The role of scale structure in the interpretation of contrariety in no-DPs

Rachel Szekely

Abstract


Contrary meaning is commonly analyzed as a pragmatic strengthening of contradictory sentence negation. This paper derives the contrary meaning found in no-DPs in predicate position (e.g. "John is no fool") through the analysis of no as negation that operates on the scale contributed by the predicate nominal expression.


Keywords


Negation; contrariety; scalar meaning; prototypicality; noun phrase interpretation; pragmatics; semantics

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v2i0.4043

Copyright (c) 2017 Rachel Szekely

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