Matic Pavlič University of Ljubljana mato.pavlic@gmail.com Sašo Živanović University of Ljubljana saso.zivanovic@guest.arnes.si The licenser under cover Genitive of negation in Slovenian In some languages, including Slovenian, syntactic environments can be found in which noun phrases in negative sentences do not take the nominative or accusative, as one would expect from the parallel positive sentences [1a, 1b]. Transitive 1(a) Tajkuni so podkupili sodnike/*sodnikov (b ) Tajkuni/*Tajkunov so v zaporu BE-copular TYCOONS BE BRIBE JUDGES TYCOONS BE IN JAIL nom.pl.m 3pl.pres. past.ptcp.m.pl acc.pl.m /*gen.pl.m nom.pl.m /*gen.pl.m 3pl.pres dat.sg.n “Tycoons bribed the judges” “There are tycoons in jail.” Instead, they are inflected for genitive [1b, 2b], usually called the genitive of negation (henceforth GenNeg). Transitive 2(a) Tajkuni niso podkupili sodnikov/*sodnike (b) Tajkunov/*tajkuni ni v zaporu BE-copular TYCOONS NOT+BE BRIBE JUDGES TYCOONS NOT+[BE] IN JAIL nom.pl.m 3pl.pres past.ptcp.m.pl gen.pl.m /*acc.pl.m gen.pl.m / *nom.pl.m [3sg.pres] dat.sg.n “Tycoons didn't bribe the judges” “There are no tycoons in jail.” The phenomenon is widespread among Slavic languages, well described (Babby 1980, Pesetsky 1982, Brown 1999, Pereltsvaig 1999, Harves 2002, among others) – yet not satisfactory explained. Because GenNeg can only be found in negated sentences, most of the theories assume, that GenNeg is assigned by the NegP head. But on the basis of pleonastic negation (see below) Brown&Franks (1995) provide counter-evidence to that claim. Now, if it is not NegP who assigns GenNeg, it remains unexplained why GenNeg is found only in negated sentences and why the relevant NPs change their case precisely to genitive. 4 cross-linguistic facts that should be explained: (i) GenNeg appears only within the scope of sentence negation ( Pesetsky 1982) (ii) GenNeg can target different sets of syntactic environments, yet they all have to originate from the position of the underlying direct objects (Bailyn 1997) (iii) The switch from nominative or accusative to genitive is accompanied by „some difference in syntactic structure and/or in semantics or pragmatics” (Partee&Borschev 2002a: 181) (iv) The distribution of the GenNeg is strikingly similar to the distribution of negative quantifiers (Pereltsvaig 1997) 3 nominative genitive sg. a. *Tajkuni ni v kehi c. Tajkunov ni v kehi TYCOONS NOT+[BE] IN JAIL TYCOONS NOT+[BE] IN JAIL nom.pl.m [3sg.pres] dat.sg.n gen.pl.m [3sg.pres] dat.sg.n pl. b. Tajkuni niso v kehi d. *Tajkunov niso v kehi TYCOONS NOT+BE IN JAIL TYCOONS NOT+BE IN JAIL nom.pl.m 3pl.pres dat.sg.n gen.pl.m 3pl.pres dat.sg.n “There are no tycoons in jail.” “There are no tycoons in jail.” 4a Janezek ni pojedel nič juhe. JANEZEK NOT+[BE] EAT NOTHING SOUP. nom.sg.m 3sg.pres ptcp.sg.m NPI gen.sg.f “Johnny ate no soup” TRANSITIVE b) Nič jajc ni v kleti NOTHING EGGS NOT+[BE] IN BASEMENT NPI gen.pl.n 3sg.pres dat.sg.m “There are no eggs in the basement.” EXISTENTIAL COPULAR CLAUSE c) To zimo na gori ni zapadlo nič snega THIS WINTER ON PEAK NOT+[BE] FALL NOTHING SNOW acc.sg acc.sg.f dat.sg.f 3sg.pres ptcp.sg.n NPI gen.sg.m “This winter there was no snow on (this) peak.” UNACCUSATIVE 4facts attested in Slovenian GenNeg (i) is licensed only in negated sentences [see 2 above] (ii) targets exclusively the direct object [1a:2a] and the subject of copular existential clause [1b:2b], which are both deep structure objects (iii) cancels the subject-verb agreement on the subject and triggers the default morphosyntactic form of the verb [3b:3c] (iv) has almost the same distribution as negative quantifier nič – compare [1b, 2b] and [4a, 4b, 4c] Certain quantifiers are licensed only under sentential negation (i) and have the same effect on the verb as Slovenian GenNeg (iii). These quantifiers also require their complement to be genitive. It thus seems reasonable to assume that GenNeg is licensed by a phonologically null quantifier. However, as noted in Borschev&Partee (2002b: 13), “the problem becomes one of explaining the distribution of that null quantifier”. This is the main contribution of our paper: We observe that the distribution of GenNeg (ii/iv above) is very similar to the distribution of the n-numeral (a numeral which is a negative word in the sense of Zeijlstra 2004) nič `nothing´. Thus we put forth the hypothesis that GenNeg is licensed by the covert version of this word, which we write as NIČ . ANSWERS ENTAILED BY OUR PROPOSAL: Answer N 0 1: Genitive case is associated with the GenNeg because the n-numeral NIČ is the kind of numeral that assigns genitive case. Answer N 0 2: We only find the GenNeg in negative sentences because the constituent that assigns the genitive of negation, namely numeral NIČ, is an n-word and so requires sentential negation. -5 Dokler otrok ne posluša nikogar, ga nih e č ne more prepri ati č As long as child not listen nobody he nobody not can persuade nom.sg.m 3sg.pres NPI,acc.sg.m acc.sg.m NPI,nom.sg.m 3sg.pres Inf. “As long as child doesn't listen to anybody, no one can persuade him” PLEON. NEG. PROBLEMS ENTAILED BY OUR PROPOSAL: Problem N 0 1: Pleonastic negation is a context where negation is attested in the syntax without yielding a negative interpretation in the semantics – thus it is often said (Brown 1999) to licence GenNeg, but not n-words. Slovenian data refute this claim (see 5) Problem N 0 2: Subjects of unaccusatives can contain n-numeral nič, but do not undergo GenNeg in Slovenian – which remains an open problem. In Russian, however, subjects of unaccusatives do undergo GenNeg, so we conclude that, cross- linguistically, GenNeg and nič have the same distribution. Selected literature John F. BAILYN, 1997: Genitive of negation is obligatory. Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Cornell Meeting 1995. Ur: W. Browne, E. Dornsich, N. Kondrashova in D. Zec. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications. 84-114. Sue BROWN, 1999: The syntax of negation in Russian. Standford: CSLI. Stephanie HARVES , 2002: Genitive of negation and the syntax of scope. Proceedings of 2002 ConSOLE IX. Ur: M. van Koppen, E. Thrift, E. J. van der Torre in M. Zimmerman. Barbara H. P ARTEE, Vladimir BORSCHEV (2002a). Genitive of negation and scope of negation in Russian existential sentences. In Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics #10: The Second Ann Arbor Meeting , J. Toman (ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications, 181-200. Asya P ERELTSVAIG, 1999: The Genitive of Negation and Aspect in Russian. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics. Ur: Y. Rose, J. Steele. 14/1. 111–140. Hedde ZEIJLSTRA, 2004: Sentential Negation & Negative Concord. University of Amsterdam: PhD