2.1 The pragmatic usefulness of NPIs

Despite their syntactic heterogeneity, on a pragmatic level NPIs tend to fall into one of two different classes, which I argue is no accident. One class is larger and better studied than the other.

As has long been noted, many NPIs involve existential quantification expressing the smallest possible amount in some general sense (‘existential NPIs’). These can be basic existential quantifiers and determiners (e.g., any, anyone, ever), expressions of small quantity (a single), of a basic entity (a thing, a soul), or a small amount of a thing of little value (‘minimizers’, e.g., a hair, an iota). The latter also appear in collocational NPIs like give a damn, have a clue, budge an inch, sleep a wink. Some combine various of these properties. A related class of NPIs consist of or incorporate ‘even’ expressions in the sense of ‘the least noteworthy’. These ‘even’ NPIs include German auch nur, Italian anche solo. An existential and an ‘even’ expression appear jointly in entire paradigms of NPIs in various languages, including Hindi, Korean and Hebrew (see Lee and Horn Reference Lee and Horn1994, Lahiri Reference Lahiri1998). While existential and ‘even’-NPIs (and combinations thereof) seem to be the largest, and also most discussed class, we must also acknowledge NPIs like adverbial much (see Klima Reference Klima, Fodor and Katz1964), adverbial long, Catalan gaire (‘much’), French grand-chose (‘big thing’), certain uses of impressed, etc. These NPIs, discussed in detail in Israel (Reference Israel2011), occupy not the bottom rung on a Horn scale, but a (relatively) high rung.

Existential NPIs, ‘even’-NPIs, and relatively high scalar NPIs are pragmatically useful in DE contexts, but for different reasons. The first two, which I will subsume under the term ‘low scalar NPIs’, lend themselves to making semantically very strong, even emphatic claims in DE contexts: if Nico didn't find a single/even the slightest mistake in the calculation, he certainly didn't find three. If Mary won't budge an inch on her position, she certainly won't meet John half way. If Bill cannot even fry an egg, he certainly cannot prepare a three-course dinner. Disjunctive NPIs like additive either can also be included in this category.

Relatively high scalar NPIs have a different pragmatic function. As Israel (Reference Israel2011) notes, they generally attenuate matters in DE contexts. Attenuation is pragmatically useful, for instance when one wants to soften a negative comment or the force of a requirement; one can use Yolanda was not impressed by the design of the garden when one means ‘She disliked it.’ The fact that this type of NPI generally receives less attention likely has to do with the fact that it is less common. This makes a certain amount of sense. Strength and emphasis are communicatively important when expressing negation, attenuation arguably less so.Footnote ⁶

2.2 Becoming an NPI is becoming [u-neg]

One way to conceptualize how an expression can become an NPI, or how it can come to carry [u-neg], is to note that its pragmatic usefulness in DE contexts can result in its frequent appearance there. We can then hypothesize that this allows the learner to parse such an expression as being formally restricted to such contexts, that is, as carrying the feature [u-neg]. This new parsing does not involve a change in meaning. Nor does it involve extra effort on part of the speaker, if we assume that NPI-marking and the valuation of the [u-neg] feature is provided for free by Universal Grammar, and is something that speakers already have at their disposal. On this view, expressions with a particular kind of semantics are susceptible to being parsed as bearing the NPI-feature [u-neg] because of their pragmatic usefulness in DE contexts, which follows from their semantics. But exactly which of the semantically and pragmatically suitable expressions actually end up being marked [u-neg] is to some degree up to chance (and/or perhaps other, yet to be determined factors). This probabilistic perspective suggests that in principle NPIs should be able to have synonyms that are not themselves NPIs. The coexistence of any, some and a discussed in section 1 can be taken to show just that.

One consequence of an expression becoming an NPI is the semantic bleaching that is often observed. While this is not relevant for NPIs like any, which express only existential quantification and are semantically as bare as can be, it characterizes many minimizing NPIs. Though inch literally denotes a measurement of distance (2.54 cm), the NPI budge an inch involves no real talk of measurement of distance. Semantic bleaching serves as a tell-tale sign to a learner that an existential noun phrase has become (part of) an NPI. Similarly, though ‘even’ NPIs are initially emphatic, their emphatic character diminishes as time goes by (see e.g., Kiparsky and Condoravdi Reference Kiparsky, Condoravdi, Janse, Joseph and Ralli2006).

