The Acquired Form of English Negation

Abstract

Earlier work on the acquisition of negation in English posits two stages of development, a first stage in which functional categories are not available so that negative forms such as can’t and don’t are analyzed as lexical items, and a second stage in which this initial analysis is completely abandoned in favour of a new analysis incorporating the now available functional categories T and Neg. New lexical forms like can are created as instances of T, and not instantiates Neg. The complete abandonment of the Stage I analysis is forced by the bottom–up/raising orientation of the assumed theoretical framework, which derives forms like can’t by raising Neg to T. I propose an analysis of the acquisition of English negation utilizing top–down derivation. On this view, the Stage I analysis is a segue to the later Stage II analysis in which Neg is introduced into derivation as an adjunct to T ([T [Neg]]). Neg may separate from T giving the appearance of an independent head. Aspects of Neg problematic for a bottom–up approach (e.g. failure to observe the Head Movement Constraint) are resolved by the top–down approach.

Keywords

• negation; stages of acquisition; top-down syntax; functional categories; maturation; continuity