Turning expletive: From embedded speech-acts to embedded propositions

Abstract

This article focuses on a non-canonical use of negation in historical and modern French, characterized by an apparent absence of meaning: expletive negation. In search of the lost meaning of expletive negation, via a diachronic investigation from Latin to French, we establish that expletive negation originates from prohibitive negation. We put forward an analysis of prohibitive negation within Krifka (2014)'s model of embedded speech-act and propose that expletive negation is the continuation of prohibitive negation, and that it is what remains of a long-gone embedded negative imperative in French. Along this line of analysis, the article brings historical evidence in favour of the hypothesis that languages can develop from speech-act embedding to proposition embedding. Our analysis of prohibitive negation as a clause-typing negation marker in Latin and as a verbal mood negation marker brings new evidence to the claim that sentential and verbal mood marking are two intimately related phenomena.

Résumé

Cet article se concentre sur un emploi non-canonique de la négation en français historique et moderne, caractérisé par une apparente absence de sens : la négation explétive. À la recherche du sens perdu de la négation explétive et via une investigation diachronique du latin au français, nous établissons que la négation explétive descend de la négation prohibitive. Nous présentons une analyse de la négation prohibitive dans le modèle de Krifka (2014) pour les actes de langage enchâssés et proposons que la négation explétive est la continuation de la négation prohibitive. La négation explétive est ce qu'il reste d'un impératif négatif enchâssé, depuis longtemps disparu. Dans cette même ligne d'analyse, cet article apporte des éléments historiques de preuve en faveur de l'hypothèse selon laquelle les langues peuvent évoluer depuis l'enchâssement d'actes de langage vers l'enchâssement de propositions. Notre analyse de la négation prohibitive en tant que marqueur de négation jouant un rôle dans le typage de la clause en latin et en tant que marqueur de négation de mode verbal apporte de nouveaux éléments de preuve à l'affirmation que le mode phrastique et verbal sont des phénomènes intimement liés.

1. Introduction

Expletive negation is a cross-linguistic phenomenon whereby a negation marker receives a non-negative reading.¹ Across languages, the distribution of expletive negation is limited to a restricted set of contexts. Among these contexts, we find attitude verbs, and especially fear verbs, as shown in (1). We also find expletive negation with adverbial connectives such as exceptive connectives, notably with unless (‘à moins que’), see (2), or without (‘sans que’), as well as prospective temporal connectives, and in particular with before (‘avant que’), see (3), or until (‘jusqu’à ce que’). Also (for the most part in Romance languages), expletive negation occurs within comparative clauses, see (4).

1. (1) Depêche-toi!   Je   crains   que   tu   ne   sois   en

   hurry-2sg.imp-cl.2sg!  1sg   fear-1sg   that  2sg   exn  be-2sg.sbjv   in

   retard.

   late

   ‘Hurry up! I'm afraid you'll be late.’

2. (2) Je   te jure que je ne te toucherai pas,

   1sg cl.2sg swear-1sg that 1sg neg cl.2sg touch-1sg.fut neg,

   à moins que tu ne me le permettes.

   unless that 2sg exn cl.1sg cl.3sg allow-2sg.sbjv

   ‘I swear that I will not touch you, unless you allow me to.’

3. (3) Cendrillon doit rentrer chez elle avant que son carrosse ne se

   Cinderella must return at 3sg before that her carriage ExN refl

   transforme en citrouille.

   turn-3sg.sbjv into pumpkin

   ‘Cinderella must go home before her carriage turns into a pumpkin.’

4. (4) Elle est encore plus charismatique qu’on ne le pense.

   3sg is-3sg even more charismatic than3sgExNcl-3sg think-3sg

   ‘She is even more charismatic than what people tend to think.’

If expletive negation is an optional element in French, it is not necessarily so in other languages. In Greek, see (5a), or Russian, see (5b), expletive negation cannot be removed.

1. (5)

   1. a. Fovame na *(min) erthi.[Greek]

      fear-1sg.prs sbjv ExN come-3sg

      ‘I fear that he might come.’ (Giannakidou 1998)

   2. b. Ja bojus’kak by on *(ne) zabolel. [Russian]

      1sg fear-1sg.prsthat sbjv3sg ExN get.sick-3sg.prf

      ‘I fear that he might get sick’. (Inkova 2006)

In this article, we approach the distribution of expletive negation in French from a diachronic perspective, by tracing its historical trajectory to its Latin roots. In Indo-European linguistics, the idea of a historical relation between expletive negation and prohibitive negation is not new. Among others, it was explored for Greek by Chatzopoulou (2012), for Italian by Parry (2013) and for French by Mari and Tahar (2020). van der Auwera (2005, 2010) and Auwera et al. (2013) argue that prohibitive negation is the morphologically specialized negation that two thirds of the world's languages may possess for imperative sentences; see example (6a).

1. (6)

   1. a. Chớ uống rượu! [Vietnamese]

      neg drink alcohol

      ‘Do not drink alcohol!’

