This article attempts to give a uniform and coherent analysis of the semantics and syntax of negation, with special emphasis on negative concord (NC) constructions. It is argued that negation is semantically a tripartite quantifier binding the event variable in its restriction. In syntax, this logical form corresponds to a structure where a NegP is present with Neg ° (normally) hosting the negative particle and a specifier as a checking position in the Minimalist sense. As a consequence, negative indefinites are held to be weak indefinites with a formal feature NEG which has to be checked away (thus obtaining Neg absorption). Additionally, some new data are introduced showing that even English style negative indefinites are analysable as non-negated weak indefinites.

This article investigates the meaning and use of singular indefinite determiners in Swedish, in particular the way in which the existential determiner någon/något contrasts with the indefinite article en/ett in different contexts. The problem is approached from three different perspectives, the first being a contrastive Scandinavian perspective, where the Swedish data are reviewed in the light of contrastive data from the closely related languages Danish and Norwegian. Secondly, corpus data are used to substantiate the results of the contrastive analysis both quantitatively and qualitatively. The last section adopts a more theoretical perspective and tries to present a formal semantic analysis of the two determiners under study, drawing on typological work on indefinites and studies of the historical development of indefinite determiners.

This paper focuses on the expression of sentential negation in West Flemish (WF), which it examines with respect to competing theories for deriving the West Germanic verb-final sentence pattern. The empirical adequacy of three hypotheses proposed to account for the verb-final order in the West Germanic languages is tested: (i) the ‘traditional’ OV analysis with head-final base structures; (ii) an antisymmetric approach with only head-complement order and without V-to-I movement; (iii) an antisymmetric approach with head-complement order, but with V-to-I movement and remnant movement of the projection containing the trace of V. Specifically, the question is asked to what extent these analyses capture the surface distribution of WF negation markers (niet, en and negative quantifiers). The paper shows that the traditional OV analysis is certainly adequate for the description of the data concerned. As far as antisymmetric approaches are concerned, a double movement analysis fares better than antisymmetric approaches without V-to-I movement. The paper also shows that, contrary to what has often been assumed, the WF morpheme en is not necessarily analysed as the head of NegP, the canonical projection to encode sentential negation, but that it could also plausibly be analysed as the head of PolP, a higher functional projection which encodes polarity.

The article presents the Norwegian majority official standard language “Bokmål” – its history, its present status and especially its present development – both to readers who are acquainted with the subject and to readers who are not. Some controversial aspects of Bokmål are discussed, such as its different varieties, its delimitation, especially with respect to the private standard “Riksmål”, its origin and the question of to what extent there is a spoken Bokmål. In connection with the delimitation of Bokmål, the article introduces the distinction between “prescribed” and “factual” norms – and the norm concept itself – and argues for the necessity of distinguishing clearly between the prescribed and the factual Bokmål. The last part of the article is devoted to the present development of Bokmål, both as it is regulated and as it is practised. The latest official reforms which have been proposed are reviewed and discussed. The language policy of the main newspapers are reviewed, as is the use of Bokmål, in the press as well as in the literature.

The syntax of finite verbs with the negation suffix -a/-at in early Old Norse reveals an asymmetry regarding the position of the verb relative to the subject in main clauses. The subject is regularly preceded by the negated verb, but followed by the verb in affirmative clauses. The asymmetry suggests that the subject is canonically in SpecIP. In affirmative subject-initial main clauses the finite verb moves to I, but the negated verbs obligatorily move to C. The movement of negated verbs to C is triggered by a [+neg] feature in this position. This assumption is independently motivated by the existence of the overt and non-overt negative complementizers in a variety of languages. The analysis advanced here supports the hypothesis that cross-linguistically sentential negation can be structurally represented in C.

This paper investigates a surprising interpretational asymmetry in modal-negation sequences in Norwegian: When the negation word follows the subject, the sentence is ambiguous with respect to the relative scopes of the negation and the modal. When negation precedes the subject, however, the negation unambiguously takes scope over the modal. I argue that this asymmetry can be accounted for by assuming that verb raising has semantic implications; contrary to Chomsky (2001a). Modal-negation sequences in subordinate clauses do not display the same asymmetry, which supports the hypothesis that verb raising causes the observed patterns. Moreover, many speakers reject the sequence negation-subject in subordinate clauses. I propose that, for these speakers, main clauses employ two adjunction sites for negation, whereas subordinate clauses employ only one.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, I want to show that, contrary to what is sometimes claimed in the literature, NP-adjuncts of the kind tomorrow, last week, etc., are attested sentence-medially in English. This pattern would seem to be particularly frequent in journalistic prose. Second, I examine and refute an analysis which takes such sentence-medial NP-adjuncts to be analysed as IP-external adjuncts across which the subject has been topicalised or focalised. Though such an analysis would be in keeping with the often proposed view that NP-adjuncts do not occupy an IP-internal position, I show that it raises a host of empirical problems and that it is not tenable. The conclusion is that NP-adjuncts cannot be analysed as being IP-external and that they occupy a high IP-internal position.