abstract: This thesis explores the distribution of certain lexical items in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and their relationship with two linguistic phenomena, negative concord (NC) and negative polarity items (NPIs). The present study examines two central questions: the first question investigates whether or not MSA shows the patterns of negative concord languages. The second question concerns the distribution of N-words and NPIs in MSA, and in which environments they appear. To answer the research questions, the thesis uses the framework of generative grammar of Chomsky (1995) and The (Non)veridicality Approach by Giannakidou (1998, 2000, 2002). The data reveal that MSA shows the patterns of strict negative concord languages that are suggested by Giannakidou (2000) in the sense that the negative particle obligatorily co-occurs with the N-words which strengthen the degree of negation, and never lead to a double negation interpretation. Moreover, the data show that there is only one pure NPI which appears optionally in two environments, antiveridical and nonveridical environments, and it is disallowed in veridical environments. On the other hand, the investigated indefinite nouns show a mixed picture since they work differently from their counterparts in Arabic dialects. Their descendants in Arabic dialects appear as NPIs while they tend to be indefinite nouns rather than NPIs in MSA. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. English 2013

In this thesis, I focus on scalar implicatures, presuppositions and their connections. In chapter 2, I propose a scalar implicature-based account of neg-raising inferences, standardly analyzed as a presuppositional phenomenon (Gajewski 2005, 2007). I show that an approach based on scalar implicatures can straightforwardly account for the differences and similarities between neg-raising predicates and presuppositional triggers. In chapters 3 and 4, I extend this account to “soft” presuppositions, a class of presuppositions that are easily suspendable (Abusch 2002, 2010). I show how such account can explain the differences and similarities between this class of presuppositions and other presuppositions on the one hand, and scalar implicatures on the other. Furthermore, I discuss various consequences that it has with respect to the behavior of soft presuppositions in quantificational sentences, their interactions with scalar implicatures, and their effects on the licensing of negative polarity items. In chapter 5, I show that by looking at the interaction between presuppositions and scalar implicatures we can solve a notorious problem which arises with conditional sentences like (1) (Soames 1982, Karttunen and Peters 1979). The main issue with (1) is that it is intuitively not presuppositional and this is not predicted by any major theory of presupposition projection. (1) I’ll go, if you go too. Finally, I explore in more detail the question of which alternatives should we consider in the computation of scalar implicatures (chapter 6). Traditionally, the answer has been to consider the subset of logically stronger alternatives than the assertion. Recently, however, arguments have been put forward in the literature for including also logically independent alternatives. I support this move by presenting some novel arguments in its favor and I show that while allowing new alternatives makes the right predictions in various cases, it also causes an under- and an over-generation problem. I propose a solution to each problem, based on a novel recursive algorithm for checking which alternatives are to be considered in the computation of scalar implicatures and the role of focus (Rooth 1992, Fox and Katzir 2011). / Linguistics