2.3 The possible loss of [u-neg]

Given the relative arbitrariness of which semantically predisposed expressions acquire [u-neg] – any did it, some and a did not – it would now not be surprising to find that expressions can lose their NPI-hood without change in meaning, reverting to a less restricted distribution. While the literature generally argues for a development from ‘less negative’ to ‘more negative’ (see e.g., Haspelmath Reference Haspelmath1997, Breitbarth et al. Reference Breitbarth, Lucas and Willis2020), the loss of NPI-hood without attendant change in meaning is not unheard of (see e.g., Jäger Reference Jäger2010, Herburger and Mauck Reference Herburger, Mauck, Csipak, Eckardt, Liu and Sailer2013).

One example illustrating the loss of [u-neg] is Dutch ooit (‘ever’). According to Hoeksema (Reference Hoeksema, Mogg and van Bergen1998), although until the 1960s ooit had the distribution of a weak NPI, as in (5), in present day Dutch it can also be used outside of DE contexts, as in (6):

The recent development of how speakers use ooit suggests that it has lost its [u-neg] feature, which limited its distribution earlier, while retaining its meaning as an existential adverbial quantifier.Footnote ⁷ In other words, the relevant speakers used to have something like (7a) in their lexicon, now it is something like (7b):

1. (7)

   1. a. [[ooit _[u-neg]]] = $\lambda f_{\left\langle {ev, t} \right\rangle }.\; { \exists \hskip 1pt} e\;f( e ) = 1$.

   2. b. [[ooit]] = $\lambda f_{\left\langle {ev, t} \right\rangle }.\;{ \exists \hskip 1pt} e\;f( e ) = 1$

Further examples where a [u-neg] feature seems to have been lost without any change in meaning include German einig- and jemand. The determiner einig-, which shares a root with any (‘one’) is now used as a regular existential, without any distributional restriction to DE contexts. But it used to have the distribution of an NPI (Jäger Reference Jäger2010). Jäger similarly argues that Old High German ioman changed from existential, low scalar NPI to eventually becoming the regular indefinite jemand. Even NPIs that contain an overt instance of ‘even’ can shed their NPI-hood while keeping their existential meaning (Herburger and Mauck Reference Herburger, Mauck, Csipak, Eckardt, Liu and Sailer2013). As these examples illustrate, just as an expression with a suitable semantics can come to bear the feature [u-neg], an expression that is lexically marked [u-neg] can also come to lose its marking without any shift in meaning. On a more general level it suggests that the history of NPIs is not unidirectional (see e.g., Haspelmath Reference Haspelmath1997, Breitbarth et al. Reference Breitbarth, Lucas and Willis2020). I briefly return to this matter in section 3.7.3.

3.1 NPIs becoming stronger

Medieval Romance developed a series of existential NPIs along the lines sketched initially in section 2. Examples include among many others Spanish nadie (< hominem natum ‘man born’), nada (< res nata, ‘thing born’), French rien (< res, ‘thing’), French personne, Catalan cap (< caput ‘head (of cattle)’), etc. The forebears of these expressions in Medieval Romance readily appeared in all sorts of NPI contexts, including if-clauses, questions and comparatives (see Martins Reference Martins, Pintzuk, Tsoulas and Warner2000, Eckardt Reference Eckardt2006, and Breitbarth et al. Reference Breitbarth, Lucas and Willis2020, a.o.).

The acceptance of these expressions in NPI-contexts has decreased in Modern Romance. But there is considerable variation among the Romance languages in this regard (see Martins Reference Martins, Pintzuk, Tsoulas and Warner2000). Within Iberian Romance, we find that in European Portuguese the relevant expressions now tend to be restricted to the scope of negation, ‘without’ or a negative quantifier. On the other hand, in Catalan they are still possible in interrogatives and in if-clauses:Footnote ⁹

Unlike Portuguese, Spanish no longer features these expressions in if-clauses or questions (unless the questions are rhetorical and have a negative bias), but still allows them in the NPI-contexts created by ‘doubt’, ‘prefer, ‘before’, comparatives and even in the restriction of universal quantifiers in some instances (see also Bosque Reference Bosque1980, Laka Reference Laka1994).

The gradual narrowing to more obviously negative contexts has constituted a long-standing philological puzzle. An important insight was that it can be thought of as a process of ‘weak’ NPIs turning into ‘strong’(er) ones, a point argued for in Martins (Reference Martins, Pintzuk, Tsoulas and Warner2000), Eckardt (Reference Eckardt2006) and others.Footnote ¹⁰

Interestingly, these expressions in Old Spanish also appeared together with negation in elliptical contexts, both in coordination, as in (10), and in elliptical or fragment answers, as in (11). This is no longer possible in Modern Spanish.

