Much, Appreciated: A Corpus Study of the Negative Polarity Tendency of Differential and Adnominal Much

Although much is a frequently occurring word of many uses, not much research has been done on the different types of much as a negative polarity item (NPI). Therefore, in this study, the NPI tendency of two different types of much were compared: differential and adnominal much. Generally, research shows that much tends to be an NPI, whereas differential much prefers non-negation over negation contexts. Thus, the hypothesis is that there would be a strong tendency towards adnominal much occurring as an NPI, whereas differential much would not be an NPI. From the British National Corpus (BNC), 500-instance samples were analysed, and later compared with BNC searches for specific instances (that much, very much, etc.) in order to confirm their validity. These results were divided into NEG – in which negation took place – and POS – in which (implicit) negation did not take place. The results showed that NEG differential much only occurred in 5% of the instances, whereas NEG adnominal...Show moreAlthough much is a frequently occurring word of many uses, not much research has been done on the different types of much as a negative polarity item (NPI). Therefore, in this study, the NPI tendency of two different types of much were compared: differential and adnominal much. Generally, research shows that much tends to be an NPI, whereas differential much prefers non-negation over negation contexts. Thus, the hypothesis is that there would be a strong tendency towards adnominal much occurring as an NPI, whereas differential much would not be an NPI. From the British National Corpus (BNC), 500-instance samples were analysed, and later compared with BNC searches for specific instances (that much, very much, etc.) in order to confirm their validity. These results were divided into NEG – in which negation took place – and POS – in which (implicit) negation did not take place. The results showed that NEG differential much only occurred in 5% of the instances, whereas NEG adnominal much occurred in 28% of the instances. When both much types were combined with modifiers (i.e., very much, that much, so much, etc.), they mostly occurred in a POS context. The bare adnominal much instances – without any modifiers – are almost equally divided among NEG (100) and POS (109) instances. Overall, the NEG instances did not have a preference for a certain genre in comparison to their POS counterparts. The results imply that differential much is not an NPI, whereas adnominal much may have a tendency to occur in NPI contexts.Show less

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Much, Appreciated: A Corpus Study of the Negative Polarity Tendency of Differential and Adnominal Much