   2. b. Không uống rượu.

      neg drink alcohol

      ‘I/you/he/etc. am/are/is not drinking alcohol.’(van der Auwera et al. 2013)

We will show, based on cross-linguistic and historical evidence, that expletive negation arises from Latin prohibitive negation. While this is not a new claim (Ageno 1955, Lakoff 1968, Fruyt 2011, Parry 2013, Lakey 2015), the literature has left unexplained how the transition takes place. Our article fills this gap. We will argue that the historical emergence of an expletive reading of negation is closely related to “harmonic” (akin to the combination between modal verbs and modal adverbs; see Lyons 1977, Huitink 2012, Giannakidou and Mari 2018) uses of prohibitive negation in Latin, which are inherited in French. In our analysis, expletive negation continues the harmonic meaning of prohibitive negation, while reanalysis takes place on the syntactic side, along with a gradual change in the system of clausal complementation, developing from speech-act embedding to proposition embedding.

The article is structured as follows. First, we offer a view across three Indo-European languages – Greek, Albanian and Latin – of the distributions of prohibitive and expletive negations (Section 2). We focus on prohibitive negation in Latin in Section 3. Then we turn to the analysis of the negation ne in Latin and French in Section 4. Section 5 discusses a competing analysis. Section 6 briefly discusses previous approaches of expletive negation. Section 7 concludes.

2. Prohibitive negation across Indo-European languages

Many languages distinguish two or more morphologically specialized negation markers that serve distinct functions. In many languages, negative imperatives cannot be formed with the standard propositional negation. This fact is well documented in the typological literature (e.g., van der Auwera 2005, 2010; van der Auwera et al. 2013).

In this section, we present evidence for the morphological distinction between propositional (or declarative) negation and prohibitive negation in Indo-European languages, based on Turano (2000)'s study for Albanian, Chatzopoulou (2017)'s study for Greek, as well as historical data from Classical Latin. In the glosses, we will refer to the former (declarative) negation as neg_decl and to the latter (prohibitive) as neg_proh.

Unlike Joseph and Janda (1999) and Joseph (2002), we will not explore the details of the variety of functions that the prohibitive negation may serve in each of these languages. We will, rather, focus on a similarity between these languages, namely that the prohibitive negation may receive expletive uses, notably under fear verbs (see Table 1). We consider this cross-linguistic similarity as strong evidence of an intimate connection between prohibitive and expletive negation, one that warrants considering in detail the nature of this relation.

Table 1: Choice of negation marker in Latin, Albanian, Greek

2.1 Albanian

Modern Albanian distinguishes between a standard propositional negation nuk (which can be replaced by s’) and the negation mos, which is related to the imperative, optative, or subjunctive mood, in root clauses. In declarative contexts, nuk cannot be replaced by mos, see (7), and in imperative contexts, mos cannot be replaced by nuk, see (8), as observed by Turano (2000).

1. (7) Nuk/ *mos vajta në bibliotekë.

   neg_decl/neg_proh go-1sg.pstin library

   ‘I didn't go to the library.’

2. (8) Mos/ *nuk më ndihmo!

   neg_proh/ neg_declcl.1sg help-2sg.imp

   ‘Don't help me!’

Importantly for us, mos can receive expletive uses in the embedded clause of fear verbs, among other contexts (where it occurs as an optional element).

1. (9) Kam frikë se mos më vdes babai.

   have-1sg fear that neg_proh cl.1sg die-2sg father-the

   ‘I fear that my father will die.’

2.2 Greek

Modern Greek distinguishes between a standard propositional negation dhen and the negation mi(n), found in non-declarative contexts like imperative clauses or with the subjunctive (marked by the particle na). As observed by Chatzopoulou (2017), these two negations cannot freely alternate; see (10) and (11).

1. (10) o Jánisdhen/ *min írthe.

   the-nom Janis-nom neg_decl/ neg_proh came-3sg.pp

   ‘John did not come.’

2. (11) Mi/ *dhen féris ton Jáni!

   neg_proh/ neg_decl bring-2sg.pnp the-acc Jani-acc

   ‘Don't bring John!’

Min can receive an expletive use in the embedded clause of fear verbs, among other contexts (where it does not occur as an optional element).

1. (12) Fováme na min érthi.

   fear-3sg sbjv neg_proh come-3sg

   ‘I fear that he may come.’

2.3 Classical Latin

Classical Latin (roughly from 150 BC to 300 AD) distinguishes a standard propositional negative marker non, used with the indicative mood, and the negation ne, used with the imperative or subjunctive moods.

Latin prohibitive negation, which we discuss in subsequent sections, receives a (seemingly) expletive use with fear verbs, and with a wider set of verbs (where it does not occur as an optional element).

1. (13) Haec timeone impediantur.

   this fear-1sg neg_proh prevent-1sg.sbjv.pass

   ‘I fear that I may be prevented from (doing) this.’

   (lit., ‘I fear may I not be prevented from (doing) this.’)(Lewis 1879)

In view of this set of data, we turn to the investigation of the connections between prohibitive and expletive negation focusing on Latin and French.

3. Prohibitive negation in Latin

The goal of this section is to provide evidence that Latin prohibitive ne does not occur randomly in embedded clauses. Rather, the distribution of ne in embedded clauses is restricted to a set of attitude verbs that describe a certain type of imperative illocutionary force (e.g., directives, desideratives, etc.), thus adding a piece of evidence in favour of the hypothesis of a semantic connection between ne in unembedded and embedded contexts.

Imperative clauses are conventionally associated with a wide range of illocutionary forces (see Schmerling 1982, Hamblin 1987, König and Siemund 1999, Aikhenvald 2010, Condoravdi and Lauer 2012, Kaufmann 2012, Jarry and Kissine 2014, among others). For instance, depending on contextual conditions, imperatives may express requests, advice, permission, wishes, etc. The set of attitude verbs with which ne occurs also describe the various types of illocutionary forces that imperatives may have. For an overview of the distribution of ne in embedded clauses, see Table 2.

