Revisiting the particle -to in NPIs: on the issue of its quantificational status as even

Abstract

This paper explores the particle to by revisiting the issue of its association with Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). This paper argues that to in NPIs needs to be construed as a marker for its negative sensitivity by arguing against the claim that to in NPIs is identical to even, and quantificational (Sells 2001a, 2001b, 2006, Gill and Tsoulas 2006, An 2007). The main claim is threefold. First, the particle to in NPIs does not display the same scopal behavior as even does. Second, the reading provided by to in NPIs is not identical to that created by even. Third, to in NPIs allows its multiple occurrences with creating Negative Concord reading, whereas multiple tos construed as even are construed ungrammatical or pragmatically odd. Consequently, this paper claims that to in NPIs morphologically marks its negative sensitivity which needs to be distinguished from the item EVEN in light of the lexical approach to English even claiming that even is lexically ambiguous between a normal even and an NPI even (Rooth 1985, Rullman 1997, Giannakdiou 2007).