This article addresses the question of how root necessity modals are able to take scope over negative operators. Previous work has argued that wide scope readings are derived by syntactic movement of the modal over negation. We argue against this view. Reviewing facts from a number of different languages, we show that the availability of wide scope readings is not conditioned by the clause structure in which the modal is embedded, and we show that deriving the wide scope readings in the full range of configurations where they are found requires a number of complications for the movement rules involved. We discuss other issues for deriving the correct interpretations for modals in various negative constructions, and we outline an recent in-situ account of the modal facts (
Cross-linguistically, many necessity modal auxiliaries like English
(1)
You must not leave. □ > ¬
This wide scope interpretation has largely been viewed as a result of syntactic movement of the modal above negation, driven by its positive polarity. For Iatridou & Zeijlstra (
Both analyses rely on the movement in question being covert in at least a subset of cases, since there are languages where word order facts seem to indicate uncontroversially that the modal is syntactically below negation. Iatridou & Zeijlstra (
(2)
Dhen
prepi
must
na
to
it
kanume
do
afto.
this
‘We must not do this’ □ > ¬
Thinking of the literature on the scope of DPs, a question that arises in this context is whether the wide scope reading here needs to be derived by covert movement, or whether there are other non-movement mechanisms that might do a better job. It is now quite widely accepted that apparent wide scope interpretations for indefinites, including wh-in-situ, is not derived by covert movement, but rather in-situ scoping mechanisms such as choice functions (
(3)
John overheard the rumor that a student of mine was called before the dean. ∃ >
Accounting for facts such as (3) with covert movement requires a total rethink of what we know about islands, while an alternative which uses in-situ mechanisms avoids this problem.
In this article we argue that the (apparent) wide scope with necessity modals is not determined by syntactic movement, but rather by in-situ scoping mechanisms. The argument is of a similar tenor to the argument for wide scope indefinites, except our dataset is a comparative one. We show that the wide scope readings of necessity modals are found in a wide range of clause structures across languages, and we see that the clause structure parameters that normally impact upon movement of heads and predicates do not impact upon modal scope. Attention to the details of the analyses reveals a number of difficulties in implementing the movements syntactically, seen most clearly in the case of Iatridou and Zeijlstra’s well-developed head movement analysis. Along the way we discuss additional issues for deriving the correct interpretations for modals in various negative constructions, and we conclude that the broader body of facts weighs against a syntactic account. In concluding, we outline a recent in-situ account of the modal facts (
The starting point for Iatridou & Zeijlstra (
(4)
John can’t leave. ∗◊ > ¬; ¬ > ◊
(5)
a.
John mustn’t leave. □ > ¬; *¬ > □
b.
John doesn’t have to leave. *□ > ¬; ¬ > □
c.
John need*(n’t) leave. *□ > ¬; ¬ > □
I&Z show that similar facts hold across languages, where some necessity modals scope above negation (with examples from English, Greek, Dutch, Hindi) but all possibility modals, and other necessity modals, scope below.
(6)
a.
Only God need know. (I&Z, p560)
b.
I doubt you need worry about this.
If some necessity modals are NPIs, we might expect others to be positive polarity items (PPIs). I&Z and Homer argue that this expectation is met by modals that scope above negation, such as
(7)
a.
Sue hasn’t seen someone. someone > ¬; *¬ > someone
b.
Only Sue hasn’t seen someone. someone > ¬; ¬ > someone
The same pattern is observed with root necessity modals, in that the modal generally scopes above negation, as in (8a), but may scope below it if embedded under an additional negative operator, as shown in (8b).
(8)
a.
Sue must not leave. □ > ¬; *¬ > □
b.
Only Sue must not leave. □ > ¬; ¬ > □
I&Z and Homer show that the same pattern can be replicated for these modals for other types of PPI-like behaviour, such as the effects of shielding, contrastive focus and clause boundaries. I&Z and Homer establish the PPI-hood of modals like
I&Z argue that these modals undergo interpretable head movement, as follows. In English,
(9)
It is this instance of head movement, they claim, that is responsible for allowing the PPI modal to scope above negation, and since it is scope-extending head movement, it cannot plausibly be analysed in terms of PF movement or any other such terms. The fact that other modals such as
Homer, on the other hand, assumes that modals do not undergo LF movement by default. However, if a modal is a PPI and originates in a negative polarity environment, it will move to escape it. In contrast with I&Z, it does so by phrasal movement of the ModP. We come back to what such phrasal movement might entail, and the problems it raises, in section 4.3.
As a final point, we want to highlight the fact that wide scope necessity modals come in a variety of types. We first note that there is variation in the obligatoriness of apparent scope taking: some take obligatory wide scope with respect to negation (like English
(10)
a.
I don’t think you should go. □ > ¬; *¬ > □
b.
I don’t think you must go. ?□ > ¬; ¬ > □
In this configuration, it is more difficult to argue that the wide scope interpretation of
In this paper, we hope to convince that not only weak necessity modals, but also strong necessity modals do not undergo syntactic movement. Therefore, to make this point strongly, our arguments will be based on data from necessity modals which pattern like
If wide scope for strong necessity modals is determined by verb raising, either by syntactic head movement or some sort of VP remnant movement, then we should expect to see the availability of modal scope interacting with changes in clause structure which are known to interact with verb raising crosslinguistically. In this section, we see that this expectation is not met, as wide scope is available in a number of configurations where there is no independent evidence to believe that the modal verb has raised to a position above the modal, or that it would even be possible to do so. We consider three classes of configurations: (i) where negation is a preverbal particle in the clausal spine; (ii) where negation is encoded by some higher operator, in Spec,TP or higher; (iii) where the modal is embedded under another auxiliary.
The movement analysis of wide scope for modals is particularly well-suited to English, since there are good reasons to believe English modals are in a higher position than their base-generated position: they typically scope below negation, which is taken to be below T, but they show up in T, above negation. However when we look at a wider range of facts from other languages, we see that the position of sentential negation seems not to matter, as root necessity modals may take scope over negation from various positions. We review a number of different subcases here.
