Chapter 8

Negative interrogatives in English

1. Introduction

This chapter consists of an investigation of an optional operation in English. The
experimental part of this chapter is based on two studies with English- and with
Italian-speaking children, reported in Guasti et al. (1995) and Guasti (1996),
respectively. The optional nature of this operation will be questioned and the more
economical option will be identified. In the second part of the chapter, the
experimental studies will be reviewed and support for the current proposal will be
drawn from the discussion.

1.1 Variation in the target grammar

English negative interrogatives allow for variation with respect to the position of the
negation element. This is demonstrated in (1) and (2) below.

(1) a. What do you not like to eat?
b. What dont you like to eat?

(2) a. Did John not eat?
b. Didnt John eat ?

The element under investigation here is the negation element. It can appear in a
post subject position (presumably NegP) in its full form not, or in a pre-subject
position (presumably C) in its clitic contracted-- form nt. The structures in (1), as
well as in (2), are both grammatical and appear to be identical in meaning; therefore
they appear to answer our requirements of optionality. The structures in (1b) and
154 Summary and conclusions
(2b) are the result of a movement of the negation element from NegP to C. Under
the minimalist assumption that every movement is either motivated or blocked,
these alternatives constitute a problem. The usual explanation for the existence of
this optionality is that the negation in its clitic form adjoins the auxiliary in its I-
to-C movement as a freerider and is thus costless and spared by economy. However,
under this analysis we would expect to find a similar alternation for the two negation
forms (the full and the contracted) in all cases that exhibit subject-auxiliary
inversion. This does not seem to be the case, however. Consider the following
sentences.

(3) a. Had I not gotten there in time, he would be already dead
b. * Hadnt I gotten there in time, he would be already dead

(4) a. Never have I not attended a meeting
b. * Never havent I attended a meeting

Under the analysis that the movement of Neg to C is a result of a freeridewith the
auxiliary, we would have expected (3b) and (4b) to be grammatical, as the auxiliary
had also undergoes a subject auxiliary inversion here to create the subjunctive form
(in 3b) or to satisfy the requirements of a negative item in Spec CP (in 4b). The fact
that in these cases this movement is blocked prevents us from assuming a free-rider
analysis for (1b) and (2b) and thus calls for a motivation for this clitic-movement.
McClowsky (1997) observes that movement of a negation element to C is obligatory
in the presence of a negative polarity item in subject position. This is demonstrated
in (5), below.

(5) a. * Which of the kids does anyone not like?
b. Which of the kids doesnt anyone like ?

In (5a), the negative element remains in I and thus fails to establish a C-command
relation with the negative polarity item anyone, while in (5b) the moved negation C-
commands the polarity item and thus the sentence converges. This example again
demonstrates that the free distribution exhibited in (1) and (2) does not hold in all
contexts. The movement of the negative element in (5b) can thus be described as
scope related. Scope of the negation seems to also play a role in the following
Summary and Conclusions 155
examples, in which this Neg-movement to C creates a difference of interpretation,
rather than of grammaticality:

(6) a. Did anybody not bring a present?
b. Didnt anybody bring a present?
(7) a. Is John not really a spy ?
b. Isnt John really a spy ?

While the examples in (3)-(5) demonstrated a difference in grammaticality created by
the Neg-movement to C, the examples in (6)-(7) demonstrate a difference in
meaning between the base and the derived forms. In (6), the negative polarity item
anybodyis licensed through the yes/ no-question; thus both variants are grammatical.
However, the scope-effect of the position of the negation still plays a role leading to
different readings for the two variants. In (6a) the question presupposes that most
people have brought a present, while the question in (6b) presupposes the opposite,
that most people did not bring a present. In (7) there is again a difference of
presupposition, where in (7a) the questions assumes that John pretends to be a spy
and questions him and in (7b) assumes that John pretends not to be a spy. In both
(6) and (7) a no answer has different truth conditions for each variant.
Further research is undoubtedly required in order to account for the differences
presented in (3)-(7), and to establish the exact nature of the feature(s) that are
responsible for this Neg-movement to C. For our purposes, it is sufficient to note
that the existence of examples demonstrating differences of both grammaticality and
interpretation casts a serious doubt on the view of Neg-movement to C in negative
interrogatives in English as a case of a freerider or as manifestation of optionality.

