Negative concord in Quebec French

Abstract

It is argued that there are two types of asymmetric negative concord languages: in languages like Spanish and Italian, negative concord results from a purely formal agreement relation between the negation and a negative concord item. In Quebec French, in addition to this purely formal licensing, there is a negative dependency relation between both items, which form two segments of a discontinuous negative quantifier. This accounts for the following differences. While Spanish, Italian and Quebec French reject negative concord between a subject negative expression and the negation, in Quebec French, negative concord with the negation becomes possible when the clause contains a postverbal negative expression in addition to a preverbal one. Moreover, in Quebec French, but not in Spanish or Italian, negative concord is blocked across a quantifier meaning