First, there are languages in which the modal verb seems to stay particularly low, such as Russian and Slovenian. In Russian, verbs do not seem to exhibit V-to-T movement, since the finite verb follows adverbs (
(11)
Ty
you
ne
dolžna
must
ostavat’sja.
stay
‘You must/need not stay’ □ > ¬,¬ > □ (Russian)
(12)
Ne
morm
must.1
it.
go
‘I mustn’t go’ □ > ¬ (Slovenian)
Then, there are languages such as Norwegian and Swedish, in which negation is a phrasal adverb (see e.g.
(13)
a.
Du
you
må
must
ikke
dra.
eat
‘You must not leave’ □ > ¬ (Norwegian)
b.
Dette
this
er
is
personen
person.the
som
ikke
må
must
dra
leave
‘This is the person who must not leave’ □ > ¬ (Norwegian)
It seems not to matter for the scope of the modal in Norwegian or Russian that the modal verb stays low.
There are also languages in which the verb does seem to raise and negation seems to be situated in a higher head position which still precedes the verb. Greek, which we saw in the introduction, is one such language, and Spanish and Italian are similar. These languages show independent evidence for V-to-T movement, since the finite verb precedes adverbs (see e.g.
(14)
No
debes
must.
salir.
go.out
‘You must not go out’ □ > ¬ (Spanish)
(15)
Non
devi
must.
uscire.
go.out
‘You must not go out’ □ > ¬ (Italian)
We note that overt verb raising past negation is consistently impossible in these languages and their varieties, even though they allow verb raising to C in the absence of negation (see
A somewhat different kind of high preverbal negation is to be found in the Celtic languages, such as Scottish Gaelic, in which sentential negation is expressed not with a clause-internal operator but instead with a complementizer which precedes the verb and all other material within the TP.
(16)
a.
Feumaidh
must.
mi
I
falbh.
leave.
‘I must leave’ (Scottish Gaelic)
b.
Chan
C
fheum
must.
mi
I
falbh.
leave.
‘I must not leave’ %□ > ¬ (Scottish Gaelic)
The fact that the modal may take wide scope with respect to negation, at least for some speakers, is quite surprising in light of the fact that no other quantifiers may outscope negation; for instance, universal quantifiers, whether in the subject or object position, may only take narrow scope.
(17)
a.
Chan
C
fhaca
see.
a h-uile
every
duine
person
e.
him
‘Not everyone saw him’ ¬ > ∀, *∀ > ¬ (Scottish Gaelic)
b.
Chan
C
fhaca
see.
e
he
a h-uile
every
duine.
person
‘He didn’t see everyone’ ¬ > ∀, *∀ > ¬ (Scottish Gaelic)
Comparable facts are to be found in other languages with high negation as well, such as Tongugbe Ewe.
(18)
a.
Amesiame
Everyone
me-yi
o.
‘Not everyone went’ ¬ > ∀, *∀ > ¬ (Tongugbe Ewe)
b.
M-ehiã
be
m-adzo
o.
‘I don’t need to go’ ¬ > □, *□ > ¬ (Tongugbe Ewe)
We conclude (as do
(19)
a.
Ele
be
be
m-adzo.
‘I must go’ (Tongugbe Ewe)
b.
M-ele
be
m-adzo
o.
‘I must not go’ □ > ¬ (Tongugbe Ewe)
To summarize, we find that root necessity modals outscope negative heads that precede them in a wide range of languages, in a variety of structural configurations. This includes cases where the verb is particularly low, as in Russian and Norwegian, and where negation is particularly high, as in Scottish Gaelic and Ewe.
Zooming out and taking a broader typological view, we are not aware of any generalizations regarding the kinds of clause structures which are conducive to wide scope root necessity modals. The availability of such modals seems to be somewhat arbitrary: Russian and Slovenian have such modals, but Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian does not; standard Dutch has one, but northeastern Dutch does not (see I&Z p. 530 fn.3); some Scottish Gaelic speakers have one, but others do not. The syntax of sentential negation seems not to be a relevant conditioning factor, since modals can scope over higher and lower sentential negatives, whether they have head status (as with Russian, Greek and Scottish Gaelic) and ones which have phrasal adverb status (as with Norwegian). The availability of wide scope seems to be a lexical property of individual modals, and subject to lexical variation. This makes the tie between movement and the extension of a modal’s scope look tenuous, in particular in light of the fact that negation, in particular head negation, typically blocks verb raising across languages (
In this section we present data that show that wide scope of the modal is available with a variety of negative operators which are in a position higher than sentential negation: negative quantifiers in preverbal position, high covert negative operators in negative concord languages, negative inversion constructions and negative coordinators.
First, consider negative subjects. Iatridou & Sichel (
(20)
a.
No one {can/has to/may/need} leave. ¬ > mod
b.
No one {must/should/ought to} leave. ✔mod > ¬
(21)
a.
Personne
nobody
ne
doit
must
y
there
aller.
go
‘Nobody must go’ ✔□ > ¬ (French)
b.
Ingen
Nobody
må
must
dra.
leave.
‘Nobody must leave’ ✔□ > ¬ (Norwegian)
c.
Niemand
Nobody
moet
must
vertrekken.
leave.
‘Nobody must leave’ ✔□ > ¬ (Dutch;
Iatridou and Sichel argue that these facts follow from an approach to NegDPs where the scope of their negative component is determined by the same syntactic element as sentential negation. We do not get into the details here, but they predict that the scope of NegDPs will always be identical to that of sentential negation, and so it accounts for their generalization straightforwardly, and without recourse to reconstructing semantically negative determiners (which they show to have numerous problems, arguing against
Our contention here is that it is not correct to say that NegDPs always have the same scope as sentential negation, as there are cases involving operators other than modal verbs where we see differences between the two negatives. Consider the case of
(22)
a.
She will probably lose.
b.
She probably will lose.
(23)
a.
She probably won’t lose.
b.
*She won’t probably lose.