Table 2: Root clause/Matrix clause matching illocutionary forces

We use the label ‘priority attitudes’ (after Portner's (2007, 2009) label for deontic, teleologic and bouletic modals) the category of attitudes in the embedded clause of which the prohibitive ne occurs in Latin. These attitudes come in two sorts. On the one hand, there are positive priority attitudes (e.g., directives, desideratives). According to the analysis we will advocate for in the next section, when ne-clauses are embedded under positive priority attitudes, they are interpreted in conformity with the meaning of the embedding verb. For instance, a desiderative attitude (e.g., opto, ‘I wish’) expresses a wish and indicates that the embedded ne-clause is to be interpreted as a speech-act of the wish-type, see (14).

1. (14) Opto ne mihi somnus gratiam referat!

   wish-1sg neg_proh 1sg.dat sleep-acc gratitude-acc report-3sg.sbjv

   ‘I hope that my death will not be his reward.’

   (lit., ‘I hope may my death not be his reward.’) (Fronto, AurCaes, 1.4)

On the other hand, there are negative priority attitudes (e.g., prohibitives, apprehensives). Embedded under negative priority attitudes, ne-clauses are interpreted in a redundant fashion with respect to the meaning of the embedding verb. For instance, an apprehensive attitude (e.g., timeo, ‘I fear’) expresses an apprehension and indicates that the embedded ne-clause is to be interpreted as a speech-act of the apprehension-type. This is redundant, given what the embedded ne-clause expresses. This redundancy explains why such constructions, see for instance (15), are translated as involving no negation in the embedded clause. The exact nature of the concord mechanism which is at play in the “harmonic” interpretation of ne in clauses embedded under negative priority attitudes is a question discussed at length in Tahar (2022).

1. (15) Haec timeo ne impediantur.

   this fear-1sg neg_proh prevent-1sg.sbjv.pass

   ‘I fear that I may be prevented from (doing) this.’

   (lit., ‘I fear may I not be prevented from (doing) this.’)(Lewis 1879)

Note that across the three types of uses of Latin ne, namely in negative imperatives, under positive priority attitudes and under negative priority attitudes, we argue that ne carries one and the same semantic contribution: namely, ne(p) conveys that the speaker/the attitude holder prefers not-p to p. In a negative imperative, not-p is the course of action that the speaker favours. With positive priority attitudes, the attitude holder prefers not-p to p (e.g., in (14) the 1st person attitude holder prefers that his death not be somebody else's reward). Finally, under negative priority attitudes, the attitude holder also prefers not-p to p (e.g., in (15) the 1st person attitude holder prefers not being prevented from doing it to being prevented).

With negative priority attitudes, for the whole construction to convey a prohibition or an apprehension towards a negative event, the propositional (or ‘verbal’) negation non is required, in addition to ne, as in (16a) and (16b) (as mentioned in the synthetic works on Latin by Orlandini 2001; Bodelot 2003; Fruyt 2011; Pinkster 2015, 2021). Note that a literal translation for such constructions would involve a double negation.

1. (16)

   1. a. Sed timeo ne non impetrem.

      But fear-1sg.prs neg_proh neg_decl achieve-1sg.sbjv

      ‘But I fear that I may not obtain it.’

      (lit., ‘But I fear may I not not-obtain it.’) (Cicero, Att, 9.6)

   2. b. Timuit, nenon succederet.

      fear-3sg.prf neg_proh neg_decl succeed-3sg.sbjv.ipfv

      ‘He feared that he would not succeed.’

      (lit., ‘He feared may he would not not-succeed.’) (Horace, Ep, 1.17)

Turning to the empirical characterization of the contexts where prohibitive ne occurs in Classical Latin, we describe side by side the occurrence of ne in root imperative clauses and in embedded clauses.²

In Latin, both morphological imperatives, as in (17a), and morphological subjunctives, as in (17b), could be used interchangeably in the 2nd person, for the construction of root negative imperative clauses (Pinkster 2015).

1. (17)

   1. a. Uigila, ne somno stude.

      stay.awake-2sg.imp,neg_proh sleep-dat seek.for-2sg.imp

      ‘Open your eyes, don't fall asleep.’ (Plautus, Mil, 215)

   2. b. Da mihi hanc ueniam,

      give-2sg.imp poss.1sg.datdem.acc mercy-acc

      ignosce,irata ne sies.

      forgive-2sg.imp, angry neg_proh be-2sg.sbjv

      ‘Grant me this mercy, forgive me, don't be angry.’(Plautus, Am, 924)

Embedded under attitude verbs, ne-clauses do not allow for the morphological imperative. Only morphological subjunctives are attested (Pinkster 2021). Still, embedded clauses of this kind closely correspond to root imperative clauses, which even leads Pinkster to call them “imperative” clauses.³ Indeed, the distribution of embedded ne-clauses argues in favour of a semantic connection between the interpretation of root imperative clauses and the interpretation of the embedded clause. The embedded clause, by spelling out the meaning of the embedding attitude, maintains the illocutionary flavours (or forces) characteristic of imperative clauses, which we now describe.