Another difference between the two variants in (1) is the register. In the spoken
language, the contracted form of negation (1b) predominates, but in the formal
written language the full negation in base-position predominates. As in the case of
triggered inversion in Hebrew, distinguishing these variants in register seems to be
accurate but not exhaustive; the examples in (3)-(7) demonstrate that factors other
than register play a role. An important difference between the current case and the
triggered inversion case, is that in triggered inversion the formal variant was the less
economical one (the one that did not include inversion) while in the current case the
formal variant (1a) is the more economical one. This difference creates an excellent
156 Summary and conclusions
testing environment for the proposal made in this dissertation, since the current
proposal predicts that children will show a preference for the formal, less-frequent
variant (1a, above), i.e., the more economical one. This prediction opposes the
common assumption that children always prefer forms that are more frequent and
colloquial.
The conclusion of this section is that movement of Neg to C in English joins the
structures investigated in the previous chapters in reflecting an apparently optional
operation that in fact depends on a subtle difference between the two variants. The
current proposal, based on the assumption that, in the early stages, children miss
this subtle difference (and the dialectal distinction as well), predicts that children will
show a preference for the structure in which the Neg-element remains in a lower
position, because it is the more economical alternative.

2. Review of experimental investigation

Guasti, Wexler and Thornton (1995) investigated the production of negative
interrogatives in ten English speaking children, aged between 3;8 and 4;7, with a task
of elicited production. The authors used a shy puppet, and encouraged the
children to ask the puppet negative questions; as a control, they encouraged negative
declaratives and positive questions as well. The negative questions were divided
into three categories: object and adjunct questions that require subject-auxiliary
inversion, and subject questions that require no inversion. The stimuli presented to
the children to elicit a negative question included a contracted form of negation in a
declarative structure, shown in (8), below.

(8) Stimulus to elicit a negative question (from Guasti etal., 1995):
Experimenter: I heard the snail doesnt like to eat some things,
Ask him what.
Target: What dont you like to eat?

The results reported in Guasti etal.(1995) are surprising. While children performed
in a close to adult fashion in respect to positive questions and negative declaratives,
they did not do so when posing negative questions. More specifically, their
performance was poor when dealing with object- and adjunct- negative questions,
yet they produced subject negative questions that were adult-like in form. The non-
adult-like structures produced by the children for the negative questions were of
Summary and Conclusions 157
four types. These appear below in order of the frequency with which they were
produced.

(9) Aux-doubling structure
What do you dont like to eat? (40%)

(10) No subject-aux inversion (no SAI)
What you dont like to eat? (23%)

(11) Not-structure
What do you not like to eat? (10%)

(12) Neg+Aux doubling
What dont you dont like to eat (8%)

Adult-like responses were produced in 19% of the questions.
The authors analyzed the results through the criterial approach (Rizzi 1991,
Haegeman and Zanutini 1991). This view considers interrogatives to be controlled
by the requirements of the Wh-criterion and negation to be controlled by the
requirements of the Neg-criterion. From their results, the authors concluded that
children go through an intermediate stage characterized by a mastery of the Wh-
criterion (as shown by the production of positive questions) yet at the same time
mistakenly think that the Neg-criterion must be satisfied within the IP. The authors
show that such a restricted Neg-criterion is possible in UG; in fact, such a
restriction is manifested in the Paduan language. This assumption, of a conflict
between the requirements of the Wh-criterion and those of the (restricted) Neg-
criterion, yields the 4 response types shown in (9)-(12); all of them reflect a failure to
raise the negation from I to C. Their analysis leads to the following proposal:

