@article{oai:nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp:00028117,
 author = {Song, Wei},
 journal = {IVY},
 month = {Nov},
 note = {This paper analyzes NPIs in English comparative and interrogative clauses in terms of the licensing mechanism of NPIs proposed in Song (2011). Section 2 gives an overview of Song (2011), in which it is proposed that an affective element like not bears a [u-Foc] feature and an [i-Aff] feature, whilst an NPI bears an [i-Foc] feature and a [u-Aff] feature. In the system of Chomsky (2000, 2001), the two items enter into an Agree relation and the [u-Focl and [u-Aff] features are deleted, with the result that the NPI is licensed. Section 3 provides the licensing mechanism, of NPIs in comparative clauses. Horn (1972) observes that the free choice any, like other universal quantifiers, can be modified by adverbs like almost or nearly, whilst the NPI any, like other existential quantifiers, cannot be modified by such adverbs. Therefore, the fact that they can modify any in phrasal comparatives, but not in clausal comparatives leads us to assume that NPIs can only occur in clausal comparatives. Given the mechanism introduced in section 2, it is proposed that the complementizer than bears an [i-Aff] feature and a [u-Foc] feature, whilst the prepositional than bears no relevant formal features. The complementizer than enters into an Agree relation with an NPI, resulting in the deletion of the [u-Foc] and [u-Aff] features. The latter part of section 3 discusses consequences of the present analysis. First, it accounts for the fact that NPIs do not occur in comparative clauses lacking the complementizer than. Second, it also applies to as-comparatives, whose behavior cannot be accounted for under a semantic approach based on downward entailment. Section 4 provides the licensing mechanism of NPIs in interrogative clauses, accounting for the fact that NPIs are more likely to occur in yes-no questions than in wh-questions. It is proposed that in yes-no questions the interrogative morpheme in C enters into an Agree relation with the NPI it c-commands, whereas in wh-questions the wh-phrase blocks the Agree relation between the interrogative morpheme and the NPI due to the Defective Intervention Constraint. If the arguments in this paper are on the right track, they lend further support to the feature-based analysis of NPI licensing proposed in Song (2011) and highlight the necessity of a syntactic approach to NPIs.},
 pages = {1--17},
 title = {A Feature-based Analysis of Negative Polarity Items in English Comparative and Interrogative Clauses},
 volume = {45},
 year = {2012}
}