In Catalan, which retains various Medieval properties, e.g., res and gens can still optionally appear with negation in elliptical answers, recalling in this respect the pure NPI gaire (‘much’), which requires a negation (e.g., Vallduví Reference Vallduví1994).

In sum, it appears that in Medieval Romance, what are today considered NC-terms generally appeared in a wider series of negative contexts than they do today, including an extensive series of NPI contexts, and contexts involving verbal ellipsis.

3.2 Negative Concord: Important data

NC-terms in Modern Romance crucially differ from univocal NPIs, which Modern Romance languages also have (e.g., Spanish N algun- ‘any’), in that in addition to their having low-scalar readings in (a subset) of NPI contexts, they can also appear on their own with a negative interpretation. A paradigmatic context would be the case of elliptical answers, where pure NPIs are not possible, (see Who came? *Anybody.)^:

In addition, negative readings of NC-terms are also found in cases of verbal ellipsis in coordination, as shown for Spanish in (14) and Romanian in (15):Footnote ¹¹

It is theoretically significant that even in postverbal position, NC-terms can have a negative interpretation on their own. They do so when they take narrow scope with respect to the event quantifier binding into the verbal predicate, which prevents them from expressing ‘sentence negation’ (e.g., Herburger Reference Herburger2001). Since such a narrow scope construal is not often feasible, examples of postverbal NC-terms without a higher negation or NC-term are not numerous. This, however, does not mean that they are not productive and thus should be set aside as idioms (see Penka Reference Penka2011).

NC-terms with a negative interpretation can also be found postnominally when they take narrow scope, as in el viaje a ninguna parte (‘a trip to nowhere’), una serie sobre nada (‘a show about nothing’). Adding a higher negatively interpreted expression does not change the scope properties of the postnominal NC-term in such instances. We can see this in (17), which combines a negative, narrow scope postnominal NC-term (nada) with a preverbal negative NC-term with sentential scope (nunca). Though both NC-terms are negative, the result is not a double negation, because the scope of nada is below the nominal serie.

Finally, as is well-known and much discussed, Modern Romance languages differ with respect to the behaviour of preverbal NC-terms. In some languages and varieties, preverbal NC-terms co-occur with negation to express a single negation. This is obligatory in Romanian, as is illustrated in (18), and optional in Catalan.

And though in Medieval Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, the expressions in question often also appeared with negation preverbally, to express ‘sentence’ negation, already in the Medieval languages, they could at times appear without negation, alternating even within a single text, as pointed out in Martins (Reference Martins, Pintzuk, Tsoulas and Warner2000).

In Modern Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, this is the general pattern. In these asymmetric or non-strict Negative Concord languages, preverbal NC-terms routinely occur without negation, expressing sentence negation, as is illustrated in (20a). Adding negation results not in ungrammaticality, as is sometimes claimed, but in a double negation interpretation. Pragmatically, (20b) is felicitous as a denial of a previously uttered negative claim (see A: Nobody came. B: No, nobody DIDN'T come; A: Michelle didn't come. B: No, NOBODY didn't come) and is characterized intonationally by stress on the NC-term or the negation and a L+H*L! H% intonation contour (see e.g., Labov Reference Labov1972, Espinal et al. Reference Espinal, Tubau, Borràs-Comes, Prieto, Larrivée and Lee2016). In languages that have symmetric Negative Concord, double negations are distinguished only prosodically (see Espinal et al. Reference Espinal, Tubau, Borràs-Comes, Prieto, Larrivée and Lee2016).

Based on this description of the facts, we can now draw the descriptive generalization in (21), which assumes that sentences are descriptions of event(ualitie)s, and that in the absence of an overt adverb of quantification (e.g., always, often) a tacit existential quantifier $\exists e\;$binds the event variable of the verb.

1. (21)

   1. a. In languages with asymmetric or non-strict Negative Concord like Spanish, NC-terms can have a negative interpretation when this does not require them to take inverse scope over the event operator $\exists e\;$that binds the event variable of a verb that is pronounced.

   2. b. In languages with symmetric or strict Negative Concord like Romanian, NC-terms can have a negative interpretation when this does not require them to take linear or inverse scope over the event operator $\exists e$ that binds the event variable of a verb that is pronounced.

