Interclausal NEG Raising and the Scope of Negation (Collins and Postal 2017)

In this paper, we show that the syntactic analysis of one major type of NEG raising in Collins & Postal (2014) is inconsistent with the facts of negation scope revealed by Klima (1964) type tests for sentential negation. Two of the four original Klima tests plus three additional ones are discussed. We propose a novel alternative syntactic analysis, one also involving NEG raising, that is consistent with the relevant tests, as well as with all the principles of NEG raising and NEG deletion proposed in Collins & Postal (2014). We suggest, further, that the newer analysis permits a more uniform overall conception of the various cases of NEG Raising.

Interclausal NEG Raising and the Scope of Negation

Collins, Chris and Paul Postal. 2017. Interclausal NEG Raising and the Scope of Negation. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2(1), 29.

Disentangling Two Distinct Notions of NEG Raising (Collins and Postal 2018)

In this paper we consider two analyses of NEG raising phenomena: a syntactic approach based on raising NEG, as recently advocated in Collins & Postal 2014, and a semantic/pragmatic approach based on the Excluded Middle Assumption; see Bartsch 1973. We show that neither approach alone is sufficient to account for all the relevant phenomena. Although the syntactic approach is needed to explain the distribution of strict NPIs and Horn clauses, the semantic/pragmatic approach is needed to explain certain inferences where syntactic NEG raising is blocked.

Disentangling Two Distinct Notions of NEG Raising

Collins, Chris and Paul Postal. 2018. Disentangling Two Distinct Notions of NEG Raising. Semantics and Pragmatics 11, 1-21.

Dispelling the Cloud of Unknowing (Collins and Postal 2018)

The argument in CP(2014) hinged on a claimed restriction on Horn clauses due originally to Horn (1975: 283; 1978: 169). The claim was that Horn clauses are limited to the complements of verbs independently permitting Classical NR, that is, complements of CNRPs. However, since the appearance of CP(2014), Horn (2014) has attested a new data class illustrating Horn clauses, but ones occurring in the complements of non-CNRP predicates. These include in particular a nonfactive use of the verb know, which Horn calls know-NF, a terminology we adopt. An example of the type at issue is given in (4):