Resolving the Neg-Raising paradox (A04)

• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 509468465

Neg-Raising (NR) concerns the perceived synonymy of "I don't think this is ok." and "I think this is not ok." Existing syntactic and semantic-pragmatic approaches fail to explain the full range of NR-related phenomena. The project aims at solving the apparent paradoxical behavior of NR by systematically exploring non-typical cases of NR for three West-Germanic languages (Dutch, English, and German) and two Iranian languages (Farsi, Kurdish). The initial hypothesis of the project is that NR is the result of a pragmatically conditioned mapping between semantically equivalent structures.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1629: Negation in language and beyond (NegLaB)
• Applicant Institution: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Manfred Sailer, since 1/2024; Professor Hedde Zeijlstra, Ph.D., since 1/2024