This generalization means that in Spanish and Romanian, an NC-term that appears after an overtly realized verb can in principle be interpreted negatively but cannot take scope over ∃e and express sentence negation. However, when the verb is elided, as it is in elliptical answers and elliptical conjunction, a postverbal NC-term can be negative and express sentence negation, taking scope over ∃e that binds the event variable of the elided verb. It is, in other words, as if the overtly pronounced verb blocks non-linear scope. Whereas preverbal NC-terms can be interpreted negatively in a Spanish-type language taking linear scope over ∃e, this is not possible in a Romanian-type language. The difference between strict or symmetric and non-strict or asymmetric Negative Concord reduces to whether a preverbal NC-term can take scope over the event quantifier binding the variable of the pronounced verb on its own (non-strict) or not (strict). Languages like Catalan currently seem to allow for both options; preverbal NC-terms can, but need not, express sentence negation on their own.

3.3 Negative Concord as homophonyFootnote ¹²

Many of the facts described in (21) can be readily captured with a feature-based account. After showing how, I explore the historical development of NC-terms.

3.3.1 Synchronic facts

The feature-based account of NPI-hood argued for in section 1 fits organically with the view that Negative Concord is an epiphenomenon, merely a name for a systematic lexical ambiguity (see Herburger Reference Herburger2001). NC-terms, in this view, come in two phonologically indistinguishable versions, different in meaning and distributional features. One version has a low-scalar semantics (e.g., existential, ‘least noteworthy’, disjunctive) and bears the distributional feature [u-neg]. The other lacks [u-neg] and is semantically the negation of the low-scalar meaning; we can say it bears [i-neg]. The NC-terms nadie and nada, for example, thus have the following kinds of lexical entries:

1. (22)

   1. a. [[nadie _[u-neg]]] = $\lambda f_{\left\langle {e, t} \right\rangle }.\;[ {{\exists \hskip 1pt} x\colon \;Person\;( x ) } ] \;f( x ) = 1$

   2. b. [[nadie _[i-neg]]] = $\lambda f_{\left\langle {e, t} \right\rangle }.$ [∄${x\colon \;Person\;( x ) } ]\; f( x ) = 1$

2. (23)

   1. a. [[nada _[u-neg]]] = λf _〈e,t〉. [∃x: Thing(x)] f (x) = 1

   2. b. [[nada _[i-neg]]] = λf _〈e,t〉. [∄x: Thing (x)] f (x) = 1

Various facts observed earlier find a simple explanation under the homophony view. One is that just as NPIs are not restricted to elements in the nominal domain (‘indefinites’), neither are NCs; they can also be adverbials (nunca ‘never’ ‘ever’), scalar expressions (ni siquiera lit. ‘not even’ ‘even’), or conjunctions (ni…ni ‘neither nor’, ‘either or’), etc. This follows directly from the claim that NC-terms are, on one of their readings, NPIs, which are also not restricted to expressions of particular syntactic categories. The cross-categorial parallel that we see between NC-terms and NPIs is more difficult to explain in analyses that treat Negative Concord and NPI licensing as separate phenomena (e.g., Zeijlstra Reference Zeijlstra2004, Penka Reference Penka2011).

It also follows that NC-terms receive a negative interpretation when they appear on their own. As we saw in section 3.2, they do this in elliptical answers, conjunctions involving verbal ellipsis, postverbal or postnominal narrow scope, and in preverbal position in asymmetric or non-strict Negative Concord. In all these instances, the negative interpretation simply follows from the fact that in the absence of an NPI licensor, the negative reading of the NC-term is the sole grammatical option; employing the [u-neg] version would leave its feature unvalued.Footnote ¹³

The homophony analysis captures the fact that, to varying degrees, NC-terms continue to appear in the scope of NPI licensors with non-negative meanings. Thus, in all Negative Concord languages, NC-terms can appear not only under ‘not’, another negatively read NC-term (‘Negative Spread’), but also under ‘without’. And as we noted, in various languages/varieties, they can also still appear under other NPI-licensors; in Spanish, for example, they can appear under ‘before’ and ‘doubt’.

Finally, the homophony analysis also predicts certain ambiguities. We expect, and indeed find, ambiguity when an NC-term appears preverbally in an embedded clause that is itself in the scope of an NPI-licensor. The ambiguity of (26) supports this. Its simple negation reading arises when nadie _[u-neg] is licensed by ‘doubt’, as in (27a). The double negation reading arises with nadie _[i-neg], as in (27b). (The characteristic prosody and context are needed for the double negation reading.)

