Conspicuous negation: How negation affects the development of grammatical constructions.

What is it about?

This study looks at a number of grammatical constructions which are available only in negative form. One example is the Polish locative existential use of the verb mieć ('to have') in sentences equivalent to "There isn't / aren't x in [location]", that is, only with the verb being negated, because otherwise the construction uses the verb być ('to be'). It is argued that negation plays a significant role in the process of the evolution of the construction by making it more conspicuous and thus consolidating its function. It is speculated that negation has this effect not only on this construction, but other forms which grammaticalize through the "surprisal effect" (Jaeger & Snider 2007) provided by negation.

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Why is it important?

The development of grammatical constructions out of semantically contentful lexical items (accompanied by semantic bleaching) is a phenomenon occurring in the wider context of semantic processing, where speakers employ their semantic intuitions to interpret the meanings of forms in novel uses, a skill which comes to proficient speakers so effortlessly that it appears almost banal. Yet this appearance of banal simplicity masks a deep enigma: despite recent significant discoveries, the exact mechanisms behind the use of semantic intuitions are far from well-understood, because of "a blind-spot in our minds when we try to explain the mental basis of individual words" (Lloyd 2017). Studying language change is one promising attempt to better understand the nature of semantic competence.