forms that should be discarded by a theory of grammar that only takes into account syntactic constituents and their merging possibilities according to their formal features, but they interpret them in the only way they can be interpreted, as a presupposition denial.",

keywords = "Negative concord languages, n-words, Prosody, Catalan, Spanish, Double negation, Syntax",

author = "Espinal, \{M. Teresa\} and Susagna Tubau and Joan Borr{\`a}s-Comes and Pilar Prieto",

note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank the students and colleagues at the Universitat Aut?noma de Barcelona and the Universidad Aut?noma de Madrid who participated in the perception experiments as Catalan and Spanish subjects, respectively, and especially V. Castillo, A. Fasanella, E. Gallardo, Y. Guti?rrez and C. Rubio, who participated in the audio recordings. We are also grateful to our colleagues at the Universidad Aut?noma de Madrid, namely L. Eguren, O. Fern?ndez-Soriano, and J. M. Igoa, for helping us in the recruiting of the Spanish subjects. This research has been funded by two research grants awarded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci?n (FFI2011-23356, BFU2012-31995), and by two grants awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya to both the Centre de Ling??stica Te?rica (2014SGR1013) and the Grup d?Estudis de Pros?dia (2014SGR-925). The first author also acknowledges an ICREA Academia award. Funding Information: Acknowledgments We would like to thank the students and colleagues at the Universitat Aut{\`o}noma de Barcelona and the Universidad Aut{\'o}noma de Madrid who participated in the perception experiments as Catalan and Spanish subjects, respectively, and especially V. Castillo, A. Fasanella, E. Gallardo, Y. Guti{\'e}rrez and C. Rubio, who participated in the audio recordings. We are also grateful to our colleagues at the Universidad Aut{\'o}noma de Madrid, namely L. Eguren, O. Fern{\'a}ndez-Soriano, and J. M. Igoa, for helping us in the recruiting of the Spanish subjects. This research has been funded by two research grants awarded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci{\'o}n (FFI2011-23356, BFU2012-31995), and by two grants awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya to both the Centre de Ling{\"u}{\'i}stica Te{\`o}rica (2014SGR-1013) and the Grup d{\textquoteright}Estudis de Pros{\`o}dia (2014SGR-925). The first author also acknowledges an ICREA Academia award. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.",

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Espinal, MT , Tubau, S, Borràs-Comes, J & Prieto, P 2016, Double negation in Catalan and Spanish. Interaction between syntax and prosody. in Larrivée, P. & Lee, C. (eds.) (eds), Negation and polarity: experimental perspectives. 1 edn, vol. 1, Language, Cognition, and Mind, vol. 1, Springer Nature, Berlín (DE), pp. 145-176. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_7

Double negation in Catalan and Spanish. Interaction between syntax and prosody. / Espinal, M. Teresa ; Tubau, Susagna; Borràs-Comes, Joan et al.
Negation and polarity: experimental perspectives. ed. / Larrivée, P.; Lee, C. (eds.). Vol. 1 1. ed. Berlín (DE): Springer Nature, 2016. p. 145-176 (Language, Cognition, and Mind; Vol. 1).

Research output: Chapter in Book › Chapter › Research › peer-review

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N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank the students and colleagues at the Universitat Aut?noma de Barcelona and the Universidad Aut?noma de Madrid who participated in the perception experiments as Catalan and Spanish subjects, respectively, and especially V. Castillo, A. Fasanella, E. Gallardo, Y. Guti?rrez and C. Rubio, who participated in the audio recordings. We are also grateful to our colleagues at the Universidad Aut?noma de Madrid, namely L. Eguren, O. Fern?ndez-Soriano, and J. M. Igoa, for helping us in the recruiting of the Spanish subjects. This research has been funded by two research grants awarded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci?n (FFI2011-23356, BFU2012-31995), and by two grants awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya to both the Centre de Ling??stica Te?rica (2014SGR1013) and the Grup d?Estudis de Pros?dia (2014SGR-925). The first author also acknowledges an ICREA Academia award. Funding Information: Acknowledgments We would like to thank the students and colleagues at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid who participated in the perception experiments as Catalan and Spanish subjects, respectively, and especially V. Castillo, A. Fasanella, E. Gallardo, Y. Gutiérrez and C. Rubio, who participated in the audio recordings. We are also grateful to our colleagues at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, namely L. Eguren, O. Fernández-Soriano, and J. M. Igoa, for helping us in the recruiting of the Spanish subjects. This research has been funded by two research grants awarded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (FFI2011-23356, BFU2012-31995), and by two grants awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya to both the Centre de Lingüística Teòrica (2014SGR-1013) and the Grup d’Estudis de Prosòdia (2014SGR-925). The first author also acknowledges an ICREA Academia award. Publisher Copyright: © 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.

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N2 - This study focuses on the interaction between prosody and syntax in the interpretation of single negation and Double Negation in two Negative Concord languages, namely Catalan and Spanish. By means of two perception experiments, we investigate the role of two major formal conditions in the interpretation of Double Negation in Catalan and Spanish answers to negative wh-questions: (a) their intonation; and (b) their syntactic structure, which contain n-words such as Catalan ningú ‘nobody’ or Spanish nada ‘nothing’. The results reveal that (i) syntax and prosody interact: prosodic contours enhance processing of syntactic structures; (ii) isolated and preverbal n-words may convey DN interpretations when associated with a special intonation; and (iii) Catalan and Spanish hearers show form-meaning preferences between syntactic forms and prosodic contours: interestingly, hearers do not reject marked forms that should be discarded by a theory of grammar that only takes into account syntactic constituents and their merging possibilities according to their formal features, but they interpret them in the only way they can be interpreted, as a presupposition denial.

AB - This study focuses on the interaction between prosody and syntax in the interpretation of single negation and Double Negation in two Negative Concord languages, namely Catalan and Spanish. By means of two perception experiments, we investigate the role of two major formal conditions in the interpretation of Double Negation in Catalan and Spanish answers to negative wh-questions: (a) their intonation; and (b) their syntactic structure, which contain n-words such as Catalan ningú ‘nobody’ or Spanish nada ‘nothing’. The results reveal that (i) syntax and prosody interact: prosodic contours enhance processing of syntactic structures; (ii) isolated and preverbal n-words may convey DN interpretations when associated with a special intonation; and (iii) Catalan and Spanish hearers show form-meaning preferences between syntactic forms and prosodic contours: interestingly, hearers do not reject marked forms that should be discarded by a theory of grammar that only takes into account syntactic constituents and their merging possibilities according to their formal features, but they interpret them in the only way they can be interpreted, as a presupposition denial.

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Double negation in Catalan and Spanish. Interaction between syntax and prosody

Abstract

Publication series

Keywords

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La composicionalidad del significado y las operaciones semánticas en la interfaz sintaxis-semántica y en la interfaz gramática-cognición

Cite this

Double negation in Catalan and Spanish. Interaction between syntax and prosody

Abstract

Publication series

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Projects

La composicionalidad del significado y las operaciones semánticas en la interfaz sintaxis-semántica y en la interfaz gramática-cognición

Cite this