Pragmatics IV 11.11.

2005
Regine Eckardt

How to say no
Metalinguistic Negation
Laurence Horn. 1985. Metalinguistic Negation and Pragmatic Ambiguity.
Language 61.1, 121-174.
(1)
(2)

Frank has three children. In fact, he has four.

Frank doesnt have three children. He has four.

So: Does Frank have three children or not?

Presupposition:
If a sentence S requires the truth of some proposition p (which is not a
tautology) in order to be classed true or false, then p is called a
presupposition of S.
(3)
(4)
(5)

Did your grandmother stop smoking pot?

Yes / no ?
Do you regret having quit Pragmatics I?
Yes / no?
The king of France isnt bald. = S
(a) there is a king of France who is bald. S false
(b) there is a king of France who is not bald. S true
(c) there is no king of France. S is ??

B. Russell (1905): ? = true, in some sense. (5) involves a scope ambiguity:

(6)

The king of France is bald.

= There is one, and only one king of France and he is bald.
x ( KOF(x) y( KOF(y) y=x) BALD(x) )

Two places where negation can hook in:

(6.a) There is one, and only one king of France, and NOT: he is bald.
(6.b) NOT: There is one, and only one king of France and he is bald.

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Another example:
(3.a) Your grandmother smoked pot and NOT: She stopped it.
(3.b) NOT: Your grandmother smoked pot and she stopped it.
Questions:
Why are the (a) readings so much more salient than the (b) readings?
Why are we so uneasy about questions like "Is the king of France bald?"
(asked in 2005)
Horn proposes to distinguish between logical negation as part of the literal
sentence meaning, and "metalinguistic negation" which amounts to the denial of,
refusal to make an assertion. (i.e. it is a comment about the utterance rather than
part of an utterance).
Earlier treatments:
(a) Russell: One negation as part of the sentence, occurs in two different scopes.
(b) Three-valued logic plus two negations (classic and extra):
Sentences can be true, false or undefined.
The classical negation of an undefined sentence yields an undefined
sentence (e.g. "the king of France is bald")
The extra negation of an undefined sentence yields a true sentence.
(c) Solutions in terms of implicatures; an example:
(7)
(8)

John managed to solve the problem

John solved the problem

As (7) is more complex, it violates the maxim of manner: be brief. Hence it

implicates something, namely that the problem was difficult to solve for John.
(Karttunen + Peters, 1979)
Problem: If (7) and (8) indeed were synonymous (like "start the car" and "cause
the car to start" and similar examples), the violation of (M) would follow.
However, the resulting implicature is not calculable. It could all the same be
"The problem was easy to solve", or "John solved the problem in a nonstandard
way" or other odd side messages.

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Horn's observations:
(A) Negation words can be used in ways that are clearly beyond the
denial of facts.
(9)

(So, you "myaneeged" to solve the problem.)

No, I didn't "myaneege" to solve the problem, I "managed" to solve the
problem.
I didn't trap two moongeeseI managed to trap two moongooses.

(10) (Esker too ah coo-pay luh vee-and?)

Non, je n'ai pas 'coo-pay luh vee-and', J'ai coup la viande.
(11) Now, Grandma isn't 'feeling lousy', Johnny, she is indisposed.
(12) Ben Ward is not a black Police Commissioner but a Police Commissioner
who is black.
I'm not his daughterhe is my father.
She isn't Lizzy, if you pleaseyshe's Her Imperial Majesty.
For a pessimist like him, the glass isn't half fullit's half empty.
I'm not a TrotskyiteI'm a Trotzkist.
(B) Negation words can, in particular, be used to deny implicatures.
(13) Some men aren't chauvinistsall men are chauvinists.
(14) Who was that lady I saw you with last night?
It was no lady, that was my wife.
If we believe that implicatures arise after the literal meaning of the sentence has
been processed, and as a result of conversational reasoning, then
the negation word which denies such implicatures can not be part of the literal
content of the sentence.
Otherwise there would no lexical material be left to deny the implicature.
Example computation ()
(15) I wasn't out with a cute blond last night.

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(C) Metalinguistic negation does not license negative polarity items.

Negative polarity items: expressions that can only occur in downward entailing
contexts, specifically in the scope of one negation. (any, ever, lift a finger, a red
cent, ) So: does "metalinguistic negation" count as "one negation" in that
sense?
(16) John didn't manage to solve some of the problems, he managed to solve
all of them.
(17) John didn't manage to solve any of the problems.
(18) *John didn't manage to solve any of the problems, he managed to solve all
of them.
(19)
(20)
(21)
(22)

John sent three mails to some student.

John didn't send three mails to any student.
John didn't send three mails to some student, he actually sent out ten!
*John didn't send three mails to any student, he actually sent out ten!

