LingLunch : Giuseppe Magistro

Giuseppe Magistro (Ghent University)
Interfaces in Jespersen’s cycle

This paper deals with the diachronic pattern of renewal of negation known as Jespersen’s cycle. For the current discussion, I will consider  three varieties spoken in Veneto, since they represent a testbed for experiments where the change is ongoing. I argue that the pragmatic reinforcer miga is a lexical entry possessing inherently a focus feature, which drives a pragmatic interpretation corresponding to a FALSUM operator.   

 The featural composition of the entry has primarily some syntactic effects, like the ban on subordinates where focus is typically banned. Secondly, its featural specification is replicated at the interfaces. With regards to logic form, different scopal restrictions are appreciable on the basis of the stage of the negator in the cycle. Finally, the phonological component is analysed, where the different stages are reflected by distinct prosodic properties.