Commands (and Prohibitions) With Condoravdi and Lauer (2012), we group together directive illocutionary acts as COMMANDS. Furthermore, along with Sadock and Zwicky (1985), Bybee and Pagliuca (1985), and Pakendorf and Schalley (2007), we refer to the negative counterparts of imperatives with a directive force as Prohibitions. Directive and prohibitive speech-acts not only express the speaker's desire towards the (non)realisation of the situation described by the proposition, they also express a request for the addressee's compliance. This request for compliance, as argued by Huddleston (2002), comes in various subflavours.

1. (18) Negative Command (‘Prohibition’):

   Meam domum ne inbitas

   poss.1sg.acc house-acc neg_proh enter-2sg.sbjv

   ‘Don't enter my house!’ (Plautus, Epid, 145)

2. (19) Directive attitude + ne-clause:

   Caesar suis imperavitne quod omnino telum in

   Caesar poss.dat order-3sg.prf neg_proh some none weapon-acc to

   hostes reicerent.

   enemies-acc throw-3pl.sbjv.ipfv

   ‘Caesar ordered them not to throw back any weapon.’(Caesar, Gal, 1.46)

3. (20) Prohibitive attitude + ne-clause:

   Gracchus (…) prohibuisse,ne decerneretur,ut

   Gracchus (…) forbid-3sg.prf neg_proh decide-3sg.sbjv.ipfv that

   imago sua triumphali ornatu e templu

   image-nom poss.nom triumphally decoration-abl outside temple

   Iouis

   Jupiter

   ‘Gracchus forbade people to decorate the temple of Jupiter with his image.’

   (Livy, AUC, 38.56)

4. (21) Negative Request (‘Impedition’):

   (Palaestrio does not want a soldier to interfere while his former mistress,

   who has fainted, is regaining consciousness.)

   Ne interueneris,quaeso, dum resipiscit.

   neg_proh interrupt-2sg.sbjv please while regain-consciousness-3sg.prs

   ‘Don't interfere, please, while she's recovering.’ (Plautus, Mil, 1333)

5. (22) Rogative attitude + ne-clause:

   Id ne faceremrogarent.

   pro.3sg.acc neg_proh do-1sg.sbjv.ipfv ask-3pl.sbjv.ipfv

   ‘They would have asked me not to do it.’ (Cicero, Planc, 91.11)

6. (23) Impeditive attitude + ne-clause:

   Scilicet obstabit custos, ne scribere possis?

   Apparently prevent-3sg.fut guard-nom neg_proh write-inf can-2sg.sbjv

   ‘Apparently, a guard could prevent you from writing?’ (Ovid, Ars, 3.619)

7. (24) Negative plea:

   Da mihi hanc ueniam,ignosce,

   give-2sg.imp poss.1sg.dat dem.acc mercy-acc forgive-2sg.imp

   irata ne sies.

   angry neg_proh be-2sg.sbjv

   ‘Grant me this mercy, forgive me, don't be angry.’(Plautus, Am, 924)

8. (25) Precative attitude + ne-clause:

   Obsecro, ne indiciumero facias

   implore-1sg.prs neg_proh denunciation-acc master-dat do-2sg.sbjv

   meo.

   cl.1sg.dat

   ‘I implore you not to betray us to my master.’ (Plautus, Mos, 743)

9. (26) Negative advice (‘Dissuasion’):

   Isto bono utare, dum adsit;cum

   dem.abl good-abl use-2sg.sbjv while be.present-3sg.sbjv; as.long.as

   absit,nerequiras.

   lack-3sg.sbjv neg_proh seek-2sg.sbjv

   ‘Make use of that blessing, while you have it; when it is lacking, do not yearn for it.’ (Cicero, Sen, 33.9)

10. (27) Hortative attitude + ne-clause:

    Non it,non it, quia tanto opere

    neg_decl go-3sg.fut neg_decl go-3sg.fut because so.much

    suades ne ebitat.

    advise-2sg.prs neg_proh go-3sg.sbjv

    ‘He won't go, he won't go, because you advise him so much not to.’

    (Plautus, Stich, 608)

11. (28) Dehortative attitude + ne-clause:

    Hannibal (…) me dehortatur dissuadetque,

    Hannibal (…) cl.1sg.acc discourage-3sg.prs dissuade-3sg.prs-and

    ne bellum geram.

    neg_proh war-acc make-1sg.sbjv

    ‘Hannibal discourages me and dissuades me from making war.’(Gellius, NA, 6.2)

12. (29) Negative Warning:

    Uigila, ne somno stude.

    stay.awake-2sg.impneg_proh sleep-dat seek.for-2sg.imp

    ‘Open your eyes, don't fall asleep.’ (Plautus, Mil, 215)

13. (30) Admonitive attitude + ne-clause:

    Illud autem te admoneo, ne [eorum

    dem.acc yet cl.2sg.acc warn-1sg.prs neg_proh pro.pl.gen

    more qui non proficere sed conspici

    customs.abl pro.relneg_decl progress-inf but show.off-inf.pass

    cupiunt], facias aliqua.

    want-3pl.prs do-2sg.sbjv likewise

    ‘Yet, I warn you of this, don't behave like those who want, not to progress, but to be seen.’ (Seneca, Ep, 5.1)

Wishes and Apprehensions Imperatives may as well serve no directive function, but merely express the speaker's desire for the (non)realisation of the content of the proposition. Wishes and their negative counterparts, Apprehensions,⁴ do not express a request for the addressee's cooperation. In fact, wishes such as well-wishes (Get better!) can be addressed, but they need not be.

