Chapter 1
Expletive negation is not expletive
Evidence from aspect in Spanish
Paola Cépeda | Stony Brook University / Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Spanish punctual hasta-clauses (‘until’) have been described as identical in meaning when containing or not an expletive negation, that is, a negative marker that apparently does not contribute to the sentence meaning. I show that the negation in the hasta-clause does in fact play a role in the meaning calculation. My proposal is that the semantic contribution of the so-called “expletive” negation is to negate that the eventuality in the main clause holds during the interval denoted in the hasta-clause; as a result, such eventuality is expected to hold after the eventuality in the hasta-clause is finished. The novelty of my analysis is the comparison of the aspect (specifically, the durativity component) of the eventualities expressed in the hasta-clause.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The semantics of hasta-clauses
- 2.1The semantic components of punctual hasta
- 2.2Interpreting hasta-clauses
- 3.The negation in hasta-clauses
- 3.1The distribution of EN in hasta-clauses
- 3.2The semantic contribution of EN
- 4.Conclusions
-
Acknowledgements
-
Note
-
References
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