Universität zu Köln

Schaebbicke, Katharina ORCID: 0000-0002-5554-6436, Seeliger, Heiko ORCID: 0000-0003-0288-5052 and Repp, Sophie (2021). The Diverse Landscape of Negative Polarity Items: On the Use of German NPIs as Experimental Diagnostics. J. Psycholinguist. Res., 50 (6). S. 1461 - 1487. NEW YORK: SPRINGER/PLENUM PUBLISHERS. ISSN 1573-6555

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Abstract

The goal of this study is to provide better empirical insight into the licensing conditions of a large set of NPIs in German so that they can be used as reliable diagnostics in future research on negation-related phenomena. Experiment 1 tests the acceptability of 60 NPIs under semantic operators that are expected to license superstrong, strong, weak, and nonveridicality-licensed NPIs, respectively: antimorphic (not), anti-additive (no), downward entailing (hardly), nonveridical (maybe, question). Controls were positive assertions. Cluster analysis revealed seven clusters of NPIs, some of which confirm the licensing categorization from the literature (superstrong and weak NPIs). Other clusters show unclear patterns (overall high or medium ratings) and require further scrutiny in future research. One cluster showed high acceptability ratings only with the antimorphic and the question operator. Experiment 2 tested whether the source of this unexpected distribution was a rhetorical interpretation of the questions. Results suggest that rhetoricity was not the sole source. Overall, the results show gradual rather than categorical differences in acceptability, with higher acceptability corresponding to stronger negativity. The paper provides the detailed results for the individual NPIs as a preliminary normed acceptability index.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Schaebbicke, Katharina UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-5554-6436 UNSPECIFIED Seeliger, Heiko UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-0288-5052 UNSPECIFIED Repp, Sophie UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-563132
DOI:	10.1007/s10936-021-09793-0
Journal or Publication Title:	J. Psycholinguist. Res.
Volume:	50
Number:	6
Page Range:	S. 1461 - 1487
Date:	2021
Publisher:	SPRINGER/PLENUM PUBLISHERS
Place of Publication:	NEW YORK
ISSN:	1573-6555
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language PROCESSING POLARITY Multiple languages Linguistics; Psychology, Experimental Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/56313