1. (31) Negative wish (‘Apprehension’):

   Ne di sirint!

   neg_proh gods-nom allow-3pl.sbjv

   ‘May the Gods not allow it!’ (Pinkster 2015:506)

2. (32) Desiderative attitude + ne-clause:

   At ne videas velim.

   but neg_proh see-2sg.sbjv want-1sg.prs

   ‘But I wish you wouldn't see it.’ (Plautus, Rud, 1067)

3. (33) Apprehensive attitude + ne-clause:

   Timeo, ne malefacta mea sint

   fear-1sg neg_proh misdeeds-acc mine be-3sg.sbjv

   inventa omnia.

   discovered-ptcp-pst all

   ‘I fear that my past misdeeds will be discovered.’ (Lewis 1879)

We now substantiate our hypothesis of a semantic relation between ne in imperative clauses and embedded contexs by designing a diachronic path from Latin to Modern French.

4. From speech-act embedding to proposition embedding

Our analysis spells out two stages of change in the syntax of clausal embedding from Latin to French. Speech-act embedding is the first stage: the embedding attitude selects a negative imperative clause. The second stage is proposition embedding: the embedding attitude selects a propositional complement, with expletive negation.

4.1 Parataxis

Jespersen (1917) was one of the first to suggest that Latin ne-clauses are in some way treated as independent sentences when occurring under prohibitive or apprehensive verbs. Under his analysis, such clauses retain both the syntax and the semantics of a root negative imperative. He was followed by different scholars, including Ageno (1955) and Parry (2013), for whom the Latin ne-clause is paratactically juxtaposed to the verbal clause (e.g., Timeo; ne veniat, ‘I fear; may he not come!’).

What Jespersen was suggesting is that verbs like prohibeo and timeo receive a parenthetical use. They serve a presentative function having almost no interpretative effect upon the negative imperative, which has a main point status (see Simons 2007).

Prohibitive verbs name the illocutionary act performed by the negative imperative (“X forbids: prohibition”). The meaning of the main verb is thus redundant with that of the ne-clause, with respect to the whole construction. In the same line of thought, one can add that the presentative function that apprehensive verbs serve is meant to provide evidential motivation (see also Krifka 2017; Simons 2007) to the utterance of the negative imperative (“X fears: apprehension”).

This line of analysis is based on the old assumption that languages follow a diachronic trajectory of development from parataxis to hypotaxis (see for instance Bennett 1910, Wallin 1910, Meillet and Vendryes 1924). According to this assumption, a language displays, at early stages of its development, paratactic constructions that ultimately develop into subordinated constructions.

The matching of illocutionary flavours between matrix imperatives and embedded subjunctives in Latin makes a paratactic analysis intuitively attractive. However, the paratactic analysis fails to capture the Latin facts adequately. In fact, even though subjunctive ne-clauses are introduced by no embedding device, they can also display characteristic properties of embedded clauses. They display sequence of tense, as in (19), repeated here as (34), as well as coreference between the matrix and embedded subject, see (35) (McCloskey 2006).

1. (34) Caesar suis imperavit ne quod omnino telum in

   Caesar poss.dat order-3sg.prfneg_proh some none weapon-acc to

   hostes reicerent.

   enemies-acc throw-3pl.sbjv.ipfv

   ‘Caesar ordered them not to throw back any weapon.’ (Caesar, Gal, 1.46)

2. (35) [Sententiam ne diceret_i]recusavit_i.

   opinion-acc neg_proh say-3sg.sbjv.ipfv refuse-3sg.perf

   ‘He refused to give his opinion.’ (Cicero, Off, 3.100)

In these cases we cannot evoke parataxis. For this reason we propose a middle ground analysis between a paratactic and hypotactic analysis (see Section 5).

4.2 Speech-act embedding in Latin

In a series of recent studies, Krifka has promoted the idea and developed a formal model for speech-act embedding (Krifka 2014, 2017, 2023; see also discussion in Crnič and Trinh 2009; Kaufmann 2012, and Woods 2016). He argues that in English, just as in German, the verb say can be used in two different configurations, as in (36). The verb only embeds a proposition in (36a); in (36b), say is claimed to embed a speech-act (of assertion).

1. (36)

   1. a. Mary said that she hates John.

   2. b. Mary said she hates John.

For Krifka, speech-act embedding is a device that can be applied to embedded clauses that show root clause property, such as the absence of sequence of tense in English, as in (36b), or verb-second in German, as in (37b).

1. (37)

   1. a. Mary sagte, das sie John hasst.

   2. b. Mary sagte, sie hasst John.

The structure corresponding to proposition embedding is given in (38a) and that corresponding to speech-act embedding in (38b) (Krifka 2014).

1. (38)

   1. a. ⟦[_VP Mary [$_{{\rm V}} $' say [_CP that [_IP she hates John ]]]]⟧

   2. b. ⟦[_VP Mary [$_{{\rm V}} $' say [_ForceP she hates John ]]]⟧

We follow Krifka's proposal and propose that, in Latin, ne-clauses are embedded speech-acts.⁵ However, embedded ne-clauses cannot display root clause property, as they do not allow for morphological imperatives, which remains an open issue for our speech-act embedding analysis.

In our perspective, we assume that ne is a specialised negation, with a clause-typing function. More precisely, we propose that ne heads the Force projection (Rizzi 1997). The structures corresponding to the fragments (39) are given in (40).