(23) John didn't manage to solve {some / *any } of the problems, because they
were in fact quite easy.
(Aside: What about
(24) John didn't manage to solve any of the problems.
= All the problems John solved were actually easy for him to solve. )
Horn's conclusion: Negation words can either convey a logical (truth
functional) negation as part of the literal content of the sentence uttered,
or the speaker can use it to refute the proper assertability of the sentence in
the situationfor some reason or other.
Note: There is NO CONVENTIONAL CORRELATION of negation words (not,
it is not true, it is not the case, ) with literal/meta-linguistic negation (but
see D.).
In particular, metalinguistic negation can be used to refute an assertion because
it would give rise to wrong implicatures, or because its presuppositions are not
met, or because some word is of a wrong register, mispronounced, etc:
(25) I assert that Granny is not feeling lousy.
(26) I refute to assert that Granny is feeling lousy. (In fact, she is unwell)

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(D) Horn's fourth observation: Metalinguistic negation can not be

morphologically integrated.
(27) a. The king of France is {not happy / *unhappy }there is no king of
France.
b. The queen of England is {not happy / *unhappy }she is extatic.
c. {It isn't possible / It's not possible / *It's impossible }
for you to leave: It's necessary.
d. {not interesting / *uninteresting } but fascinating
An application: Negating disjunctions. Two philosophers dispute about the
meaning of 'or'
(28) a. John is either patriotic or quixotic.
b. John isn't either patriotic or quixotic.
c. John is neither partiotic nor quixotic.
Philosopher A: "or" means inclusive or. It may look as if it were exclusive
sometimes but this is due to scalar inferencing. Let me see what can be said
about (28) under this assumption.
"A or B" = A B
implicates (but does not entail): "... but not both"
b. This is a case of metalinguistic negation: Metalinguistic negation can be used
to cancel implicature:s
(29)

John isn't either patriotic or quixoticin fact, he is both!

c. The incorporated negation however must be the truth functional negation, as

far as we know. In all other cases, incorporated negation was not suited to
express metalinguistic negation:
( A B ) (A) (B)
(30) *?* John is neither patriotic nor quixoticin fact, he is both.
This predicts the oddness of (30). The first part denies (inclusive) disjunction.
The second part blandly contradicts this, and we feel that this speaker is
somehow off his head.

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Philosopher B: Let us try if we carry out the assumptionplain and clear to any
thinking humanthat disjunction primarily meanis exclusive disjunction: the
one, or the other, but not both.
"A or B" = A excl B (exclusive 'or')
Exclusive "or" has no implicatures. (There is no suitable stronger connective
that could give rise to implicatures; note that the clause "but not both" is a
logical entailment of exclusive 'or' and hence not cancellable.)
Both negations in (28.b) and (28.b) can hence only be logical negations:
(A excl B) = (A B) excl (A B)
Hence (29) as well as (30) are predicted to be logically sane utterances!
(Philosopher B gets red ears.)
Finally: Negative polarity items are not licensed by metalinguistic negation
because they need to be licensed in the "utterance at stake"; no matter whether
the speaker is willing to assert it, or wants to deny it.
A brief glance at the broader picture:
1. Negation is not the only operator which has a truth functional plus a
metalinguistic use. Consider other cases:
because:
(31) You are hungry because you haven't had anything to eat since breakfast.
(32) Are you hungry? Because there is beef in the fridge.
Are you hungry? I'm asking because there would be a remedy, namely
beef in the fridge.
conditional:
(33) If you are hungry, there is beef in the fridge.
concessive:
(34) a. He is unhappy although he is earning well.
b. He is unhappy althoughhe is earning well!
(35) a. Er ist unglcklich obwohl er gut verdient.
b. Er ist unglcklich, obwohl, er verdient sehr gut.
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only:
(36) a. I could come, I only have a cold.
b. I could comeonly, I have a cold.
a'. Ich knnte kommen, ich habe nur einen Schnupfen.
b'. Ich knnte kommen, nur, ich habe einen Schnupfen.
2. We will soon talk about speech acts and their anchoring in the sentence. As
long as only assertions are under consideration, it may seem as if such a thing as
"what does the speaker want to do with some propositional content" is a
superfluous issue. In general, however, speakers express speech acts on the
basis of some propositional content of a sentence. The category of speech act
seems appropriate to host Horn's metalinguistic negation aka denial.
Short references:

Frege, Gottlob. 1892. ber Sinn und Bedeutung. Zeitschrift fr Philosophische Kritik NF
100.25-50. In English as "On sense and reference". In: Translations from the
philosophical writings of Gottlob Frege, ed by Peter Geach and Max Black, 56-78.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1952.
Horn, Laurence. 1985. Metalinguistic Negation and Pragmatic Ambiguity. Language 61.1,
121-174.
Karttunen, Lauri, and Stanley Peters. 1979. Conventional implicature. In: Oh, Choon-Kyu
and Dinneen, David A. (eds.): Syntax and Semantics 11: Presupposition. New York:
Academic Press, 1-56.
Russell, Bertrand. 1905. "On denoting". Mind 14.479-493.

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