PresentationPDF Available

Contrastive negation in English and Finnish: Towards an interactional construction grammar account

Authors:
Olli Silvennoinen at Åbo Akademi University
Olli Silvennoinen
Download file PDF
Read file
Download citation
Content uploaded by Olli Silvennoinen
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Olli Silvennoinen on Jul 17, 2018
Content may be subject to copyright.
1
Contrastive negation in English and Finnish: towards an interactional construction grammar
account
ICCG10, 18 July 2018, Paris
Olli O. Silvennoinen, olli.silvennoinen@helsinki.fi, @OlliSilv
University of Helsinki
Adversative vs. corrective coordination:
(1) a. Peter is intelligent butADV he doesn’t work.
b. Peter is not intelligent butCORR stupid.
(2) a. Pekka on älykäs mutta hän ei käy töissä.
Pekka be.3SG intelligent butADV 3SG NEG.3SG go.CNG work.INE
‘Pekka is intelligent but he doesn’t work.’
b. Pekka ei ole älykäs vaan tyhmä.
Pekka NEG.3SG be.CNG intelligent butCORR stupid
‘Pekka is not intelligent but stupid.’
Constructions in English:
Major construction types:
(3) Expanded negative-first:
Cos I mean it's ... it's not the bikers ... it's the other vehicle that's on the road (BNC)
(4) [not X but Y]:
so that's what I'm saying not this Wednesday but next Wednesday I'll be going down
straight in the morning (BNC: KCJ, 1043)
(5) [not X, Y]:
But then she said you get erm ... you put it on and you get a brush and er not a brush, a
roller (BNC: KCL, 970)
(6) Expanded negative-second:
Yeah I fed him, I didn't starve him (BNC: KD1, 4489)
(7) [Y not X]:
It's only for birds, not for me (BNC: KBA, 148)
(8) [Y and not X]:
Well, just something to nibble on that’s savoury and not sweet (BNC: KD1, 1475)
Minor construction types:
(9) Prefaced negative-first:
[…] make it last longer cos I was telling you I says ooh not Coalite it's briquettes he said
(BNC: KCX, 8764)
(10) Tripartite:
Well some estates, not many of course, but some estates have got a no go area for
caravans parked don’t they? (BNC: KBP, 2332)
2
Constructions in Finnish:
Major construction types (selected):
(11) Expanded negative-first:
mutta tuo ei oo korea
but that NEG.3SG be.CNG fair
tuo o enemmän niinku miehen näkönen
that be.3SG more PART man.GEN looking
‘But that one isn’t fair, that one looks more like a man’ (Conversation Analysis Archive:
SG435, 40_50, 03:02)
(12) [ei X vaan Y]:
se ei oo suinkaan sillon enää illalla
it NEG.3SG be.CNG at.all then anymore evening.ADE
vaan se on päivällä jo
vaan it be.3SG day.ADE already
‘It is not in the evening but during the day already’ (Conversation Analysis Archive:
SG435, 172_182, 04:51)
(13) [ei X kun Y]:
ei Soini ku Sola
NEG.3SG Soini kun Sola
‘not Soini but Sola’ (Conversation Analysis Archive: SG435, 162_172, 05:49)
(14) [Y eikä X]:
se oli mun ja Antin idea eikä sun
it be.PST.3SG my and Antti.GEN idea NEG.3SG.PART your
‘it was my and Antti’s idea, and not yours’ (Conversation Analysis Archive: SG396,
53:19)
Minor construction type:
(15) Tripartite: (Conversation Analysis Archives: SG435, 60_70, 06:41)
1 Jussi: .hhh tää on Do[rothea V:::::iik.]
.hhh this be.3SG Dorothea Viik
‘.hhh this is Dorothea Viik’
2 Liisa: [(--) ketä nää on.]
who these be.3PL
‘(‒ ‒) who are these’
3 tää on se [raita. ]
this be.3SG that stripe
‘this is the stripe’
4 Jussi: → [ja siis] V- V-
and so
‘and I mean V- V-’
3
5 Päivi: nii.
yeah
‘yeah’
