Number in NPI Licensing
Luka Crnic
October 2023 

The acceptability of any-DPs in existential modal sentences presents a challenge for the theories of NPI licensing: existential modal sentences appear to differ substantially from other environments in which any-DPs are acceptable (in particular, they lack a downward-entailing operator). One approach to this challenge has been to, first, take any-DPs to be subject to an environment-based downward-entailingness condition – they have to occur in an environment that is Strawson downward-entailing with respect to their domain (cf. Kadmon & Landman 1993) – and, second, to derive such an environment in existential modal sentences by means of exhaustification (e.g., Fox 2007). This note presents new evidence for such a two-layered approach (cf. Crnic 2017, 2019). The evidence comes from a striking contrast in the behavior of singular vs. plural any-DPs in existential modal sentences. The paper concludes by charting some relations between any-DPs and other polarity items.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/004954 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	appeared in Natural Language Semantics 2022
keywords:	negative polarity items, exhaustification, semantics, syntax
previous versions:	v3 [June 2021] v2 [December 2020] v1 [January 2020]
Downloaded:	872 times

 

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