3.3.2 Diachronic facts

Turning to the historical trajectory of NC-terms, we can now say that Negative Concord can arise when a univocal low scalar NPI bearing [u-neg] acquires a semantically-negative homophone with a free distribution: [u-neg] > [u-neg]/[i-neg]. This characterizes the historic origin of many NC-terms as low-scalar expressions (e.g., nada < res nata, cap < caput, res < res etc.). It is, however, also worth bearing in mind that quite a few NC-terms derive from expressions that were semantically negative in Classical Latin. These include Spanish nunca (< numquam ‘never’), Romanian neminem (< nemo ‘nobody’), and French nul and nulle part < (nullus ‘none’). In addition, many varieties of Modern Romance feature words that derive from Latin nec, which meant ‘(neither) nor’ and ‘not even’. These include Spanish ninguno (‘nobody’, ‘anybody’), ningun- (‘no’, ‘any’), Italian niente (‘nothing’, ‘anything’), Italian nessuno (‘nobody’, ‘anybody’), along with conjunctive expressions ni…ni (‘neither… nor’, ‘either… or’) and scalar particles like ni (‘not even’, ‘even’). The existence of NC-terms that historically derive from semantically negative expressions suggests that the homophony known as Negative Concord can arise from either side, either from a low scalar [u-neg] expression acquiring a negative [i-neg] homophone or from a negative [i-neg] expression acquiring a low scalar [u-neg] homophone.

In section 2.2 we noted that the choice of which semantically predisposed expression acquires the distributional NPI-feature [u-neg] is to some degree an arbitrary matter (e.g., any vs. some vs. a). It would now not be surprising to also find variation in whether or not a [u-neg]-bearing expression comes to be paired with a semantically-negative [i-neg] counterpart. The descendants of Latin aliquis (‘some (or other)’), discussed in detail in Gianollo (Reference Gianollo2018), provide an interesting example of this. Latin aliquis developed into the Spanish regular indefinite quantifiers algo (‘something’) and alguien (‘somebody’). It also developed into an epistemic non-NPI, prenominal indefinite determiner (algun-) (‘some (or other)’). In postnominal position, however, algun- in Spanish functions as an NPI. Going one step further, its Portuguese counterpart (N algum-) has the distribution of an NC-term. The same is true of the French descendant of aliquis, aucun.

This type of variation, which may seem puzzling, makes sense in the present perspective. What happens to aliquis in a particular Romance language is to some degree a random matter within a certain set of possibilities (stays existential, becomes NPI, or becomes also NC-term).Footnote ¹⁴

3.4 On Negative Concord in French

Negative Concord in French shows an interesting development when compared to the languages considered so far. I will suggest that this difference is related to the history of sentential negation, in particular to the postverbal realization of negation in French as pas, and to the cost of inverse scope.

As in other Romance languages, French NC-terms typically functioned as NPIs in the medieval varieties (see Eckardt Reference Eckardt2006), and continue to appear in the NPI environment provided by ‘without', and optionally (increasingly less) in the NPI environments provided by the comparative, ‘before', ‘not believe', rhetorical questions, etc. Their NPI-side is also visible when NC-terms are interpreted under a negation in a higher clause. The following examples are from Milner (Reference Milner1979), and are annotated for the relevant features.

In preverbal position, as in (31a), French NC-terms receive a negative interpretation, indicating asymmetric Negative Concord. This claim is based on the assumption that it is pas rather than ne that translates as semantic negation (see Jespersen Reference Jespersen1917, Rowlett Reference Rowlett1998). Support comes from the fact that in spoken French ne is readily omitted, and also from the fact that adding pas results in a double negation (with the typical prosodic and pragmatic characteristics) (e.g., Muller Reference Muller1991):

Finally, as in other Romance languages, French NC-terms appear with negative interpretation on their own as elliptical answers (as in (32)–(33)), in elliptical coordination (as in (34)), and postverbally/postnominally with narrow scope (as in (35)). Interestingly, in examples like those in (35), ne has to be absent to express the desired reading where the NC-term takes scope below the event quantifier ∃e that binds the event variable of the verb. Ne, whose position is high, seems to be incompatible with this interpretation. Adding ne in (35a) would not be ungrammatical, but rather change the meaning, negating that a given event took place. This suggests that ne, when present, functions as a scope marker.

