Quantification and focus in negative concord

This paper provides evidence that Negative Concord in a single language can simultaneously realize two cross-linguistically available options along two parameters, which parameters are thereby shown to be available in typological terms independently of each other. N-words in Hungarian can be semantically negative or non-negative, and both types are lexically ambiguous between a universally quantified and a non-quantificational indefinite interpretation, confirming a typological prediction of Giannakidou (2000). N-words belonging to the negative paradigm are modified by a negative particle which the non-negative paradigm lacks. The negative n-words are in complementary distribution with each other and with clausal negation preverbally. The universally quantified and the existentially closed indefinite interpretations have different syntactic distributions verifiable among other in terms of presuppositionality effects and modifiability by certain quantification-senstitive elements. N-words are demonstrated to be syntactically focusable in Hungarian, which fact is linked to a historically tracable EVEN component residing in the modifying particle of the negative n-word paradigm, in line with Lahiri (1998) and Horn (2000). (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.