Negation in Czech polar questions

Abstract

The meaning of negation in polar questions has been investigated primarily based on data coming from English. This paper focuses on the syntax-semantics interface of negation and selected particles in Czech polar questions. We explore the interpretation of negation depending on its syntactic position as well as its relation to question bias. Our analysis of the so-called outer negation relies on Repp’s 2013 operator FALSUM. We report on data from a naturalness judgment task where it is shown that (i) FALSUM is preferred in interrogative polar questions, (ii) declarative word order is preferred in evidentially biased contexts, (iii) FALSUM is compatible with any type of evidential bias (positive, negative, neutral), (iv) the particle náhodou is licensed by FALSUM, and (v) the particle copak is sensitive to contextual evidence.