1. (39)

   1. a. Ne me territes. (‘Don't try to frighten me.’)

   2. b. Iubeo, ne me territes. (lit., ‘I order, don't try to frighten me.’)

   3. c. Prohibeo, ne me territes. (lit., ‘I forbid, don't try to frighten me.’)

2. (40)

   1. a. ⟦[_ForceP Ne me territes ]⟧

   2. b. ⟦[_VP Iubeo [_ForceP ne me territes ]]⟧

   3. c. ⟦[_VP Prohibeo [_ForceP ne me territes ]]⟧

An important insight in Krifka (2014) is that speech-act embedding verbs are speech-act reports; that is to say, they describe a locutionary act. A question-embedding verb may describe a locutionary act in an explicit manner (e.g., ask) or an implicit manner (e.g., wonder). To Krifka, wonder is a speech-act report insofar as it describes the psychological attitude one has when asking oneself questions.⁶ We follow Krifka in assuming that directives explicitly denote a locutionary act, just as desideratives implicitly do. However, we believe that imperative embedding verbs need not be speech-act reports. Indeed, ne-clauses may also be embedded under intention reports, like efficio (‘I try’) or uito (‘I avoid’).

1. (41) Efficio tacitum ne mihi funus eat.

   endeavor-1sg.prs shut.up-sup neg_proh my funerals-acc be-3sg.sbjv

   ‘I take heed that my funeral rites pass not off in silence.’ (Ovid, Tr, 5)

2. (42) Quem ego uitaui ne uiderem.

   him-acccl.1sg avoid-1sg.pfv neg_proh see-3sg.sbjv.ipfv

   ‘And this man, I avoided seeing him.’ (Cicero, Att, 3)

Our proposal is thus that, in Classical Latin, directives and desideratives have the ability to embed imperative speech-acts. Speech-act embedding may correspond, if the hypothetical earlier stage of parataxis were to be confirmed in ancestors of Latin, to an intermediary stage of development between parataxis and hypotaxis.

4.3 Proposition embedding in French

With the rise of the overt-complementation system in Old French, the Latin prohibitive ne undergoes syntactic reanalysis. We believe that expletive ne in French is a descendent of Latin ne. Note that the French expletive ne is homonymous with the standard negation ne, but we make the assumption that these two markers were morphologically distinct until the standard negation ne lost its negative meaning to pas due to the Jespersen cycle. Recall that Latin ne is semantically redundant with the intrinsic negativity of the negative priority embedding verb. We argue here that expletive negation is semantically in harmony with the intrinsic negativity of the (attitudinal) embedding verb (see infra).

During the transition from Latin to French, the use of the complementizer que (originating from the Latin indicative complementizer quod; see Vincent 1988) develops and becomes more systematic.

Directives and desideratives (and by extension, their negative counterparts) systematically subcategorize for que-clauses (or infinitival complements) by the end of the Old French period. They thus cease to embed imperative speech-acts and start behaving, syntactically, as attitude reports.

Our proposal is that with the development of the que from Latin to French, prohibitive ne loses its clause-typing function in embedded clauses. The key change is that prohibitive ne fossilizes into a modal negation, undergoing downward-reanalysis from ForceP to MoodP, under negative priority attitudes; see (45). Crucially, there is a continuity of meaning of harmonic ne in Latin and French, despite its syntactic reanalysis. To get from (43) to (44) essentially no semantic change is required.

1. (43) Timeo, ne malefacta mea sint inventa

   fear-1sg neg_proh misdeeds-acc mine be-3pl.sbjv discovered-ptcp-pst

   omnia.

   all.

   ‘I fear that my past misdeeds will be discovered.’ (Lewis 1879)

2. (44) Je crains que mes anciens méfaits ne soient découverts.

   1sg fear-1sg that my ancient misdeeds ExN be-3pl.sbjv discovered.

   ‘I fear that my past misdeeds will be discovered.’

3. (45) ⟦[_VP Je crains [_CP que [_IP mes anciens méfaits ₁ [_MoodP ne + sont ₂-sbjv [_VP t₁ t₂ découverts ]]]]]⟧

With ne reanalyzed as a negation marker base-generated in the Mood projection, our diachronic investigation resonates with accounts that reach a similar conclusion based on synchronic evidence. In particular, Zovko-Dinković and Ilc (2017)'s synchronic analysis of expletive negation in Croation and Slovenian (building on Abels (2005)'s analysis for Russian) also concludes that the negation which receives an expletive reading is base-generated in MoodP.

From a semantic perspective, we propose that ne in MoodP conveys the speaker's preferential attitude towards the negation of the proposition. Just as in imperatives clauses, ne conveys a general meaning of dispreference: the speaker wants not-p to be realized. We argue that ne is reanalyzed in MoodP as it enters ‘Modal Harmony’ with embedding verbs that express negative preferences.

The notion of ‘Modal Harmony’ was introduced by Lyons (1977), Huitink (2012), and Giannakidou and Mari (2018), among others, who explored the relation between modal verbs and adverbs.

1. (46) John must definitely be at home.

Modal Harmony relies on the idea that two modal elements bear the same meaning; in (46), for instance, the modal and the adverb bear the same epistemic flavour.⁷ Unlike with Negative Concord approaches, there is no notion of semantic dependency (as in Espinal 1992, 2000; see discussion in section 6.1). The main idea is that, together with the embedding verb, expletive ne yields a unitary semantic meaning of dispreference at large. Note that, like adverbs, expletive negation can be omitted in Modern French, without any change in the interpretation of the sentence.

