Inverse Scope and Indirect Negation

Abstract

The sentential negator not can have scope over the subject although the former fails to c-command the latter. When there is an asymmetry between syntactic structure and logical form, we can make use of either QR or Reconstruction. However, this paper shows that both approaches are not viable options, and then claims that the subject can be indirectly negated when not negates T, which denotes ‘true’. The main idea is that if T is negated, then the truth of its projection, TP, is negated since T denotes ‘true’ and so the constituents within TP can be negated.