Expletive Negation as a Complex Phenomenon: the case of Expletive Negation in Italian Comparative and Temporal Until-Like Clauses

Negation is a universal element of human languages. Usually, it reverses the truth-value of an utterance, but there are peculiar cases in which negation loses its explicit logical function. This dissertation aims to provide a state-of-the-art point of view on negation from a multidisciplinary perspective, so to justify the curiosity on the particular case of expletive negation. Negation requires a longer processing time, yields to higher error rates, and is being lately integrated in the discourse model. Hence, the literature proposes to look at negative sentences as calling for additional processing costs in comparison with the affirmative and non-negative ones in general. However, it has been highlighted how there are factors which may affect negative sentences processing reducing its costs, such as discourse components, discourse contexts and pragmatic factors. It has been seen that there is a difference between the first use of negation during infancy and a full development of the conceptual, logical, and abstract aspects of negation in a discourse, namely its truthvalue reversing property. Negation may be synthetized, indeed, as a logical component, applicable in diverse contexts and on various contents on the base of its logical form. Also, as concerning the abstract representation of negation in the brain, its link to emotion and its peculiar role in abstract and concrete sentences have been discussed. The specific case of expletive negation has been addressed. Expletive negation is a puzzling example of the complexity lying behind negation role in natural languages. Diverse accounts to explain expletive negation functions in the discourse have been developed. The results of our questionnaires administration are here presented as challenging our expectations about this investigation. In conclusion, this study led to us to rethink our position in the debate about expletive negation essential features. Particularly, it seems to behave differently in the various instances of clauses in which it occurs. Specifically, interpretation of temporal until-like clauses seems to be facilitated in the presence of expletive negation, while the reverse is true for comparative clauses. These findings will be useful to guide the next steps on expletive negation investigation.