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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2018: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 32, Utrecht
Edited by Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen and Luisa Meroni
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 357] 2021
► pp. 287–302

Chapter 15
Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony

| Institut Jean Nicod, DEC, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University
This paper investigates the distribution of expletive negation in the complement clause of craindre (“fear”) in French. Building on Anand & Hacquard’s (2013) proposal that fear verbs are hybrid attitude verbs, featuring both a doxastic and a (dis)preferential component, this paper argues that these two components are conveyed by different layers of meaning (in line with Giannakidou & Mari (2020)). More precisely, I argue that, in actual discourse context, craindre may receive two main interpretations: a volitive (dispreference-related) or a psychological (belief-related) interpretation, depending on whether the verb asserts or presupposes dispreference. Based on a diachronic corpus study of the distribution of expletive negation, I show that expletive negation, in the earliest stages of French, places semantic restrictions on the main verb, which are met when the interpretation of craindre is volitive.
Keywords: expletive negation, modality, mood, diachronic semantics, French
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Psychological and volitive readings of craindre
    • 2.1Inquisitive craindre que
      • Practical goal
      • Presupposition projection under negation
      • Mood selection behavior
    • 2.2Admonitive craindre que … ne
      • Practical goal
      • Presupposition projection
      • Mood selection behavior
    • 2.3Reprehensive craindre que … ne
      • Practical goal
      • Compatibility with the speaker’s knowledge that p
  • 3.Corpus
  • 4.Diachronic analysis
    • 4.1The original semantics of ne: A speech-act negation
    • 4.2The gradual loss of ne’s speech-act potential
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 17 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.357.15tah
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