On inhibited eventualities

Abstract

The existence of negative descriptions denoting events is controversial in the literature, since it implies enriching the semantic ontology with negative events. The goal of this article is to argue that the readings that have been called ‘negative events’—in contrast to sentential negation reading—should be analysed as inhibited eventualities. We will argue that the inhibited eventuality reading emerges when negation scopes over the verbal domain. Sentential negation, in contrast, scopes above the existential closure of the event variable. We will implement the analysis in a framework where the verbal domain combines symbolic objects that yield partial event-descriptions. These descriptions do not entail the existence of a Davidsonian eventuality with time and world parameters until they transition to the aspectual level. We will show that an analysis on these terms can capture the empirical properties of non-sentential negation without the need to propose negative events as objects in the ontology.