Semantic and distributional patterns of Spanish negation with nouns and adjectives: A Lexical-Realizational Functional Grammar approach

Abstract

This study examines the semantic and distributional characteristics of the Spanish negation no when it occurs before nouns and adjectives, specifically, whether these instances diverge from sentential negation, but also from negation via prefixes such as des- ‘dis-’ or in- ‘in-, un-’. Using data from the Spanish Web 2011 corpus, it is shown that the use of no before adjectives aligns with other forms of constituent negation, often resulting in a contradictory interpretation, that is similar to that of sentential negation. However, the interpretation of no preceding nouns exhibits a broader range of interpretations, depending on whether the noun refers to an eventuality, quality, or entity. In such instances, no shows parallels to negative prefixes, frequently indicating privation rather than contradiction. Consequently, no can be analyzed as a building block of phrases, expressing syntactic negation, behaving similarly to other adverbs, as well as a building block of words, expressing lexical negation, resembling Spanish prefix-like elements like cuasi ‘almost’ or ex ‘ex-’. The analysis is couched within the framework of Lexical-Realizational Functional Grammar (LRFG), integrating aspects of Lexical Functional Grammar and Distributed Morphology. This approach does not treat morphology and syntax as separate modules, thus allowing us to account for the variable distribution and interpretation of no by means of a single representation in vocabulary structure, drawing on constituent structure representations which are needed on independent grounds for adverbs and for prefix-like elements.