6 Jussi: → Viek. (.) siis ei Viik. (.) [Vik ] (.) v:aan:. Viek.
Viek so NEG Viik Vik vaan Viek
‘Viek (.) I mean not Viik. (.) Vik (.) but Viek’
7 Päivi: [°joo°]
yeah
‘yeah’
8 Jussi: → .hh Viik.
.hh Viik
‘.hh Viik’
Contrastive negation in English and Finnish:
English (n = 310)
Finnish (n = 108)
[not X but Y]
2%
[ei X vaan Y]
[ei X kun Y]
[ei X mutta Y]
25%
8%
4%
[not X, Y]
7%
[ei X, Y]
3%
Expanded negative-first
62%
Expanded negative-first
38%
[Y not X]
11%
[Y ei X]
2%
[Y and not X]
2%
[Y eikä X]
7%
Expanded negative-second
8%
Expanded negative-second
10%
Other
8%
Other
3%
Interactional functions:
(16) British National Corpus: KCL, 970
Mary: […]But then she said you get erm ... you put it on and you
→ get a brush and er not a brush, a roller.
4
(17) Conversation Analysis Archive: Sg435, 152_162, 00:24
1 Matti: se on Pekka Pohjola (.)
‘it is Pekka Pohjola’
2 >eikä #ee oo# ku< Paavo.
NEG.PART NEG.3SG be.CNG kun Paavo
‘no, it isn’t, it’s Paavo’
3 =Paavo ] Pohjola #nii#
‘Paavo Pohjola, yeah’
(18) British National Corpus: KCX, 4796-4797
Kathleen: So what I did is I writ thirty plus thirty four, adding
up to sixty four and she [laughing] jumped up and she's
grabbing thing off table and she had hold of the
screwdriver and I says to Linda [...] thought she was
gonna stab me with screwdriver [] and she weren't, she
were looking for a pencil so she could rub it out, well
she couldn't and she found this pencil and she
scribbled thirty four out. ... So it says thirty plus
now even though she's sixty four.
(19) British National Corpus: KBM, 182‒193
1 Chris: Good.
2 How the hell did Margaret get one of those?
3 Lynne: → Not an Uno she's got, it's the one up.
4 What, what's [the name of it? ]
5 Chris: [Yeah, she's got ] an Uno!
6 Lynne: → It isn't, it's
7 Chris: It is!
8 Robert: Tipo.
9 Chris: No!
10 → [It's not
11 Lynne: [Well
12 Chris: a Tipo, it's an Uno!
(20) Arkisyn: Sapu117, 111‒112
1 Päivi: mä kuunteli vähän huonosti sen lohikeittojutun ni siis
olik se joku tommonen teijän
‘I listened the thing about the salmon soup a bit badly, so I mean, was yours
something like that’
5
2 siis ei alkuruoka-annos-määrä
so NEG.3SG appetizer-portion-amount
‘I mean, not the amount of an appetiser’
3 vaan joku vähä isompi satsi vai
vaan some slightly big.COMP batch or
‘but a slightly bigger portion, or?’
4 Waiter: joo se on semmone niiŋku ruokasa keitto mitä tos ulkona
mainostetaa
‘yeah, it’s like a filling soup that they’re advertising outside’
(21) Conversation Analysis Archive: Sg396, 8:53
1 Akseli: mitä se siis mitä (.) oliks se oikeesti huono. (0.2)
vai.
‘what, he I mean what, was he really bad? or?’
2 Taavi: oli. (0.3) se ## Melis sano siin vaan että (.) et meiän
kanssa on raskasta työskennellä #ja mth mth ja että kun
kaikki pitää vääntää rautalangasta ja#
‘he was. he only said that it’s tough working with us and that he has to spell
everything out and’
3 Akseli: vaikka (0.3) siis toisin sanoen
although so other.INST words.INST
‘although, so in other words’
4 → ei puffannut vaan haukku.