Other than how negation is realized, so far it might appear that French Negative Concord and Spanish/Italian/Portuguese Negative Concord are parallel. But, in striking contrast with the Spanish (36), which is interpreted as a single negation (‘Negative Spread’), its French counterpart in (37) is ambiguous between a single or double negation, that is between (38a) and (38b) (Corblin Reference Corblin1996, Muller Reference Muller1991, de Swart and Sag Reference de Swart and Sag2002, a.o.). (As usual, the double negation reading has special prosodic properties; see Déprez Reference Déprez, Yeaton, Ordoñez and Ripetti2018 and Yeaton 2018.)

The double negation reading of (37) indicates not just that both personne and rien are negative, but also that rien, despite being postverbal, takes scope over the event quantifier $\exists e$, something its Spanish counterpart nada crucially cannot do. If so, a sentence where a NC-term appears postverbally on its own (with optional ne) should be able to express sentence negation, as is in fact confirmed in (39). Also, adding pas results in a double negation, contrasting in this respect with univocal NPIs like qui que ce soit. (Examples are from Muller Reference Muller1991:258)

When a postverbal NC-term occurs with pas, the availability of a negative interpretation seems to effectively block a [u-neg] interpretation of the NC-term, which would result in a simple negation reading. This may have to do with the fact that a simple negation reading could be achieved more economically by simply using the [i-neg] version of the NC-term, without bothering with sentential negation. The fact that in older varieties (e.g., 17^th century French), pas + NC-term was read as a simple negation – as is still possible in Québecois and in Haitian Creole (see Muller Reference Muller1991, Déprez Reference Déprez1997, de Swart and Sag Reference de Swart and Sag2002) – indicates that the ability of postverbal negative NC-terms to take scope over the event quantifier is an innovation, relatively speaking.

To illustrate the properties of postverbal French NC-term we can consider (42), an example that I owe to an anonymous reviewer, who notes that it is four ways ambiguous. While in this sentence personne can only be taken to be negative, since there is no NPI licensor above it, jamais and rien can be interpreted either as NPI expressions licensed by the negative personne, or as negative expressions that outscope ${ \exists \hskip 1pt} e$. The readings are shown in (43):

In sum, while French NC-terms are like their Spanish and Romanian counterparts in that they are ambiguous between a [u-neg] and an [i-neg] interpretation, they are different in that the postverbal [i-neg] versions can take inverse scope over $\exists e.$

3.5 Postverbal NC-terms and Jespersen's cycle

At this point we may wonder why French but not Spanish NC-terms should have acquired the ability to take inverse scope on their negative reading. A look at micro-variation helps shed light on the possible reason for the difference. Modern European French is not alone in allowing postverbal NC-terms on their negative readings to outscope the event quantifier. Such readings have also been reported for ‘italiano populare’ of the 20^th century, and various Italian and Rhaeto-Romance varieties in northern Italy and Switzerland (Bernini and Ramat Reference Bernini and Ramat1996, Zanuttini Reference Zanuttini1997, a.o.):

An interesting property shared by these varieties and French is that their negation marker (‘not’) is overtly realized below the tensed verb (see Bernini and Ramat Reference Bernini and Ramat1996, Zanuttini Reference Zanuttini1997, a.o.) even though semantically it typically takes scope over it. Put differently, whereas Spanish and most Italian varieties are ‘NEG1’, the varieties mentioned here are ‘NEG3’ (and some even ‘NEG4’, Zanuttini Reference Zanuttini1997), and French is NEG2 or NEG3, depending on whether the register employs ne.

The low negation no/beka/pas reflects a step in what is called the Jespersen Cycle. According to Jespersen (Reference Jespersen1917), initially, the semantic negation was the preverbal ne, which was reinforced by the postverbal pas in French, which then itself became the negation without changing its postverbal position. The erstwhile negation ne became largely optional in spoken French in most instances, and, when pronounced, now marks the scope of the NC-term. This trajectory can now be represented as follows:Footnote ¹⁵

The negation and the postverbal NC facts seem to be related (and are actually presented as one single fact, in Bernini and Ramat Reference Bernini and Ramat1996). In particular, we can assume that once the semantically active negation marker is realized postverbally (NEG 2,3,4), speakers have evidence that a semantically negative expression (e.g., no, beka, pas) can take non-linear scope over the event quantifier and thereby express sentence negation. At some point, they can extend this to postverbal negative NC-terms, which thus acquire the capacity to outscope ${ \exists \hskip 1pt} e$ and express sentence negation. In varieties that pattern with Spanish, in contrast, the negation marker is robustly realized preverbally (NEG1), offering speakers little reason to assume that the surface position of a postverbal negative expression does not reflect its semantic scope. In order to express sentence negation with a postverbal NC-term, its [u-neg] version must be employed with a preverbal [i-neg] licensor.

