Positive polarity items in Hungarian: Vagy ‘or’ and company
Part 1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18349/MagyarNyelv.2024.4.428Keywords:
disjunction, positive polarity, negation, logical scope, HungarianAbstract
The focus of this study is the empirical investigation of the polarity sensitivity of vagy, the Hungarian function word expressing disjunction. The results of previous experimental literature regarding the presumed positive polarity sensitivity of disjunction-encoding elements in Hungarian and several other languages paint a somewhat contradictory picture. In our acceptability experiment we show that while two ‘classical’ positive polarity elements of the same subclass, namely indefinite noun phrases introduced by the singular indefinite article egy and indefinite vala-pronouns, are indeed more or less unacceptable in the logical scope of clause-mate sentential negation, the disjunction marker is merely of mildly reduced acceptability in the same setting. This result suggests that there is substantial heterogeneity in positive polarity sensitivity, which may correspond to inherent differences in the reasons for the polarity sensitivity of the individual elements.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Balázs Surányi, Máté Gulás
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