1. (47) Je crains qu’ il soit arrivé quelque chose à mon chien.

   1sg fear-1sg that 3sg be-3sg happened some thing to my dog

   ‘I fear that something happened to my dog.’

To sum up: in our analysis, directive and desiderative attitudes embed imperative clauses in Latin, and in this context prohibitive negation is a contentful element which has a clause-typing function. Imperative embedding is lost and proposition embedding becomes the only option in French for directives and desideratives and their negative counterparts. Prohibitive negation fossilizes into expletive negation with negative priority attitudes.

Second, our analysis provides a new handle on understanding how languages develop from parataxis to hypotaxis, by positing an intermediary stage of speech-act embedding, where there is embedding – as evidenced by consecutio temporum and pronominal coreference – without complementizer. Finally, we hope that we have shed new light on the intricacies between sentential and verbal mood as two intimately related phenomena (see Portner 2018, a.o.).

5. An alternative hypotactic analysis for Latin

A competing analysis of the relation between prohibitive and expletive negations could rely on the Performative Hypothesis, notably by Lakoff (1968) (see also Mari and Tahar 2020). The Performative Hypothesis, also developed in the works of Ross (1970), Sadock (1974), and Katz (1977), provides a declarative semantics for imperatives. In this framework, imperative clauses contain an implicit performative verb in their deep structure: an imperative sentence like (48a) and a performative sentence like (48b) are deemed truth-conditionally equivalent (but see Boër and Lycan 1980; Levinson 1980 or more recently Jarry and Kissine 2014; Portner 2016 for criticisms of this approach).

1. (48)

   1. a. Clean your room!

   2. b. [I order that] you clean your room.

More recently, Mari and Tahar (2020) have revisited the Performative Hypothesis. For them, along with Kaufmann (2012), the variety of forces that imperatives may have are hard-coded in the semantics and not reconstructed in the pragmatics, via inferential mechanisms (à la Wilson and Sperber 1988, and Condoravdi and Lauer 2012). They posit the presence of an abstract operator Imp in the semantics of imperative clauses and propose a unified modal semantics for the imperative operator and for priority attitudes.

In Lakoff's analysis and, by extension, in Mari and Tahar (2020)'s, it is argued that ne in embedded position is a complementizer (a hypothesis shared by Vincent 1988, Orlandini 2001, Roussou and Robert 2003, Fruyt 2011, Lakey 2015, among others), which is selected by the embedding verb and has the capacity of selecting a subjunctive clause.

1. (49)

   1. a. ⟦[_ForceP Imp [_NegP ne [_IP me territes ]]]⟧

   2. b. ⟦[_VP Iubeo [_CP ne [_IP me territes ]]]⟧

   3. c. ⟦[_VP Prohibeo [_CP ne [_IP me territes ]]]⟧

An alternative syntactic analysis, which considers the embedded ne-clause to be headed by a null complementizer, could as well be considered within Lakoff's and Mari and Tahar's line of reasoning.⁸

1. (50)

   1. a. ⟦[_ForceP Imp [_NegP ne [_IP me territes ]]]⟧

   2. b. ⟦[_VP Iubeo [_CP $\emptyset $ [_NegP ne [_IP me territes ]]]⟧

   3. c. ⟦[_VP Prohibeo [_CP $\emptyset $ [_NegP ne [_IP me territes ]]]⟧

In both cases, however, we have to stipulate hidden mechanisms or operators, which, for methodological reasons, we prefer to abstain from. In (49), we have to stipulate that ne does not occupy the same syntactic position in root clauses and in embedded clauses. In other terms, as per Fruyt (2011) and Lakey (2015), we have to posit that Latin prohibitive ne grammaticalizes onto a subordinator when occurring in embedded clauses (a claim for which there is no diachronic evidence, to the authors’ knowledge).⁹

6. Previous analyses of expletive negation and discussion

This section compares our account to previous ones. We leave aside the discussion of expletive negation in root clauses (such as Portner and Zanuttini 2000's account for exclamatives and Eilam 2009's account for free relatives), under the working assumption that expletive negation in root and embedded clauses is not a unified phenomenon (see also Greco 2019). We also leave aside the discussion of expletive negation in adverbial clauses (such as Tovena 1996's and Margulis 2018's accounts for until-clauses). Still, to understand how the present account would generalize to adverbial clauses, the reader is referred to Tahar (2021a), who argues that expletive negation enters Modal Harmony with the negative preference component conveyed at the pragmatic level by avant que-clauses (‘before’) or at the truth-conditional level by à moins que-clauses (‘unless’) in French.

6.1 Expletive negation as a negative concord item

Previously, van der Wurff (1999); van der Wouden (1994) and Espinal (2000) have posited that expletive negation is a Negative Polarity Item. Relatedly, Espinal (1992, 2000) and Zeiljstra (2004) have posited that expletive negation enters Negative Concord with the embedding context. Together with the main verb, expletive negation would yield a ‘single-negation’ semantic reading. To the previous authors, expletive negation is indeed embedded under ‘inherently negative’ contexts.

