Saying and shaking ‘no’

In many instances, the head shake can be used instead of or in addition
to verbal ‘No’. Based on previous work on negation in dialogue, we observe
head shaking as answer particles and as responding to an implicit or an exo-
phoric (i.e., real world situation) antecedent. Exophoric head shake, however,
seems to come in two flavours: with positive and with negative emotional
valuation of the antecedent situation. We provide semantic analyses for all
three uses (and a head nod) within an HPSG version which is implemented
in Type Theory with Records and the dialogue framewok KoS. In particular,
we extend on previous work by grounding “exophoric negation” in positive
or negative appraisal. Finally, we briefly speculate about differences between
verbal ‘No’ and head shaking due to (the lack of) simultaneity.