CRC 1412/1: Pragmatic Functions and Effects of Register Variation and Switch: a Register approach to negation and polarity (TP A07)

Negation and polarity have received much attention in both formal linguistic and sociolinguistic research. These two strands of research have been conducted without closer interactions in the past. In this project, we will study three sets of related phenomena in varieties of English: negative concord, pleonastic negation, and register-sensitive use of negative polarity items. All of these phenomena involve clear alternations with links to social meanings, which make them a promising empirical domain for the CRC. The project will use a combination of theoretical, corpus, and experimental linguistic methods to investigate the grammatical and register-related factors in these alternations. The findings will make important contributions to the study of linguistic and register variants, and to an improved understanding of register and the relationship of register knowledge to grammatical knowledge.