Negation: checking theory and linguistic change

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis of the negative agreement phenomenon assuming the checking theory of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995). After comparing Brazilian Portuguese with other languages, it was necessary to consider some diachronic facts described through the notion of grammaticalization (Hopper & Traugott, 1993). Finally, we claim that the stages of linguistic change presupposed by this notion are "visible" to the computational system.

Negation; Minimalist Program; Checking Theory; Linguistic Change; Grammaticalization