Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

Classically, the core contribution of negation is taken to be boolean. In this talk, I explore the possibilities afforded by an individual-level negation, building on recent philosophical work by Akiba (2009), Fine (2017), and Bledin (2024). In other words, alongside individuals such as 'Andreea' and 'Yasu', we may posit negative counterparts, 'not Andreea' and 'not Yasu', which behave, in all relevant respects, as individuals. I show how this ontological-enrichment allows for a uniform treatment of quantificational determiners as predicates of (plural) individuals, constituting an alternative to the prevailing approach based on Generalized Quantifier theory. In the presentation, I'll primarily focus on two applications of the predicative theory: an account of Barwise & Cooper's (1981) well-known Conservativity universal, and an account of cumulative readings with modified numeral expressions (Krifka 1999, Brasoveanu 2013, a.o.).