We suggest that the Neg-criterion is subject to parametric variation. Broadly
speaking in some languages such as Paduan and child English it must be satisfied in
the IP; in others it may be satisfied in the CP, as in adult English and standard Italian.
Children learning English initially adopt the most restrictive hypothesis. That is, they
assume that the Neg-criterion must be satisfied in the IP, hence the prolonged period
of non-adult questions observed in their negative questions. Guasti et al. (1995),
p.237.
158 Summary and conclusions
Although the authors do not refer to the notion of economy in their analysis, we
could classify their proposal as belonging to the local approach presented in the
first part of this dissertation. That is, they refer to an initial setting of the relevant
parameter, which is more restricted than the target setting. This proposal is local in
the sense that childrens intermediate stage is assumed to be independent of other
alternatives children might think they have for the target structure.
I wish to propose a different explanation for Guasti et al.s results. Consistent with
the main proposal of this dissertation, presented in chapter 3, this is an economy-
based solution, global in nature, which assumes that children do in fact compare
the target structure to another alternative they think exists in the target grammar.
In the first part of this chapter we saw that the freerider concept does not explain
Neg-movement from I to C, despite this movements dependency on the auxiliarys
I to C movement. We also saw that in several contexts the Neg-movement is
forbidden even though SAI has occurred and that in other contexts, such
movement leads to a semantic difference. We concluded that the motivation of the
negations movement is independent of the motivation of the auxiliarys movement.
Although the precise nature of this motivation, as well as the feature(s) responsible
for it, are not yet clear, let us assume here a tentative neg-feature, located in C, that
requires (in English) overt movement of negation to C. This assumption is
essentially identical to the assumption of a parameterized neg-criterion made in
Guasti et al. although Guasti et al. it is formulated in the terms of the criterial rather
than the minimalist approach.
The difference between the current proposal and Guasti et al.s, is the view of the
relevance of the input to the acquisition of the negative interrogative structure.
Based on the analysis in the first part of this chapter, it is concluded that children
are exposed to two types of negative questions; one type has negation in C, the
other has negation in I, as described in (1) above. Children fail to distinguish these
two forms in their interpretation, considering them to stem from the same
numeration and to be identical in meaning, and therefore see them as contradictory
evidence for the relevant parameter. Based on the proposal of the current
dissertation, children reject the possibility that both alternatives are allowed and
show a preference for the one in which negation remains in a lower position,
because it is more economical.
The findings of the study presented in Guasti et al. (1995) are explained, thus,
through the claim that children consider the Neg-in-I (1a) option to be identical to
Summary and Conclusions 159
what the authors call the target-structure with the Neg in C (1b); therefore, children
opt for the former because it is more economical. However, the children produced
structures of the (1b) type in only 10% of their responses, as shown in (10) above.
Although this percentage is relatively high and cannot be dismissed (the authors
specifically note that children do not use this not-structure in situations where adults
would generally prefer the Neg-in-C variant), why children produce the other 3
types of non-adult structures, especially the predominant aux-doublingstructure ((9)
above), must be explained.
The explanation seems to be related to the childrens preference for the contracted
form of negation
41
. Recall that the stimuli in Guasti et al.s experiment included a
contracted form of negation, by far the predominant form in childrens input. For
this reason children, although they show a preference for the negation in I, were
forced to produce an extra auxiliary to support the contracted negation, because the
true auxiliary moved to C to check its features. This resulted in the aux-doubling
response
42
. In principle this is similar to the explanation of the conflicting
requirements of the Wh and Neg criteria proposed by Guasti et al.

3. Conclusion

The findings of Guasti et al.s (1995) can be explained by the assumptions made in
the current study, and can be understood to support the main proposal of this
dissertation. The difference between the proposal made here and Guasti et al.s
involves the distinction between global and local. Guasti et al.s proposal claims
that there is no alternative to the Neg-in-C structure in the childrens input --hence
it is local--, while the current proposal connects childrens disfavoring of this
structure to the fact that a more economical alternative, with Neg in I, appears in
their input (and is thus global). An empirical prediction that distinguishes the two
proposals is formulated in a language in which no alternatives to Neg-in-C exist
(that is, a language with obligatory Neg in C in negative interrogatives). In such a
41
This is not to say that the two negation forms represent different lexical entries. Our assumptions require
us to assume that the choice of realizing negation as not or as nt is made later in the derivation (but prior to
the I-C movement of the neg-element).
42
Questions with the auxiliary bewere omitted from the analysis in Guasti et al. (1995) although some of the
questions produced by the children included this auxiliary. In a footnote the authors mention that in this type
of questions children have used the not-structuremuch more often and refrained from the aux-doubling
structure. This fact supports the analysis proposed in the current chapter as it reveals the relation of childrens
preferences to the input they receive. (In the bestructures in the input the not form is more frequent then the
nt, as the auxiliary is contracted with the subject).
160 Summary and conclusions
language, Guasti et al.s proposal predicts an intermediate stage characterized by a
failure to raise negation similar to the one revealed in childrens English, but the
current proposal predicts no such failure, since no alternatives exist.
Guasti (1996) presents an experimental investigation of negative questions in Italian,
similar to the one performed in Guasti et al. (1995). In Italian, there is an obligatory
movement of Neg to C in negative questions. Guasti et al. (1995) predict that
Italian-speaking children will fail to perform this operation, and thus expose the
intermediate stage of restricted Neg-criterion. However, the author has found no
errors in the negative questions of Italian- speaking children. This finding supports
the current proposal, in which a failure with movement operations is related to the
existence of an apparently more economical alternative in the input. As such
alternatives do not exist in Italian, but do exist in English, the current proposal
accounts for the early negative questions of both English and Italian speaking
children.

The combination of the findings in Guasti et al. (1995) and Guasti (1996) has been
shown to support the general hypothesis in this dissertation. Furthermore, if we
compare the phenomena of the current chapter to triggered inversion in Hebrew,
two additional observations are relevant. First of all, the local and the global
approach to the non-adult like stages in childrens grammars are distinguishable and
the global approach is supported. The second point is that in both chapters the
optionality involved was claimed to be related to register, but with a major
difference. In triggered inversion the more economical option was also the
colloquial one, but in negative questions in English, the more economical option is
the formal one. The fact that in both cases economy, and not register, correctly
predicted childrens preferences supports the current proposal and shield it from
possible objections which are based on notions of canonical form and frequency as
predictors of childrens preferences.







