Keywords
Temporal expressions
Negative polarity item
NPI
Embedded clauses
Negation
Before meaning
Aspect
Double negation
Karitiana
How to Cite
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the behavior of the particle -ki in Karitiana, which acquires a meaning roughly similar to English ‘before’ when it appears in embedded clauses together with the adverbial suffix -t, but otherwise seems to behave as a negative particle in all other instances. Contrary to prior literature that analyzes -ki as a sort of aspectual marker in embedded clauses (cf. Rocha 2016 and Müller and Heleno 2023), we claim that -ki is still truly negation and has the same core meaning of a negative particle be it in matrix or embedded clauses, or adjectival constructions. The temporal meaning of -ki simply arises pragmatically as an implicature from the fact that the event denoted by the embedded clause has not (yet) occurred (as opposed to the event denoted from the matrix clause) and is though expected to occur, yet—even then—the later occurrence of the event is cancellable (which is a key difference from the default interpretation of a temporal clausal connective such as English ‘before’). This will allow to maintain a uniform analysis of the suffix -ki across all of its uses.
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