화용론적 가정과 부정극어

Pragmatic Assumption and Negative Polarity Items

&nbsp;&nbsp;Pragmatic negative polarity items(PNPIs) can be NPIs not by the inherent lexical meaning but by the pragmatic assumption. This thesis aims to explore the principles and the conditions of PNPIs.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Expressions assumed as endpoints in pragmatic scales come to have upward entailments if used in negative sentences, and bear universal negative inferences. Therefore the endpoints cannot be used in positive context. If the expressions were used in positive contexts, the meaning of the sentences are contradictory to the universal negative inferences. In this reason these expression cannot occur in positive context, so they come to gain [+negative] features. By way of these features these expressions can be NPIs which can occur only in negative contexts.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;But these endpoint expressions can be used in positive contexts in literal meaning. So we may doubt whether these are real NPIs. But generally the usage of literal meaning of pragmatic NPIs is ignored in discussion, because these used in positive sentences as literal meanings are different from those of NPIs in nature.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;This thesis proposed two conditions which qualifies pragmatic endpoints as NPIs. Firstly, the exclusive usage in negative context must be conventionalized. Secondly, the usage of literal meaning should be extremely limited.