If NegDP subjects scoped in the same position as sentential negation, we would predict that
(24)
a.
*Nobody probably will lose.
b.
Probably nobody will lose.
c.
Everybody/Somebody probably will lose.
Similar facts obtain in French with
(25)
a.
Elle
she
ne
va
will
sûrement
probably
pas
perdre.
lose
‘She probably won’t lose’ (French)
b.
*Personne
Nobody
ne
va
will
sûrement
probably
perdre.
lose
These facts indicate that the negation of NegDPs is not identical to sentential negation, but rather is higher, presumably as high as the subject position. This result dovetails with proposals in Zeijlstra (
Evidence for a high position of negation with subject negative DPs is found more transparently in non-strict negative concord languages, like Spanish and Italian. These languages allow a negative DP in a preverbal position without an accompanying overt sentential negative, as opposed to postverbal DPs which must co-occur with one. To account for this pattern, Zeijlstra (
(26)
a.
Nadie
nobody
debe
must
ir.
go
‘Nobody must go’ ✔□ > ¬ (Spanish)
b.
Nessuno
nobody
deve
must
uscire.
go.out
‘Nobody must go out’ ✔□ > ¬ (Italian)
(27)
a.
No
debe
must
ir
go
nadie.
nobody
‘Nobody must go’ ✔□ > ¬ (Spanish)
b.
Non
neg
deve
must
uscire
go.out
nessuno.
nobody
‘Nobody must go out’ ✔□ > ¬ (Italian)
In strict negative concord languages, the sentential negation marker must co-occur with any negative DP, whether preverbal or postverbal. Zeijlstra (
(28)
a.
Nikto
nobody.
ne
dolžen
must
uxodit’.
leave
‘Nobody must leave’ ✔□ > ¬ (Russian)
b.
Kanenas
nobody
den
prepi
must
na
to
it
kani
do
afto.
this
‘Nobody must do this’ ✔□ > ¬ (Greek)
c.
M-ele
be
C
ameaɖeke
nobody
ne-yi
o.
‘Nobody must go’ ✔□ > ¬ (Tongugbe Ewe)
Thus, for all these NegDP configurations, if I&Z are right in accounting for the data in terms of covert movement, the relevant movement rule must be able to move the modals quite high, as high as the upper regions of the left periphery.
Another construction where negation takes high scope is negative inversion in English (see
(29)
At no point did anyone think to inform me of the plans.
(30)
a.
I didn’t leave because it started raining. ¬>because, because>¬
b.
Nobody left because it started raining. ¬>because, because>¬
c.
At no point did I leave because it started raining. ¬>because, *because>¬
The high scope of negation in negative inversion is discussed in more detail in Potsdam (
(31)
Only this semester didn’t John fail at least one student. ¬
However, as Francis (
(32)
At no point must the server’s feet move in front of the baseline on the court prior to hitting their serve.
Therefore, if the modal undergoes head movement – specifically, some covert step of head movement to a higher position than its landing site after T-to-C movement – it must do so to a projection above the FocP or CP, depending on the analysis, and such a movement must be forbidden for phrasal categories such as
Finally, consider negative connectives, i.e.
(33)
a.
Coronavirus knows no international borders, neither must its eventual cure.
b.
Tu
you
ne
peux
can.
ni
nor
ne
dois
must.
sortir.
go.out
‘You cannot nor must go out’ ✔□ > ¬ (French)
These facts are especially problematic for a movement account of the modal’s wide scope. We show in particular that a widespread analysis of
For all of the cases described in this section, deriving wide scope via head movement requires movement of the modal to some position above TP or higher. In all cases, this movement must be covert, since the negative operators are higher than the overt position of the modal. In the case of Negative Inversion, the modal’s surface position is already a derived one, yet is expected to scope below negation, so the modal would have to undergo further covert movement above it. As for negative connectives, the wide scope interpretation is particularly problematic for a movement account, as it is logically incompatible with the common analysis of negative connectives as disjunctions; otherwise, under the already less popular conjunctive analysis of negative coordinations, a movement account of modal scope leads to adopting a number of shaky assumptions.
A question that does not arise with English
First, consider the case of French. In simple cases, French verbs move to T (
(34)
Il
ne
faut
must
pas
fumer
smoke
ici.
here
‘One must not smoke here’
Following an analysis of the I&Z type, the wide scope of
(35)
a.
Ne
pas
falloir
must.
fumer,
smoke
c’est
it’s
normal.
normal
‘Being required not to smoke is normal.’ ✔□ > ¬
b.
Il
ne
va
go
pas
falloir
must.
parler.
talk
‘We will have to not talk.’ ✔□ > ¬
c.
Il
n’
aurait
have.
pas
fallu
must.
fumer.
smoke
‘You shouldn’t have smoked.’ ✔□ > ¬
The strong challenge here comes from (35b) and (35c),
Before we move on, we will show that modals that are embedded under another auxiliary in this manner can scope over higher negations in other languages as well. As discussed in the previous section, Spanish tensed verbs undergo V-to-T, as they appear before adverbs, despite appearing after negation. However, they appear after adverbs when in their nonfinite forms, e.g. the near future, (36a), and conditional, (36b). As in French, these involve a finite verb in T which embeds the modal. Despite the fact that T is filled and the modal is embedded well below NegP, the modal can still take scope over negation.
(36)
a.
No
habría
have.
debido
must.
separarme
break.up
de
from
ella.
her
‘I shouldn’t have broken up with her’ ✔□ > ¬
b.
No
vas
go
a
to
tener
have.
que
to
salir
go.out
hoy.
today
‘You will be required not to go out today’ ✔□ > ¬
Dutch modals also have non-finite forms that can be embedded under other auxiliaries. (37a) shows cases where the necessity modal
(37)
a.
Jan
Jan
zal
will
niet
not
moeten
must.
vertrekken.
leave.
‘Jan will have to not leave’ ✔□ > ¬
b.
Jan
Jan
had
had
niet
not
moeten
must.
vertrekken.
leave.
