Abstract
This paper focuses on the ungrammaticality of NPIs in the focus associated with only. I first show that a naïve combination of the Strawson Downward Entailing (SDE) condition of NPI licensing (von Fintel 1999) and a Horn-style semantics of only (Horn 1969; a.o.) fails to predict that NPIs are ungrammatical in the focus associatedonly. To solve this problem, I suggest an analysis that appeals to a semantics of only implemented with the notion of innocent exclusion (Fox 2007) and a revision of the SDE condition that refers to assignment functions. The proposed analysis suggests that NPI licensing should be independent of the information provided by the discourse context.
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Hsieh, IT.C. (2012). On the Non-licensing of NPIs in the Only-Focus. In: Aloni, M., Kimmelman, V., Roelofsen, F., Sassoon, G.W., Schulz, K., Westera, M. (eds) Logic, Language and Meaning. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7218. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31482-7_37
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31482-7_37
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