earticle

영어

This paper argues that in English, not only explicit negators and negative implication expressions but also negatively prefixed adjectives, verbs, and nouns can license negative polarity items (NPIs). Similarly, in Korean, explicit negators serve as licensors for NPIs, and negatively prefixed lexical items, though to varying degrees and under certain conditions, can also license adverbial NPIs and the weak NPI etten-N-to ‘any-N-even’. Within the theoretical framework of Giannakidou (1998), which distinguishes between general nonveridicality licensing NPIs and strong nonveridicality licensing free choice items (FCIs), this paper further argues that the Korean weak NPI etten-N-to can be licensed by negatively prefixed lexical items in much the same way as the English NPI any, and can also function as an FCI in certain contexts. The specific syntactic and semantic environments in which etten-N-to operates exclusively as an NPI, without shifting to an FCI reading, are also investigated. Finally, it is claimed that, unlike etten-N-to, the strong NPI amwu-N-to ‘amu-N-even’ cannot be naturally licensed by negatively prefixed lexical items without the presence of an explicit negator. To support these claims, this study utilizes ChatGPT-4.0, a generative AI platform, to systematically explore relevant linguistic data.