‘Jan shouldn’t have left’ ✔□ > ¬
Finally, there is actually a case to be found in English, namely
(38)
You’re not supposed to leave. □ > ¬
The argument from
(39)
Italy, of course, remains in lock-down with people not supposed to leave their homes and there’s little knowledge of snow conditions presently.
Given that
How, then, can modals outscope negation in all of the different structures we have seen? In this section we present the head movement-based analysis of I&Z. Recall that in their discussion of Greek, I&Z suggest that the modal undergoes
(40)
[PPI-modal
[
For languages in which NegP is above ModP but below TP, like Russian, the modal would need to covertly raise to TP, and the analysis would be much like what was schematized in (9) for English, except that the head movement in question is covert. The analysis of Norwegian would be broadly similar: in V2 clauses, the modal would either take scope in C or in T, while in embedded clauses the verb would need to raise to one of these head positions covertly.
I&Z do not commit to a specific implementation of head movement, nor do they commit to details on the clause structures or phrase structures for negation involved. In what follows we flesh out some specific implementations, and assess the theoretical issues that arise when it comes to dealing with the data discussed above. First, we discuss implementations in terms of classical head movement, spelling out how this might work for two specific clause structure analyses. Second, we discuss how one might account for the scope facts in terms of the alternative approach to head movement in Matushansky (
Let us first consider the case of classical head-to-head movement (for a recent defense see
(41)
a.
b.
These diagrams involve the high NegP above TP, and so would be applicable to Spanish and Greek. For languages such Scottish Gaelic, negation would be in some higher C position immediately above the highest head in the inflectional layer (cf.
For both of the analyses above, we must assume some type of interpretable covert head movement of the modal. One immediate problem with this is that there is little to no empirical evidence for covert head movement independent of the proposal at hand. Covert head movement features prominently in early Minimalist work such as Chomsky (
A related empirical problem comes directly from the case of Scottish Gaelic in particular. Recall from section 3.1 that sentential negation in Scottish Gaelic is encoded by a negative complementizer, and that in at least some varieties the root necessity modal may scope over this negative element. The analyses above would necessitate an analysis where the modal moves covertly to some position above this negative complementizer. The trouble with this is that this instance of covert movement would need to be unique in the language, as other quantifiers are not able to scope over sentential negation, as shown in the sentences in (17), where universal quantifiers in subject and object positions scope below negation, even though QR is otherwise available (for object>subject scope). Similar facts are found in Ewe, as shown in (18), which also has a particularly high syntactic negation.
These facts are arguably part of a more general pattern, discussed in section 3.2, whereby negation in the CP-domain obligatorily takes scope over QPs in the clause that the C embeds (
An additional problem for the structures in (41a)–(41b) is that they involve multiple violations of the Head Movement Constraint (
The analysis in (41b) avoids the HMC problem that troubles (41a), but does so at the cost of an empirically unsuccessful account of the syntax of negation, since it involves analysing the overt negative element as a phrasal specifier. As noted above, Zanuttini (
The HMC problems only multiply once we consider the specifics of the embedded modal cases discussed in section 3.3. In all cases, the modal occurs in some low position below negations of different kinds (high negation in Spanish, most likely low negation in the others), and so in order for these modals to scope over negation they must be undergoing covert head movement to some higher head position above the NegP projections. (42)shows how this might work for French, where T is occupied by an auxiliary such as
(42)
Movement of the modal incurs at least two violations of the HMC: one by crossing the base-generated position of the auxiliary, and one by crossing T. The landing site for movement of the modal must be some higher head position, since T is filled by
These considerations taken together, (42) looks like quite an unlikely analysis for the wide scope reading of the modal. A similar cluster of problems besets the analyses for the data from Spanish, French and English, and adopting a version of the analysis in (41b), where the modal raises through negation, would not improve matters, since the modal would still need to cross both the higher auxiliary’s trace and its derived position where it is adjoined to T. Stepping back from the technicalities for a moment, it seems fair to say that the kind of head movement that is required to derive (42) would be quite unlike anything else that is familiar from the overt syntax of these languages. Its status is suspicious at best.
A potential way out in the case of the embedded modal data is to confront the HMC head-on (
(43)
Procel
read
e
has
knigata.
book.
‘He has read the book’ (Bulgarian;
A possible analysis of the embedded modal facts is to say that the covert syntax of these modals is the same as the overt syntax of LHM, with the only difference being in patterns of pronunciation.
While this line of reasoning is familiar, and in principle capable of accounting for some of the data, it is still limited, since LHM is much more restricted than whatever mechanisms are involved in providing embedded modals with wide scope. One restriction on LHM is that it only applies in finite matrix clauses, much like V2 movement in Germanic (
(44)
a.
*Procel
read
ne
sum
has
knigata.
book.
b.
*Ne
procel
read
sum
has
knigata.
book.
‘He hasn’t read the book’ (Bulgarian;
This restriction does not apply to all LHM languages however, as Slovak differs from Bulgarian in allowing LHM in negative clauses if the negative marker attaches to the fronted participle.
(45)
Ne-napísal
som
have.
list.
letter
‘I have not written a letter’ (Slovak;
Rivero shows that the possibility of LHM in negative clauses correlates with the type of negation, such that it is impossible in languages with ‘high’ negation (where NegP occurs above TP,
Of course, it is possible to draw another, perhaps more nihilistic conclusion from the LHM phenomenon, namely, that the HMC is not a real restriction on syntax at all, and that any argument for or against specific analyses of head positions that is built on the HMC is doomed from the start. This would strip our argument in this section of much of its potency, and so we should acknowledge it. But any move in that direction would leave unaccounted for a great number of restrictions on rules that affect heads, and it would ultimately constitute an abandonment of much of the empirical base of syntactic theories of head movement, thus making it look decidedly less syntactic. This doesn’t seem to be a productive move for defenders of syntactic head movement to make.
Finally, one could consider the possibility that only
In summary, the data reviewed in section 3 is difficult to account for in terms of an account where modal scope is determined by classical head movement. Simply put, if the scope of modals is determined by syntax, then it should interact with syntax in a meaningful way. This is not what we see crosslinguistically.
