Xavier Villalba. Exclamatives and negation.

bq. In this paper it is argued that the highly restricted distribution of standard negation within exclamative sentences receives a principled explanation from the interaction of the basic semantic properties of the exclamative sentence-type – factivity and extreme degree quantification – with those of the negative operator. Particularly, the negative operator is shown to contradict in most cases the existential presupposition associated with the inherent factivity of exclamatives and/or the requirement that the exclamative degree operator quantify over a well-defined set of individuals. Moreover, it is argued that the only apparent counterexamples to this strong generalization receive a proper explanation once the crucial role of discourse salience is taken into account. Finally, it is shown that this approach can be extended with much profit to a large and unattested pattern of interactions and restrictions concerning quantification within exclamative sentences, with intesting theoretical consequences for the interval-based approach to the semantics of degree quantification.