The goal of this project is to arrive at a better understanding of the principles that govern anaphoric reference to propositions in negative sentences. In general, negative sentences make two propositions available for anaphoric uptake: the proposition that is denoted by the sentence, Øp, and the proposition that is negated, p. However, not in all cases are both propositions equally available for anaphoric uptake. Consider the following dialogue:

        Anne: I didn’t call Alex before 11 o’clock! 

        Ben: But that’s what he says.

The pronoun that in Ben’s reply refers to p, i.e. that Anne called Alex before 11 o’clock. If Ben’s reply is That’s very considerate, that refers to Øp.

In this project we investigate the factors that – by hypothesis – influence the interpretation of anaphors like that. In other words, we investigate the factors that we hypothesize to have an influence on the prominence of Øp vs. p and hence on the anaphoric uptake of Øp vs. p. These include for instance conjunctions (like but), discourse particles (e.g., German ja, nämlich), subjunctive marking and tense, the type of negation involved (not, no, never etc.) or certain perspective markers. We are exploring these issues in experimental work and in corpus studies.