Although our primary target in this paper is classical head movement of the head-head adjunction type, another implementation of head movement to discuss is the one in Matushansky (
The starting point for Matushansky’s article is the list of problems identified by Chomsky (
(46)
a.
It is an adjunction rule
b.
It is countercyclic, i.e. it violates the Extension Condition
c.
Moved heads don’t c-command their traces
d.
Identification of head-trace chains is problematic “as there is no reasonable notion of occurrence” (p. 38)
e.
It is subject to a much stricter locality condition (the HMC)
f.
It is not successive-cyclic but rather “snowballing”
These problems are also discussed insightfully by Roberts (
Matushansky’s proposal aims to address most of these problems by analysing head movement as an instance of very local head-to-specifier movement which is combined regularly with the morphological readjustment rule of
(47)
This analysis immediately solves the c-command problem and the countercyclicity problem, and it captures the “snowballing” property of head movement (it passes through and picks up all other heads on its way to its final landing site) by positing that spellout and thus m-merger apply at every maximal projection. As for the Attraction Problem, Matushansky analyses head movement as being driven by an uninterpretable c-selection feature on the attracting head, X above, and it attracts just the head of the lower projection YP because this is the minimal element that it can attract and satisfy the attractor’s requirements. Matushansky argues that phrasal movement is simply an instance of pied-piping, which applies when moving only the head is unavailable, and she claims that this holds whenever the attracting X and the attracted Y are not in an immediately local relation, due to a condition which she calls the Transparence Condition (p. 48):
(48)
A head ceases to be accessible once another head starts to project.
This predicts that head movement and phrasal movement should always be in complementary distribution, and it predicts that head movement will always be strictly local, as required by the HMC. Note finally that Matushansky’s approach requires that every maximal projection be a phase, since m-merger is cast as a morphological operation which applies after every step of head movement, and so every maximal projection will need to be sent to spellout in order to ensure that m-merger applies to every step of head movement.
How could Matushansky’s account be used to account for the modal scope data? Matushansky does not discuss covert head movement in her paper. The desired outcome is one where Matushansky-style head movement may apply freely and unconstrained by locality when it is covert. Syntactic and morphological restrictions conspire to derive the locality of head movement in this account – in particular, the combination of the c-selection trigger and the obligatory application of m-merger in each maximal projection – so it makes sense to look to the morphological component of this analysis as a means by which to set covert head movement free, since covert movement ought not to feed morphological operations.
The analysis does not predict that head movement should be completely free, because the Transparence Condition ensures that pied-piping will occur in any case where a probe attempts to attract a head X when it is contained in its XP. However, if the head X is first extracted covertly to the specifier of the immediately dominating YP, and m-merger fails to apply, then that X should be visible to any attracting head above. Thus in (49), if Z or B bear a [uX] probe (which is not necessarily a c-selection feature) then they should be able to attract X, unconstrained by the Transparence Condition, since X has been extracted from XP and thus its accessibility is not at stake.
(49)
Thus to derive long-distance head movement of X to Spec,BP, there would need to be three features implicated: a c-selectional feature that attracts X from within XP, an “edge” feature which attracts X to a non-terminal landing site, and a feature which attracts X to its (criterial) scope position. Although it is somewhat baroque, a derivation of this kind ought to get the desired result: moving modals covertly would be free of HMC restrictions. Thus the difficult case of Spanish embedded modals could be derived from a (simplified) structure such as (50), where the modal moves covertly via all available specifier positions all the way to Spec,XP, a position above the high NegP projection.
(50)
Here we review reasons to be skeptical about this analysis of covert head movement in particular, and Matushansky’s theory in general.
Most of the problems that we see come from the assumption that every phrase must be a phase, which is necessary to avoid allowing overt head movement to derive widespread excorporation. The claim that every phrase is a phase is shared by much work in Nanosyntax (
(51)
…
at
that
noen
some
gutter
boys
sannsynligvis
probably
må
must
ha
have
dratt
gone
til
to
Roma
Rome
“that some boys probably must have gone to Rome.”
(52)
…
at
that
noen
some
gutter
boys
sannsynligvis
probably
mot
against
sin
vilje
will
må
must
ha
have
dratt
gone
til
to
Roma
Rome
“that some boys probably must have gone to Rome against their will.”
Other arguments against the every-phrase-is-a-phase outlook are to be found in Fox & Pesetsky (
Another problem comes up when we consider how Matushansky’s theory captures the “snowballing” character of head movement. Consider (47) again, and in particular the next stage of the derivation where another head A is merged, shown below.
(53)
It is vital for Matushansky that m-merger applies to the moved head X and its host Y prior to merge of a next-higher head A, because if that doesn’t happen, A will only attract Y (the head it c-selects) and X will not be pied-piped with it, deriving something akin to excorporation. What this means is that spellout must make X-Y into a syntactically opaque complex head prior to any further syntactic operations applying, and so m-merger/spellout must feed syntax. This requires an “interleaving” of cycles of syntax and morphology which seems to be in direct violation of basic principles of modularity (see
This outlook also creates problems for the analysis of modals in particular. Recall that the outlook defended in I&Z was one where head movement of a modal would only be semantically non-vacuous if it had an effect on interpretation, for instance if it was to take a PPI-modal out of the scope of a c-commanding negation. This was necessary to capture the fact that non-PPI root modals typically scoped below negation unambiguously, across many languages. The claim in I&Z’s analysis was that any instance of modal head movement which did not have such an effect on movement would obligatorily undergo total reconstruction; we can understand this as involving deletion of the interpretable features of the higher copy which would feed semantic interpretation, subject to economy considerations (cf.
Taking these issues into consideration, we conclude that Matushansky’s theory of head movement is also unlikely to provide a satisfying account of the clause structure-insensitive nature of modal scope with respect to clausemate negation.
