Is there any negative polarity in romanian?

Abstract

I discuss the distribution and interpretation of the Romanian determiner vreun and analyze it as a special polarity item. I put forth the generalizations that capture its peculiar distribution: on the one hand, vreun has the behavior of a typical negative polarity item, and on the other hand, it occurs in positive (epistemic modal) contexts. Adopting the framework in Chierchia (2006), I argue it can be integrated in a system of polarity-sensitive items under the label NPI/existential FC. The alternatives this lexical item triggers give rise to a domain widening implicature in negative polarity contexts and to an anti-exhaustiveness implicature in existential modal ones.

Keywords

• negative polarity
• existential free-choice
• implicature calculation
• domain widening