As strong as an NPI in LSF, NGT and LIS

Abstract

Negative polarity items emerge from the interaction between some propertiesof the semantic module of human language and its lexicon. This leads tothe expectation that they should be equally common in spoken and sign language,contrary to what has been documented. We describe the sign UNTIL in French SignLanguage, Italian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. We showthat under its punctual reading, UNTIL behaves as a strong negative polarity item,just like English until. We also discuss why more prototypical cases of polarityitems like any or ever are much harder to find in sign language