If head movement is not the right way to derive wide scope for necessity modals, what about phrasal movement? Phrasal movement is a suggestion that Homer (
(54)
Such an analysis predicts that the embedded vP should scope over negation as well, and there are cases that show this is not correct. Consider an example with
(55)
Mary isn’t supposed to know that I was cheated. supposed > not > know
*supposed > know > not
The same point can be made with cases where there are NPIs in the embedded clause. These ought to be unlicensed if the predicate they are contained in is moved covertly out of the scope of negation (see
(56)
Mary is *(not) supposed to think that anyone cheated.
This indicates that the
This seems to require an exotic species of partial predicate reconstruction, for example a version of the remnant movement-based account of Kayne (
A general point we take issue with is the existence of polarity-driven phrasal movement of PPIs, which is what Homer invokes in this analysis. There are other instances of polarity items that cannot undergo movement to rescue their grammaticality. For example, we saw that
(57)
*She won’t probably lose.
One could argue that since overt movement is available to rescue the grammaticality of this sentence, covert movement cannot be (cf.
(58)
She didn’t (*always) like anything.
(59)
a.
She didn’t (*always) need go there.
b.
She didn’t (always) need to go there.
The grammaticality of these sentences would be rescued if the NPIs
More generally, as argued in previous sections, wide scope readings of modals are subject to different conditions than more well-known instances of phrasal movement like typical quantifier raising. Movement of modals is restricted to specific necessity modals, while typical QR is available to all types of nominal quantifiers. Movement of modals is not restricted to any syntactic configurations, while typical QR is restricted to certain languages and syntactic configurations (
We conclude that the sketched phrasal movement account of Homer (
There is one argument that both I&Z and Homer use to back the movement analysis of modal scope:
(60)
Some students must not leave. (I&Z)
(61)
Exactly one pin mustn’t be knocked down.
These indefinites are not interpreted below negation, therefore, the only scopal construal that achieves the desired interpretation is one in which the modal has moved from below negation to above the indefinite.
We claim, following the same line of reasoning as in Jeretič (
(62)
Exactly one pin can’t be knocked down.
(63)
Unfortunately, about 10 students can’t fit into this room. (I will pick at random who gets to stay.)
(64)
Some things don’t need to be said.
In these three different scenarios, there is a clear available non-specific reading of the subject indefinite. Strikingly, this reading cannot be achieved by manipulating the scope of the three elements. The modals (
We take this to be evidence that there must be a mechanism to achieve the non-specific reading of the indefinite other than having it scope below the modal. Examples (62) and (64) are generic statements: a high scoping generic operator can thus provide the source of the non-specific reading, allowing the modal to stay below the indefinite. In (63), the statement holds of the (near) future, which can also be analyzed intensionally. We do not make any claims about what the final analysis for these sentences is, only that the source of the non-specific reading may be different than scoping below the modal, and thus it cannot be used as a diagnostic for movement of the modal in any of these sentences.
In the preceding discussion we have argued that the movement-based analysis of apparent wide scope for modals suffers from many problems when we try to extend it to a wide array of languages, and from that we have drawn the somewhat negative conclusion that a movement-based analysis is to be rejected. As noted in the introduction, the reasoning is akin to the reasoning in previous work on the scope of specific indefinite DPs, in particular their ability to escape islands: accommodating the facts with a fully syntactic, movement-based account would require a major revision of how we think movement works, so it is preferable on syntactic grounds to take up a non-movement-based in-situ account of the scope facts, should one be available. To conclude this article, we would like to take some time to outline a recent in-situ account of the modal scope facts which we think ought to provide a plausible alternative that we are in need of, for at least a subset of the cases of wide scope necessity modals. We then show how this proposal indeed captures insensitivity to the variety of syntactic parameters involved in a negated modal sentence.
Jeretič (
The analysis is implemented in a grammatical framework for scalar implicatures, such as Fox (
For example, English necessity modal
(65)
must
We assume that
(66)
It is assumed that when an utterance has alternatives, an exhaustification operator applies to strengthen the utterance by excluding these alternatives from the meaning of the utterance, or including them. In (67) is the definition of the exhaustifier proposed by Bar-Lev & Fox (
(67)
⟦
(68)
a.
b.
We assume this operator can apply at the TP or CP levels, and must apply if it globally strengthens the utterance.
Now, take a negated root
(69)
a.
b.
c.
⟦
Following (66), the set of alternatives of
(70)
To clearly present the derivation of the scaleless implicature, we simplify the domain of quantification
(71)
a.
b.
Using this simplified domain, we now derive the set of innocently excludable alternatives (IE) and that of innocently includable ones (II). The alternatives of the type ‘you must{
(72)
¬∀
Including them yields no contradiction: all alternatives are therefore II. The
(73)
a.
[
b.
≡ ¬∀
≡ ∀
Thus we can see that under a scaleless implicature analysis, LF movement of the modal above negation is not necessary to achieve the observed wide scope reading.
The exhaustification operation responsible for the strengthening to a wide scope reading is in principle not affected by the syntactic status or position of the negation or the modal. Analyzing wide scope interpretations of modals in this way allows us to capture their insensitivity to the variability of syntactic configurations covered in this paper. In contrast, what may affect the computation of an implicature are intervening semantic elements which affect the result of the exhaustification procedure.
We here name the types of syntactic options for negated modals discussed in this paper, and show how the scaleless implicature computation remains largely unaffected by them. Keep in mind that a scaleless implicature analysis need not (and arguably, should not) explain all instances of wide scope readings of modals mentioned in this paper. Here we just show that such an analysis is applicable in and insensitive to the variety of relevant syntactic configurations.
First, we take configurations from section 3.1, in which sentential negation appears before the modal, e.g. in languages without V-to-T like Russian, with preverbal negative particles, like Spanish, or embedded positions in V2 languages like Norwegian. These cases are straightforwardly explained, since they have an LF in which negation scopes above the modal, and
Examples from section 3.2 include negative DPs, negative inversion constructions, and modals embedded in
With negative DPs,
We first show that wide scope of the modal with NegDPs is derivable in the scaleless implicature analysis when the NegDP splits its scope between negation scoping above the modal, and the existential scoping below.