Summary and Conclusions
The purpose of this dissertation was to answer the following empirical question:

(1) How do children deal with syntactic input that seems to be optional?

In order to answer this question the minimalist framework was adopted as a
theoretical basis. It was shown that within the Minimalist Program, optionality of
word-order cannot be accounted for. The fundamental problem of optional word-
order is its clash with a central principle of the MP, the principle of economy.
In the first part of this dissertation we have reviewed the relations between
optionality and economy from a theoretical perspective. Solutions proposed in the
literature for resolving the optionality-economy tension were discussed, and a
proposal was made according to which, true optionality (with respect to word-order)
does not exist in natural languages. It was claimed that optionality is undesired from
several perspectives, independently of its clash with economy, and that economy is
valuable to the theory, independently of its clash with optionality. Therefore, the
best way from a theoretical point of view is to preserve the principles of economy in
their full and to assume that structures that seem to be optional (i.e., identical in
meaning) are in fact distinct from each other.
Before turning to empirical evidence to support the no-true-optionality assumption,
the notions of economy and optionality were discussed from the point of view of
language acquisition. It was claimed that also in acquisition, economy can be seen as
an extremely valuable tool while optionality is problematic and hazardous to the
process of acquiring a language. The conclusion was that the language-acquiring
child rejects the possibility of optional movement and opts for a "one form - one
meaning" hypothesis and for unique relations between word-order and
interpretation with respect to the target grammar. Furthermore, and maybe most
importantly, it was claimed that when the child encounters in her input structures
that appear to be the result of an optional operation, she will make use of economy
principles as a tool for selecting between the two alternatives, opting for the more
economical one.
This last claim is in fact the answer proposed for the question in (1) above.
162 Summary and Conclusions
The general proposal of this dissertation, formulated in chapter 3, consisted
therefore of two related claims. The first is that true optionality does not exist in
natural language and that for each case of apparent optionality, it should be possible
to identify a difference between the two variants. The second claim was that when
such apparent optionality appears in the input to children, they reject the possibility
of accommodating both variants in their grammar and choose to prefer the more
economical order. The connecting idea behind these two claims is that the principles
of economy have a dual function in the language component: it serves the
computational process in selecting between competitive derivations and it serves the
acquisition process in selecting among alternative input-strings.
In part II of the dissertation these two claims were put into empirical examination.
Five constructions in four different languages were presented. These constructions
were shown to fall under the definition of "appear to be optional", as for each of
them several alternatives exist which seem at first sight to be indistinguishable with
respect to their interpretation. Each of the chapters in part II was dedicated to one
such "optional" construction, and in each the two claims above were examined.
Namely, in the first part of each chapter the alternative word-orders were examined
from a theoretical perspective, aiming to show that they in fact point to distinct
interpretation, presumably as a result of distinct features the relevant elements carry.
Further the underlying structure was established and the more economical
alternative was identified. In the second part of each chapter, these alternatives were
investigated with respect to child language. It was shown that indeed children show
a preference toward the more economical word-order. The preference of the
children were established on the basis of a comparison of children's and adults'
production of each of the alternatives, and based on a repetition task through which
children were shown to convert the costly word-order into the more economical
one, but not vice versa.
Apart from supporting the proposal made in part I, the experimental results in each
chapter made an additional contribution to the topic under investigation, by
illuminating various aspects of the manner children make use of economy. For
example: chapter 4 in which embedded participle-construction in Dutch were
investigated, and chapter 6 in which auxiliary+infinitivestructures were examined,
have shown that the phenomenon of omission of elements is related to economy
considerations. The experimental data in these chapters have shown that omission
of auxiliaries and main verbs by children is more probable to occur in structures that
Summary and Conclusions 163
require overt movement of these elements. The data in chapter 6, 7 and 8 have
indicated that children disfavor a structure only if a more economical alternative is
present in their input. That is, structures that involve movement but are obligatory
in the target grammar were shown to be acquired with ease. Chapters 5 has shown
that the economy considerations are interacting with the proportion of each
alternative in the input, while chapter 5, 6 and 8 have shown that such influence of
the input, in terms of frequency, colloquiality and 'canonisity' are limited and
different for different structures. The influence of economy, in comparison, was
shown to be consistent and significant in all the structures investigated.
The proposal made in this dissertation with respect to acquisition is clearly
falsifiable and easy to test. Once alternative derivations are identified in a language,
children acquiring this language are predicted to go through a stage in which their
production of the more economical alternative exceeds its proportion in the input.
In any case children are predicted to never produce this alternative in a proportion
lower than its proportion in the input. Once such case is observed, the current
proposal must be reevaluated.