Semantically negative adverbial clause-linkage: ‘let alone’ constructions, expletive negation, and theoretical implications

Abstract

One construction that has traditionally been neglected in the typological study of clause-linkage is that built on ‘let alone’ (e.g., the baby can’t even talk, let alone walk). The present study explores this construction in a convenience sample of 47 languages. There are languages in which ‘let alone’ clauses appear not only with a clause-linking device, but also with an optional standard negative marker. Moreover, there are languages in which standard negation is forbidden in the ‘let alone’ clause. Here it is shown that optional standard negation may be semantically empty or may have an expressive-evaluative layer of semantic interpretation. On the other hand, standard negation tends to be forbidden in ‘let alone’ clauses appearing with semantically monofunctional clause-linking devices. The paper further investigates whether the analysis advanced for ‘let alone’ clauses can be generalized to other semantically negative adverbial clauses: ‘without V-ing’, ‘instead of V-ing’, and ‘before’ clauses. It is demonstrated that in these latter adverbial clauses, standard negation may be forbidden or optional. Interestingly, unlike the situation with ‘let alone’ clauses, there are languages in which standard negation may be obligatory in the ‘without V-ing’, ‘instead of V-ing’, and ‘before’ clause. In this scenario, the adverbial relations are compositionally encoded by a standard negative marker together with a general marker.