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Reconsidering the syntax of non-canonical negative inversion1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2010

JESSICA WHITE-SUSTAITA
JESSICA WHITE-SUSTAITA*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Austin, Calhoun 501, B5100, Austin, Texas 78712, USAjessicawhite@mail.utexas.edu
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Abstract

Two main hypotheses have been proposed to account for the word order of negative inversion (NI) in varieties of non-canonical English (e.g. Don't nobody else care). An auxiliary inversion analysis argues that the word order is derived via movement of the auxiliary to the left periphery, whereas an existential analysis argues that the word order is an artifact of deletion of the expletive subject, paralleling there-insertion existential constructions. After reviewing these hypotheses, I provide empirical evidence that neither of these theories adequately explains the peculiarities of NI. I advance a third hypothesis, namely that NI is the result of negative movement to the specifier of NegP, and that this movement is pragmatically motivated by an existential meaning in NI constructions. Syntactically, NI is made possible through the Neg-Criterion (Haegeman & Zanuttini 1991, 1996). This analysis explains problems encountered by prior analyses, and offers a unified analysis for variation in NI across dialects. Finally, I explain cross-dialectal differences in NI by considering the relationship between subject requirements and agreement.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , November 2010 , pp. 429 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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