In the works of van der Wurff (1999) and van der Wouden (1994), it is argued that the negativity of the contexts of appearance of expletive negation relies on downward-monotonicity. Subsequent works like that of Espinal (2000) propose that the negativity of contexts where expletive negation occurs relies on nonveridicality (see also Jin and Koenig 2019), defined as the property of operators that do not entail the truth of the proposition they take as argument (see Zwarts 1995, Giannakidou 1998, 1999, 2011), with respect to an epistemic model (see Giannakidou and Mari 2015, 2016, 2021). Simply relying on downward-monotonicity or non-veridicality would lead to an obvious over-generalization. For instance, downward-monotonic predicates such as the emotive-factive attitudes regret or be surprised (see von Fintel 1999 for a discussion) do not allow for expletive negation. Similarly, belief predicates do not allow for expletive negation in spite of being non-veridical (they do not entail p).

Finally, for Espinal, the main predicate is interpreted as semantically ‘negative’, while the negation marker in the subordinate clause is interpreted (out of a semantic mechanism of ‘logical absorption’) as a dependent concord item, which is semantically empty. Our analysis proposes an alternative explanation, grounded in the diachronic trajectory from prohibitive negation, by appealing to the notion of Modal Harmony rather than the notion of Negative Concord. According to our account, both the attitude and the negation bear the same modal meaning of negative preference. Since the negative preference remains once the expletive negation is omitted, it is hard to find contexts in which the negative contribution of the expletive ne is visible. However, there are cases – especially with temporal connectives – in which this component can still be seen, as in (51).

1. (51) Context: A doctor receives a patient who promises to stop smoking once he has recovered from his current pneumonia.

   1. a. Vous devriez arrêter de fumer avant que vous soyez

      2sg should-cond stopof smoking before that you be-2sg.sbjv

      guéri.

      healed

      ‘You should stop smoking before you get better.’

      Intended: the speaker wants to convey a relation of consecution

      between the main event and the subordinate event.

   2. b. #Vous devriez arrêter de fumer avant que vous ne

      2sg should-cond stop of smoking before that you ExN

      soyez guéri.

      be-2sg.sbjv healed

      ‘You should stop smoking before you get better.’

      Intended: the same meaning as (51a).

The use of expletive negation in (51b) is infelicitous for the reason that the avant que-clause describes a positively valued event. Indeed, the most natural interpretation of (51b) would be what Tahar (2021b) labels an apprehensive use of the avant que-connective, conveying that the goal of the doctor is that his patient does not get better, which is conflicting with the intended interpretation.

6.2 Expletive negation as a modal particle

For Yoon (2011) and Mari and Tahar (2020), expletive negation is not a standard negation marker but a modal particle (but see also Makri 2013). For these authors, expletive negation is the grammatical reflex of a component related to the ordering source of the embedding verb. According to Yoon's analysis, expletive negation realizes the ordering source of the predicate, as it imposes an ordering on the (non-veridical) modal base M _B of the verb fear, ranking ¬p-worlds higher than p-worlds on a desirability scale.

1. (52) Scalar semantics for expletive negation with fear Yoon, 2011: p.161:

   1. a. If fear (x,p) is true in a context c, then M _B(x) ${\cap} $ p is not $\emptyset $ in c.

   2. b. The evaluative component of EN (x,p) expresses in context c

      as the following:

      M _B(x) – p >_Desirability M _B(x) ${\cap} $ p in c

While stating that expletive negation is the morphological realization of the ordering source of the embedding verb provides only an ad hoc solution which we cannot retain as such, our diachronic analysis supports the view that expletive negation conveys a meaning of negative preference.

7. Conclusion

In this article, we have argued that there is a morphological distinction between a negation marker dedicated to the construction of imperatives and a standard negation marker, in Latin. We have taken as an assumption that expletive negation in French continues the prohibitive negation from Latin. For Latin, we have argued that prohibitive negation (i) heads ForceP, a functional head encoding clause-typing information, and (ii) either introduces root negative imperatives or negative imperatives embedded under directive or desiderative (and by extension, prohibitive and apprehensive) attitudes. We then argued that prohibitive negation, from Latin to French, (i) loses its grammatical function in embedded context, and (ii) undergoes downward syntactic reanalysis to MoodP. Semantically, we argued that there is a continuity between harmonic uses of prohibitive negation in Latin and the expletive negation. Our analysis proposes that expletive negation enters Modal Harmony with negative priority attitudes, as both bear a meaning of negative effective preference (i.e., that not-p be realized).

Once the expletive negation becomes stable in attitudinal context, its use starts spreading across other constructions, such as adverbial connectives (Tahar 2021a, 2022) as in later stages of the history of French, starting in the 17th century. The fact that expletive negation becomes productive in a new syntactic environment recalls the grammaticalization path known as generalization (Hopper and Traugott 1994, Heine 2003, Boerm 2008). It is not a mere coincidence that the generalization of expletive negation to new syntactic contexts takes place by the 17th century, at the stage of the Jespersen cycle when ne loses its negative meaning to pas or to another postverbal negator. It is reasonable to assume that preverbal negation ne at this stage is no longer a negation marker (as argued, for instance, by Wallage 2005, 2008, Breitbarth 2009). The semantic reanalysis of the preverbal marker of standard negation, into what Breitbarth (2009) names a “polarity” negation, could have resulted in endowing this marker with a semantic content akin to that of expletive negation. Both expletive and standard ne could plausibly have merged at this point in the history of French into a single functional item, which could have triggered the observed resurgence of productivity in the usage of expletive negation.