§4 Non-affinnative items 155The majority of polarity-sensitive items have negative orientation, and our main
focus here will be on these.
What excludes any from [17iia] is not just that the clause is positive: it is
also declarative. If we look instead at an interrogative clause, we find it is freely
admitted:
[ 18] a. Have you mu: objections to make? b. Who has mu: objections to make?We refer to items like any, therefore, as non-affirmatives. (The verb affi rm con
trasts with question and hence suggests declarative; the adjective affi rmative is a
synonym of positive.)
In general, then, the restriction on non-affinnative items is that they cannot occur
in clauses that are both declarative and positive.
A sample of non-affinnative items is given in [19]. Some items are non-affinna
tive only in certain senses or uses (though often the most frequently occurring of
their uses), and we mark those with a subscript n.
[19] anYn, anybodYn, any longer/more, anyonen, anythingn, anywheren
ii at all, eithern, evern, longn' much, till/until, whatevern, yetn
iii daren, needn, bother (+ infinitival), budge, can bearn, can standn, give a
damnlfig, have a cluen, lift afingern, move a musclen, see a thingnThe following examples illustrate the differences between polarity-sensitive and
non-polarity-sensitive versions ofthe five items anybody, either, ever, long, and can
stand:
[20] NON-AFFIRMATIVE
a. Did you see anybody?
11 a. I didn 't see either of them.
111 a. Will it ever end?
IV a. I won 't stay long.
v a. No one can stand the pressure.NOT POLARITY-SENSITIVE
b. Anybody can make promises.
b. Either version would do.
b. It will last fo r ever.
b. It has been a long day.
b. Everyone can stand fo r a minute.
Notice also that dare and need are non-affinnative as modal auxiliaries but not as
lexical verbs; see Ch. 3, §3.3.Other constructions that accept non-affirmatives
It is not only negatives and interrogatives that allow non-affinnative items to appear.
They are also found in a number of other constructions, as illustrated in [21].
[21] i She was too taken aback to say anything.
ii She ranfaster than she had ever run bef ore.
iii We slipped away without anyone noticing.The constructions concerned all have semantic affinities with negation.
Because of the too in [i], we understand that she did NOT say anything.
Because of the comparative, [ii] indicates that she had NEVER run that fast before.
Because of the meaning of without, it follows from [iii] that NO ONE noticed.