NEG.3SG publicise.PTCP vaan criticise.PST
‘he didn’t publicise but criticised (us)’
5 Taavi: niin toisin sanoen.
‘yeah, in other words’
(22) British National Corpus: KCL, 5359-5365
1 Brian: I shouldn't say half the things I do say, but I ge ...
I get upset I do!
2 ... The way she's ... she is to Sammy ... she's, she's
awful to her!
3 ... I don't know why.
4 John: Mm.
5 Brian: → And she's not the same to Anthony, she does treat them
differently!
6 John: Does she?
7 Brian: Yeah ... yeah.
6
(23) Conversation Analysis Archive: Sg435, 102_112, 8:04
01 Jussi: mikäs nyt on /seuraava annos.
‘what is now /the next portion.’
02–04 ((omitted))
05 Liisa: [>käydä läpi<] ja sit (.) hei tota (0.3)
‘go through and then, well hey’
06 → ei oo /tarkotus niin kun (0.6) näännyttää
NEG.3SG be.CNG purpose like starve
07 täällä \itseänsä vaa me voimme
here oneself vaan we can.1PL
08 (.) voimme järjestää /toisen session (1.0)
can.1PL organize other.GEN session.GEN
09 mth .hhh toisella kertaa ja kattoa
other.ADE time and see
10 jos on jotain,
if be.3SG something
‘the purpose is not to starve oneself here vaan we can, we can organise another
session at another time and see if there’s anything’
10 (0.6)
11 Jussi: mut (.) \nythäm me /vielä voidaan tässä ku ol[laam]
‘but now we still can as we have here’
12 Liisa: [voi,]
‘it can’
13 Jussi: päästy vauhtiin ja saatu,
‘got going and achieved’
7
Abbreviations:
1, 2, 3
first, second, third person
negative
ADE
adessive case
discourse particle
AFF
affirmative particle
plural
CNG
connegative
partitive case
COMP
comparative
past tense
ELA
elative case
participle
GEN
genitive case
question particle
INE
inessive case
reflexive pronoun
INST
instructive case
singular
Data sources:
Arkisyn: A morphosyntactically coded database of conversational Finnish. Database compiled at
the University of Turku, with material from the Conversation Analysis Archive at the University
of Helsinki and the Syntax Archives at the University of Turku. Department of Finnish and
Finno-Ugric Languages, University of Turku.
Audio BNC: the audio edition of the Spoken British National Corpus. Phonetics Laboratory,
University of Oxford. http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/AudioBNC
Conversation Analysis Archive. Database compiled at the Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and
Scandinavian Studies at the University of Helsinki.
References:
Anscombre, Jean-Claude & Oswald Ducrot. 1977. Deux mais en français? Lingua 43(1): 23–40.
Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological
Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gates Jr., Dave L., and Orin Dale Seright. 1967. Negative-Contrastive Constructions in Standard
Modern English. American Speech 42 (2): 136–141.
Goldberg, Adele E. 2006. Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hopper, P. 1987. Emergent Grammar. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the
Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 139–157)
Hopper, Paul J. 2011. Emergent Grammar and Temporality in Interactional Linguistics. In Peter
Auer & Stefan Pfänder (eds.), Constructions: Emerging and Emergent, 22–44. Berlin & Boston:
De Gruyter.
Horn, Laurence R. 1985. Metalinguistic Negation and Pragmatic Ambiguity. Language 61 (1):
121–174.
Horn, Laurence R. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McCawley, James D. 1991. Contrastive Negation and Metalinguistic Negation. CLS 27 (2): 189–
206.
Silvennoinen, Olli O. 2017. Not only apples but also oranges: Contrastive negation and register. In
Turo Hiltunen, Joseph McVeigh & Tanja Säily (eds.), Big and Rich Data in English Corpus
Linguistics: Methods and Explorations. (Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English.)