(74)
a.
b.
⟦
c.
⟦
Now, what happens if the NegDP does not scope split, and the existential is above the modal? In this case, the intervening existential affects the derivation, and
(75)
a.
??I looked at the list, and no-one (out of the people present) here must go.
b.
No-one here must go! ✔□ > ¬ > ∃
The examples above rely on a particular usage of
(76)
¬∃
The simple definition of subdomain alternatives is no longer applicable to this case, since there is no fixed modal domain
(77)
As per the rules of each household, no child from this class must go outside after dark. ✔□ > ¬ and ∃ > □
In this case, although the quantifier has an (obligatorily) specific interpretation, a wide scope interpretation of the modal is available, in contrast with the unanchored modal reading of (75a) which can only be interpreted below negation. A scaleless implicature analysis thus provides an explanation for each corner this intricate empirical picture. In contrast, a movement-based analysis does not. While it does give a natural explanation for the obligatory non-specific reading of the existential when the modal takes wide scope in (75), it cannot say anything about the reading observed in (77): first, a modal whose domain has a bound variable cannot move above the quantifier binding that variable; second, that quantifier has a specific reading, which indicates wide scope above the modal, again incompatible with movement of the modal above the negated existential.
Finally, as pointed out in section 3.2, some English speakers allow for narrow scope of the modal with NegDPs. We attribute the availability of this narrow scope reading to a particular property of the projection of alternatives adopted in Jeretič (
(78)
a.
[
b.
[
The locus of variation determining whether or not the LF in (78b) is available could lie in the syntactic position where exhaustification can occur (e.g. the TP or CP), the syntactic position at which alternatives are closed off, or whether exhaustification must happen before QR: this question is beyond the scope of this paper. Note that the property of alternatives being closed off at a clause boundary is also instrumental in explaining the narrow scope of
Turning to negative inversion constructions, e.g. ‘never/at no point must…’, these generally involve some kind of negative existential quantification to license the inversion. Therefore, the basic makeup of the LF is similar to the negative existential cases presented above. We do not go into the details of the analysis of these constructions, but it is reasonable to assume that they can have the same properties that license the wide scope interpretations in the cases observed with NegDPs, namely a) scope splitting of the negative existential on either side of the modal, or b) a meaning of `must' that is anchored to a time variable (or whichever variable is involved in a negative inversion licensing adverbial). Syntactically, negation in these constructions is taken to be in the FocP or CP, a higher position than the typical sentential negation position. This position, like in cases described above, does not prevent a scaleless implicature from arising, as long as
(79)
[
Again, there appears to be variation in whether the wide scope of the modal is the only reading available (as reported by Francis (
(80)
[
Finally, we find wide scope of
(81)
(82)
The set of alternatives of the negative coordination contains no IE alternative, because excluding the alternatives yields a contradiction, as shown below.
(83)
¬(
≡ ¬(
≡ ⊥ (because □{
Further, the alternatives can be included, and yield the desired interpretation, as shown in (84).
(84)
≡ ¬(
Finally, we turn to the case of modals in non-finite constructions, in which they are syntactically lower than their finite counterparts, because they do not move to T. Again, from a syntactic point of view, the exhaustification procedure does not care whether a modal is higher or lower in a structure, because the alternatives projected by the modal can percolate up to the matrix level. However, these embedded constructions may be associated with semantics that intervene with the exhaustification. And we see that in some cases, scaleless implicatures are observed, while in others, they are not.
Our examples of non-finite wide scope modals include infinitival constructions, near future tense and past counterfactuals in French, Spanish and Dutch, and small clause constructions in English. We do not show how the scaleless implicature analysis interacts with the semantics of these constructions, since details of proposals for the semantics of these operators are varied and complex, and may make different predictions in how they interact with exhaustification. The main point again, however, is that their syntax is not an issue in deriving wide scope.
As an example of semantic intervention in exhaustification, we cite one case in which perfective marking on modals in French and across languages effectively blocks scaleless implicature from being computed, as observed and analyzed in Jeretič (
The scaleless implicature analysis captures the polarity sensitivity of the availability of wide scope interpretations, previously observed by Homer (
(85)
If John mustn’t go, …
a.
if
… he has no choice but to stay.
b.
if John not must go ≡ if ¬□(John go)
… he has a choice to stay.
A movement account of wide scope necessity modals raises the question as to why there are no root possibility which can take wide scope above sentential negation (as mentioned in section 2). This asymmetry is explained if wide scope interpretations are derived using some kind of semantic strengthening. This is because the wide scope reading of a possibility modal relative to negation is weaker than its narrow scope, and therefore cannot be derived by strengthening, in contrast with a necessity modal, whose wide scope with respect to negation is stronger than its narrow scope.
We have presented an alternative analysis to the wide scope interpretations of necessity modals, which does not rely on movement, but rather on a semantic strengthening mechanism. This analysis, and semantics-based analyses more generally, is predicted to be largely insensitive to the variety of syntactic configurations of negations and modals, and therefore wide scope interpretations are expected to be observed across these cases, provided there is no intervening semantic operator preventing exhaustification.
The scaleless implicature analysis outlined above is however by no means the only available in situ analysis, and arguably shouldn’t apply to all cases of wide scope modals. A related but different analysis, also present in Jeretič (
In this paper, we argued against deriving apparent wide scope for root necessity modals with respect to negation by movement. We first argued that head movement is unlikely to be the source of wide scope readings of necessity modals in all languages. We showed that the availability of wide scope interpretations does not correlate with a language’s clausal structure, which would be expected to affect the availability of head movement. Instead, a number of additional tenuous assumptions would have to be taken to account for the data in such languages, namely covert head movement, and movement to a high, unclear position that would violate the HMC, and a movement that differs in its properties from overt head movement and QR. These problems multiplied when we considered a wider range of configurations for the wide-scoping modals, such as nonfinite and participial embedding contexts and contexts where the negative operator is particularly high.
