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Although the field of polarity is well researched, this monograph offers a new take on polarity sensitivity that both challenges and incorporates previous theories. Based primarily on Swedish data, it presents new solutions to long-standing problems, such as the non-complementary distribution of NPIs and PPIs in yes/no-questions and conditionals, long distance licensing by superordinate elements, and the occurrence of polarity items in wh-questions. It is argued that polarity sensitivity can be understood in terms of evaluability.

Lexicology. Semantics --- Grammar --- Pragmatics --- Swedish language --- Polarity (Linguistics) --- Polarity item (Linguistics) --- Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) --- Grammar. --- Polarity (Linguistics).

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This study hypothesises that neg-raising is a cognitive phenomenon which arises while the human mind is processing the content of the sentence under the normal assumption of closed world. A 'neg-raised sentence' conveys an epistemic attitude towards the proposition expressed by the subordinate clause. The hedge consists in making it clear that a certain conclusion is compatible with the current information state, but cannot be proven.

Grammar --- Grammar, Comparative and general --- -Polarity (Linguistics) --- Polarity item (Linguistics) --- Comparative grammar --- Grammar, Philosophical --- Grammar, Universal --- Language and languages --- Philosophical grammar --- Negatives --- Grammar, Comparative --- Polarity (Linguistics) --- Grammaire comparée et générale --- Polarité (Linguistique) --- Congresses --- Congresses. --- Négations --- Congrès --- Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) --- Linguistics --- Philology

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The polarity of a sentence is crucial for its meaning. It is thus hardly surprising that languages have developed devices to highlight this meaning component and to contrast statements with negative and positive polarity in discourse. Research on this issue has started from languages like German and Dutch, where prosody and assertive particles are systematically associated with polarity contrast. Recently, the grammatical realization of polarity contrast has been at the center of investigations in a range of other languages as well. Core questions concern the formal repertoire and the exact meaning contribution of the relevant devices, the kind of contrast they evoke, and their relation to information structure and sentence mood. This volume brings together researchers from a theoretical, an empirical, and a typological orientation and enhances our understanding of polarity with the help of in-depth analyses and cross-linguistic comparisons dealing with the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and/or prosodic aspects of the phenomenon.

Comparative linguistics --- Grammar --- Polarity (Linguistics) --- Grammar, Comparative and general --- Polarity item (Linguistics) --- Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) --- Comparative grammar --- Grammar, Philosophical --- Grammar, Universal --- Language and languages --- Philosophical grammar --- Linguistics --- Philology --- Grammar, Comparative --- Grammar, Comparative and general. --- E-books

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Many languages include constructions which are sensitive to the expression of polarity: that is, negative polarity items, which cannot occur in affirmative clauses, and positive polarity items, which cannot occur in negatives. The phenomenon of polarity sensitivity has been an important source of evidence for theories about the mental architecture of grammar over the last fifty years, and to many the oddly dysfunctional sensitivities of polarity items have seemed to support a view of grammar as an encapsulated mental module fundamentally unrelated to other aspects of human cognition or communicative behavior. This book draws on insights from cognitive/functional linguistics and formal semantics to argue that, on the contrary, the grammar of sensitivity is grounded in a very general human cognitive ability to form categories and draw inferences based on scalar alternatives, and in the ways this ability is deployed for rhetorical effects in ordinary interpersonal communication.

Lexicology. Semantics --- Grammar --- Pragmatics --- Polarity (Linguistics) --- Grammar, Comparative and general --- Semantics. --- Polarité (Linguistique) --- Négations (Linguistique) --- Syntaxe --- Sémantique --- Negatives. --- Syntax. --- Semantics --- Negatives --- Syntax --- Polarity --- (Linguistics) --- (Linguistics). --- Polarité (Linguistique) --- Négations (Linguistique) --- Sémantique --- Formal semantics --- Semasiology --- Semiology (Semantics) --- Comparative linguistics --- Information theory --- Language and languages --- Lexicology --- Meaning (Psychology) --- Negatives (Grammar) --- Polarity item (Linguistics) --- Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) --- Arts and Humanities --- Language & Linguistics --- Linguistics --- Philology --- Grammar, Comparative and general - Negatives --- Grammar, Comparative and general - Syntax --- Grammar, Comparative and general Syntax