Helsinki: VARIENG. http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/series/volumes/19/silvennoinen/
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Metalinguistic Negation and Pragmatic Ambiguity
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 1985
When 'marked' or 'external' negation has not been treated as an additional semantic operator alongside the straightforward truth-functional, presupposition-preserving ordinary ('internal') negation, it has been collapsed with internal negation into a unified general logical operator on propositions. Neither of these approaches does justice to the differences and kinships between and within the two principal varieties of negation in natural language. Marked negation is not reducible to a truth-functional one-place connective with the familiar truth-table for negation, nor is it definable as a separate logical operator; it represents, rather, a metalinguistic device for registering objection to a previous utterance (not proposition) on any grounds whatever, including the way it was pronounced.
View
Not only apples but also oranges: Contrastive negation and register
Chapter
  • Dec 2017
This is an open-access publication that can be found here: http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/series/volumes/19/silvennoinen/ This paper investigates the register variation of contrastive negation in English, a family of constructions that has so far not been explored in corpus-linguistic studies. Contrastive negation refers to expressions in which one element is negated and another one is presented as its alternative (e.g., not once but twice; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him). The study combines the methods of corpus linguistics and interactional linguistics to investigate expressions that are highly resistant to automatised queries, comparing conversation and newspaper discourse on the one hand (“apples and oranges”), and various sub-registers of newspaper discourse on the other (“apples and apples”). The results show that the expression of contrastive negation is highly differentiated by register: conversation is dominated by asyndetic clause combinations while in writing, various constructions are attested more evenly. Sub-registers of writing also display variation: argumentative texts have a particularly high number of negative-contrastive constructions while in sports reports their prevalence is much lower. The study shows that both apples-and-apples and apples-and-oranges comparisons shed light on construction choice: data needs to be not only big enough but also rich and thick enough for this to be possible in the analysis of highly polysemous items.
View
View
Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language
Book
  • Jan 2006
This book investigates the nature of generalizations in language, drawing parallels between our linguistic knowledge and more general conceptual knowledge. The book combines theoretical, corpus, and experimental methodology to provide a constructionist account of how linguistic generalizations are learned, and how cross-linguistic and language-internal generalizations can be explained. Part I argues that broad generalizations involve the surface forms in language, and that much of our knowledge of language consists of a delicate balance of specific items and generalizations over those items. Part II addresses issues surrounding how and why generalizations are learned and how they are constrained. Part III demonstrates how independently needed pragmatic and cognitive processes can account for language-internal and cross-linguistic generalizations, without appeal to stipulations that are specific to language.
View
View
View
View
Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective
Article
  • Oct 2001
This book presents a profound critique of syntactic theory and syntactic argumentation. Recent syntactic theories are essentially formal models for the representation of grammatical knowledge. These theories posit complex syntactic structures in the analysis of sentences, consisting of atomic primitive syntactic categories and relations. The result of this approach to syntax has been an endless cycle of new and revised theories of syntactic representation. The book argues that these types of syntactic theories are incompatible with the grammatical variation found within and across languages. The extent of grammatical variation demonstrates that no scheme of atomic primitive syntactic categories and relations can form the basis of an empirically adequate syntactic theory. This book defends three theses: (i) constructions are the primitive units of syntactic representation, and grammatical categories are derivative; (ii) the only syntactic structures are the relations between a construction and the elements that make it up (that is, there is no need to posit syntactic relations); and (iii) constructions are language-specific. Constructions are complex units pairing form and meaning. Grammatical categories within and across languages are mapped onto a universal conceptual space, following the semantic map model in typology. The structure of conceptual space constrains how meaning is encoded in linguistic form, and reflects the structure of the human mind.
View
A Natural History of Negation
Article
  • Jan 1989
This book offers a unique synthesis of past and current work on the structure, meaning, and use of negation and negative expressions, a topic that has engaged thinkers from Aristotle and the Buddha to Freud and Chomsky. Horn's masterful study melds a review of scholarship in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics with original research, providing a full picture of negation in natural language and thought; this new edition adds a comprehensive preface and bibliography, surveying research since the book's original publication.
View