Table 1 summarizes the development of Negative Concord in Romance as analyzed here.

Table 1:

The development of Negative Concord in Romance

3.6 The demise of Negative Concord

Given the many [i-neg] uses of French NC-terms, at some point the [u-neg] uses may disappear, at which point French will cease to be a Negative Concord language and turn into a Double Negation language:

This has already happened in English, German and various other Germanic languages. For instance, the German negative determiner kein- (‘no’) functioned as an existential NPI determiner dehein(ig)/kein before it developed into an NC-term in Middle High German (Jäger Reference Jäger2010). It could then not only appear with existential meaning in NPI contexts, as in (48a), but also alone with negative meaning, as in (48b). While Negative Concord with kein- is still possible in some dialects (e.g., Bavarian, see Bayer Reference Bayer, Mascaró and Nespor1990), in Standard Modern German kein- no longer shows Negative Concord but only has a negative reading. In other words, while Middle High German featured two versions of kein-, a [u-neg] one with existential meaning, and a negative [i-neg] one, modern standard German retains only the [i-neg] version. The trajectories of niemand (‘nobody’) and nichts (‘nothing’) are reported to be parallel (see Jäger Reference Jäger2010), and they too can be said to have developed from existential NPI to NC-term to negative quantifier.

The history of English also offers numerous examples of NC-terms becoming univocally negative expressions. Negative Concord was common in Old English and still possible in Middle English, as we can see in (49).

It then became less frequent in the late Middle English and Early Modern periods and is now no longer part of Standard varieties, where nobody is purely negative. Negative Concord continues, however, to be part of many traditional British dialects (e.g., Tubau Reference Tubau2016), of many dialects of white speakers in the US, and it is a systematic part of Black American English (e.g., Labov Reference Labov1972). These dialects show considerable variation as to whether they employ asymmetric or symmetric Negative Concord.

Summarizing, we have seen how low scalar [u-neg] expressions can come to have a negative [i-neg] homophone and vice versa, giving rise to Negative Concord. The differences we observe in Negative Concord in Spanish-type vs. French-type languages stem from the inverse scope capabilities the negative readings of postverbal NC-terms have acquired in French-type languages. This in turn is tied to the emergence of a postverbal negation marker, which develops when a [u-neg] direct object morphs into an [i-neg] adverbial/sentential operator. It offers the learner evidence that postverbal negative expressions can take non-linear scope and express sentence negation; the learner can then extend the strategy to other postverbal [i-neg] expressions. Once all postverbal [i-neg] expressions can take scope over the event operator, there is pressure in the system to not employ [u-neg] versions for that, significantly decreasing their uses. This signals the beginning of the end of Negative Concord, paving the way to a Double Negation system.Footnote ¹⁶

3.7 What drives the change?

As we have seen, the history of Negative Concord in Romance is one of change. This raises the question what drives this change?

4.1 Examples of the dualization of [u-neg] expressions

Ever provides an example of NPI Dualization. It is now generally considered an NPI, and appears in various NPI contexts such as those in (52), where it is interpreted existentially along the lines of ‘at any time/at some time’. Historically, however, ever also meant ‘always’ and appeared outside of DE contexts, as we can see in (53). The universal reading of ever is also still evident in ever after, forever, ever since, ever + adjective, and also a multitude of brand names (e.g., Everlast). And while the use of ever as ‘always’ outside of these locutions is no longer common, (54) illustrates that it can appear under certain conditions:

Both the low scalar [u-neg] reading and the universal readings of ever appear together to striking effect in this 17^th century poem, with the existential NPI reading in the first three lines, the universal, non-NPI reading in the last:

According to Jäger (Reference Jäger2010), German immer developed from an existential NPI io mer to its current non-NPI version as a universal adverb of quantification (‘always’). This is possibly another example of NPI Dualization, only in this case the development proceeds in the other direction, from an existential [u-neg] marked adverb to an adverb of quantification with universal force.

Given what we have seen so far, it may appear that NPI Dualization is restricted to adverbial quantifiers. The expression at all, however, suggests otherwise. At all clearly functions as an NPI in Modern English, and can be paraphrased as ‘to any degree’, ‘in any way’, ‘in the least’, ‘whatsoever’. But, as the OED attests, at all had a universal reading in Middle English, meaning ‘in every way’, ‘altogether’, ‘wholly’. This latter reading can still be seen in (57). Related positive uses are also reported for Irish and Caribbean English, where at all seems to mean ‘of all’, and also for US regional varieties, where at all is read as ‘only’, as in (58).

