Polarity Sensitive Any in Bengali
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2012
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Abstract
Bengali uses two different sets of morphemes for the negative polarity any. One set
consists of expressions morphologically related to the existential some. The other set
consists of expressions morphologically related to an overt emphatic particle meaning
even. Lahiri (1998) proposed that Hindi polarity morphemes similar to the ones in
Bengali are singular, non-specific referential terms. I propose that treating the Bengali
polarity morphemes in this way allows us to explain why they are licensed in subject
position unlike polarity morphemes in many other languages (e.g. English). In particular,
I propose that due to their singular, non-referential status, Bengali polarity morphemes
become syntactically negative with wide scope negation. The agreement between a
semantically non-negative element (e.g. a Bengali polarity morpheme) and a semantically
negative element (e.g. negation) in the structure constitutes evidence in favor of the
agreement - based approach to polarity in Chierchia (2011).