Finally, we outlined the recent alternative account of the apparent wide scope readings for modals in Jeretič (
With all these considerations in hand, we suggest that the in-situ account of apparent wide scope for modals in Jeretič (
It has become commonplace to accept changes to the semantic theory (instead of allowing island-escaping QR), and to then consider what other predictions the revised semantic theory makes (see e.g.
Jeretič (
This position contrasts with that of epistemic modals, which are merged higher, above sentential negation, as argued by Hacquard (
As I&Z argue, modal PPIs can be of different strengths, and different dialects of English assign different strengths to
I&Z claim that
Homer claims it must be able to move in because it also passes a diagnostic for movement called the ‘pin test’; see section 4.4 for our take on this test. Furthermore, it goes without saying that this ‘double life’ is theoretically questionable and gives another reason to be skeptical of Homer’s analysis.
The claim that Russian lacks V-to-T movement is contended by Koeneman & Zeijlstra (
This modal is an adjectival predicate, with some non-standard properties (e.g. it appears before the copula in the past and future, as opposed to typical predicative adjectives). Its non-verbal status does not affect our point, and if anything, it supports it, since adjectives are not known to undergo movement. The same scope facts are replicated for necessity modals
The Russian data was provided to us by Masha Esipova.
The Slovenian data was provided to us by Zala Mojca Jerman Kuželički. See Jeretič (
The Norwegian data was provided to us by Øystein Vangsnes. He notes that (13a) gets the ¬ > □ reading if the modal is stressed, which is in line with the observations in I&Z. The □ > ¬ reading for (13a) is especially clear when the negation contracts onto the preceding modal auxiliary.
The Spanish data reflect the judgments of the first author, who is a native speaker. The Italian data were provided to us by Stanislao Zompì.
See McCloskey (
The morphological alternation here is between the “independent” form
There is a bit of murkiness to this observation. De Haan (
A reviewer notes that facts such as these might be accounted for independently by constraints affecting the interaction of universal quantifiers and negation, such as those proposed by Mayr & Spector (
All of the Tongugbe Ewe data was provided to us by Selikem Gotah.
Whether or not this negative element is base-generated or moved to its pronounced right-peripheral position is tricky to determine, as is whether the semantic scope of the negation is encoded by one part of the negation or the other. Collins et al. (
This reading is irrelevant to the current discussion, since we are interested in the availability of the wide scope reading. We provide a possible solution to the variable availability of the narrow scope reading of the modal when we introduce the alternative analysis of wide scope necessity modals in section 5.
The French data here and throughout reflects the native speaker judgments of the first author.
As already mentioned and I&Z point out, the wide scope of necessity modal
The same point can also be made with NPI adverbials, in particular
(i) a. I don’t think he ever has been known for being tactful.
b. I don’t think he has ever been known for being tactful.
(ii) Nobody in my family ever has been known for being tactful.
(iii) *He ever hasn’t been known for being tactful.
The force of this argument is tempered by the fact that the pre-verbal position for the adverb is sometimes dispreferred, and so this may be a substantial contributing factor in the judgment of the crucial example (iii).
The Greek example in (28b) is due to Maria Kouneli.
This reading does become possible if there is a big pause before
The perfective
There are, however, reasons to think that the wide scope in the counterfactual sentence (35c) is has a difference source from the one in present tense. Indeed, this construction is robustly neg-raising, i.e. the wide scope is obligatory under extra-clausal negation. And furthermore, it is known that counterfactual marking induces neg-raising behavior, see Agha & Jeretič (
These Dutch examples and judgments were provided to us by Maxime Tulling and Jeroen van Craenenbroeck.
Example from
We would like to suggest that the small clause data strengthens our case somewhat, since it demonstrates that the relevant readings can be obtained in an environment which is typically taken to lack the functional structure of full clauses (cf.
It is an open question if V-to-C in mainland Scandinavian stops at T; see Arregi & Pietraszko (
A third option is that the modal moves to adjoin to the NegP head and then takes scope over it from this position, on the assumption that adjoined elements c-command their host constituents (as in e.g.
See for instance Bobaljik (
For simplicity we are ignoring Pollock’s (
The exact formulation of the Transparence Condition in (48) seems to rule out extraction a head from a specifier as in (49), since a head embedded in the specifier of another head’s projection would be inaccessible. For the sake of getting this analysis off the ground we are choosing to interpret (48) as only rendering heads inaccessible when they are within their own maximal projections, which is the primary function of the condition in Matushansky’s proposal.
The same problem would arise for cases of overt head movement too in fact, such as movement of modals in Greek to T. Recall that Greek has verb-raising to T, as evidenced by adverb ordering facts, and it is also a high negation language in Zanuttini’s (
We use this alternative term, in order to avoid confusion with other
Note that I&Z contrast their example cited in (60) with an example with
(i) Some students may not leave. some students > not > may
While it may be true that the non-specific interpretation of
Other theories of scalar alternatives will say otherwise; if one wants to keep a more standard theory, we can encode scalelessness in
While negation must scope above the modal, as discussed in section 3.2 (seen e.g. with the unavailability of narrow scope of negation with ‘no-one can go’), the existential of the NegDP may scope below. An example that shows a non-specific (narrow scope) reading of the existential from a NegDP with respect to a modal is ‘No employees need to be fired.’ adapted from the famous split scope example from Potts (
Details go as follows. Subdomain alternatives are excludable, yielding an unattested inference.
a.
b.
c.
There are in fact arguments that language avoids encoding ‘non-connected’ meanings (
A similar tension is also to be found in the discussion of association with focus since Anderson (
We thank the anonymous reviewers and Chris Collins for comments and discussion, and for help with data we thank Stanislao Zompì, Jeroen van Craenenbroeck, Masha Esipova, Selikem Gotah, Maria Kouneli, Zala Mojca Jerman Kuželički, Gille-chrìòst MacGill-Eòin, Donald Morrison, Maxime Tulling, and Øystein Vangsnes.
The authors have no competing interests to declare.