Synchronically, the universal all in at all seems in conflict with the low scalar meaning of the NPI expression. NPI Dualization helps us make sense of the disconnect between form and meaning. In particular, we can say that in the past at all was semantically universal, but, as an instance of NPI Dualization it came to have an [u-neg] homophone with existential semantics. This second version is the one we encounter in most modern dialects of English.Footnote ¹⁹

At this point one may also wonder about the two readings of any – the existential reading with the distribution of an NPI and the ‘free choice’ reading, which does not have the distribution of an NPI but is restricted to certain modal and ‘subtrigging’ contexts:

I am hesitant to include any as an example here, as the distribution of free choice any is limited to certain modal contexts, and it is not entirely clear if it has universal force (see Dayal Reference Dayal1998) or if it originates form an indefinite reading of any that has an additional indiscriminatory component (see Horn Reference Horn2000 and numerous references cited therein). Horn (Reference Horn2000) notes that it is easy to see how an existential expression with an additional free choice component can come to express what often seems to amount to the equivalent of a universal meaning: if a randomly, freely chosen element satisfies a predicate, all elements that could have been chosen instead presumably would do too. The role of negation in this context is not obvious, however. I leave this as an issue for future study.

4.2 Analysis of NPI Dualization: The role of strength

How are we to make sense of NPI Dualization? The proposal that the homophony between [u-neg] and [i-neg] expressions can be thought of as change where [i-neg] is realized – in the environment or on the expression itself – clearly does not apply here; another explanation is needed.

One way to conceptualize NPI Dualization is to ask what existential [u-neg] and the universal-like homophones have in common, besides their phonology. Their interpretation offers a plausible answer: both interpretations lend themselves to making pragmatically strong statements. For universal-like expressions, like ever _universal, etc. this follows directly from the semantics, just as it does for every, all etc.; there is no stronger claim than one with universal force. Granted, not all the occurrences of a universal-like expression are pragmatically strong, since in DE-contexts they give rise to scalar implicatures (e.g., not all implies ‘some’), revealing the presence of stronger alternatives (e.g., ‘some’ in DE contexts). But nothing in the lexical entry of ever _universal, every, etc. forces them to appear in a DE context (they are not NPIs), and mostly they do not, as what is generally implicated by ‘not every’ is more readily expressed by ‘some’. It seems fair to say then that the vast majority of universal quantifiers are used to make semantically strong claims. This, together with the overall relative markedness of negative contexts (e.g., Horn Reference Horn1989), makes it plausible to assume that speakers classify ever _universal as ‘strong’ in virtue of its meaning alone. What about the existential ever _[u-neg]? It is semantically weak (e.g., some normally implicates ‘not all’). But, because existential ever is lexically marked as [u-neg], it is restricted to locally DE contexts (which renders the relative markedness of negative environments irrelevant). Consequently, the lexical entry of ever _[u-neg] signals pragmatic strength as well.

Based on this reasoning, we might take NPI Dualization to show that pragmatic strength can become lexically associated with a particular lexical entry. The strength association may then persist while other meaning components, in particular quantificational force (existential vs. universal), and distribution ([u-neg] vs. free), change, creating a pairing of same-sounding but semantically-distinct expressions. The two expressions may co-exist, as the two kinds of ever in Ann Bradstreet's poem in (55) show, or one of the two may fall into disuse.

I have discussed only a few examples of NPI Dualization (ever, at all), and much remains to be explored. It would be interesting to see whether NPI Dualization interacts with Negative Concord. A possible candidate can again be found among adverbial quantifiers. Spanish jamás and French jamais and related expressions in Portuguese, Galician and Italian function as NC-terms now, showing an ambiguity between an existential [u-neg] interpretation and a negative or [i-neg] reading, corresponding to the NPI ever and the negative adverbial quantifier never, respectively. Yet historically jamás etc. derive from Latin iam magis (‘already more’), and would thus seem to have originally been closer in meaning to a universal. A universal use is in fact preserved in the locutions para siempre jamás (Spanish) and à (tout) jamais (French), which both translate as ‘forever and ever’.

This suggests that jamás/jamais exemplifies both Negative Concord and NPI Dualization. This sketch of an analysis requires more historical data to establish this more firmly.