Negation and the Temporal Structure of Narrative Discourse

This paper develops an analysis of the temporal role of negative sentences in narrative discourse in Etigfati and French. The analysis focuses on differences in the aspectual systems of English and French, and their consequences for the interpretation of negation and quantification. A recursive rule for the introduction of discourse referents characterizes both quantificational and negated sequences as complex states. The notion of coercion explains why states (including complex states) can behave as events at the level of narrative discourse. The analysis is implemented in the framework of Discourse Representation Theory (DKI) developed by Kamp & Reyle (1993). 1 NEGATION IN SENTENCE AND DISCOURSE In temporal semantics, affirmative sentences are taken to introduce new eventualities into the discourse representation.' Eventualities are located in time with respect to the speech time and other events that are part of the narrative structure. We extend this model of interpretation to negative sentences, and claim that they refer to negative states of affairs. This position requires some motivation, for the predominant view seems to be that negative sentences do not describe eventualities (Kamp & Reyle 1993; Asher 1993). Given that we implement our analysis in the framework of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) developed by Kamp & Reyle (1993), it is worthwhile running through their argumentation. Kamp & Reyle develop a theory of tense and aspect which assumes the general grammatical structure of tensed clauses in (1): (1) [Tense [Aspect* [eventuality description]]] The predicate-argument structure of the sentence provides the description of some eventuality. Aspectual operators are modifiers whose input and output is a set of eventualities. The tense operator locates the eventuality in ' Bach (1986) introduces the term 'eventuality' to generalize over states, processes, and events. 2 Negation and the Temporal Structure of Narrative Discourse time. In English, aspectual operators are optional, and they allow recursion, which is why we use the Kleene star to indicate zero, one, or more operations. According to Kamp & Reyle (1993: 546-55), negation is not an aspectual operator, and we do not need to introduce a discourse referent for negative sentences as a whole in order to obtain the correct interpretation for sentences containing frame adverbials such as on Sunday, compare: (2) a. Mary wrote a letter on Sunday. b. Mary didn't write a letter on Sunday. In the Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) of Kamp & Reyle, these sentences are interpreted in Figures 1 and 2. These Discourse Representation Structures (DRSs) contain discourse referents, and conditions which assign properties to the discourse referents: