Abstract
According to the teachings of negation in psycholinguistics, concepts within the scope of negation are eradicated from the mental representation and replaced by available antonyms. Thus, given enough processing time, He is not alive is represented as He is dead. However, a systematic look at natural language use suggests that this is not always the case. Instead, concepts within the scope of negation often remain accessible to addressees so that they can refer to them later on in the discourse ("Not alive but evolving", 1 "It's not alive but it was [alive]", 2 "Not dead but dying" 3 ). That concepts within the scope of negation are not suppressed unconditionally is established here by both offline and online experimental data showing that, when relevant either to early or to late context, concepts within the scope of negation are not discarded. Instead they remain active in the minds of speakers and listeners who integrate them into their discourse representation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Explorations in Pragmatics |
| Subtitle of host publication | Linguistic, Cognitive and Intercultural Aspects |
| Publisher | De Gruyter Mouton |
| Pages | 129-162 |
| Number of pages | 34 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9783110198843 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9783110193664 |
| State | Published - 25 Sep 2008 |