Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

(210) a. Niemand heeft ook maar iemand gezien.
nobody is OOK MAAR someone seen
‘Nobody has seen anybody.’
a′. Niemand denkt dat Peter ook maar iemand gezien heeft.
nobody thinks that Peter OOK MAAR someone seen has
‘Nobody thinks that Peter has seen anybody.’
b. *Peter heeft ook maar iemand gezien.
Peter has not OOK MAAR someone seen
b′. Ik denk niet dat Peter ook maar iemand gezien heeft.
I think not that Peter OOK MAAR someone seen has
‘I do not think that Peter has seen anybody.’
Pre-determiners 1015
When we compare the primeless examples of (210) to those in (211), we see
that the pattern with negative polar heel is in fact the reverse: polar heel can be
licensed by the negative adverb niet, but not by a c-commanding argument.
Negative polar heel also behaves differently when it comes to licensing by negation
in some higher clause: the counterparts of the primed examples in (210) with
negative polar heel are unacceptable.
(211) a. *? Niemand heeft het hele mens gezien.
nobody has the whole person seen
a′. *Niemand denkt dat Peter het hele mens gezien heeft.
nobody thinks that Peter the whole person seen has
b. Peter heeft het hele mens niet gezien.
Peter has the whole person not seen
b′. *Ik denk niet dat Peter het hele mens gezien heeft.
I think not that Peter the whole person seen has
In the primed examples in (210) and (211) the polarity items function as objects, but
we find the same contrast when the polarity items function as a subject. This is
shown in (212) by means of examples in which negation is expressed by the
negative adverb niet, but similar judgments are obtained when we use examples
with the negative phrase niemand ‘nobody’ as the subject of the matrix clause.
(212) a. Ik denk niet dat ook maar iemand Peter gezien heeft.
I think not that OOK MAAR someone Peter seen has
‘I do not think that anybody has seen Peter.’
b. *Ik denk niet dat het hele mens Peter gezien heeft.
I think not that the whole person Peter seen has
‘I do not think that the person/woman has seen Peter.’
Note, however, that it has been claimed that examples like (212b) improve when the
embedded clause contains another polarity item, as shown in (213); in other words,
the negative polar phrase het hele mens is licensed by the negative polarity items
ooit ‘ever’ and ook maar iemand ‘anybody’ in, respectively, (213a) and (213b),
which are licensed in turn by the negation in the matrix clause. Note that the use of
the percentage mark indicates that some speakers do not readily accept examples of
this sort (which may simply be due to the complexity of the examples).