Moeten (have to/must), nog (still), erg vinden (to bother), and kunnen opschieten (to get along) are not polarity sensitive; these expressions can appear in all environments where their NPI counterparts are not allowed. The distribution of these NPI/non-NPI pairs, however, is not complementary, in such a way that the non-NPIs are only allowed in environments in which the NPIs cannot occur, and vice versa. The distribution of the non-NPIs is much more free: in general, these expressions can also occur in the environments which license their NPI counterparts. For instance, erg vinden and kunnen opschieten can appear in the whole variety of NPI licensing environments, such as negative sentences, universal statements, questions, too...to, only, hardly, et cetera. Moeten is more demanding with respect to its environments; this verb usually shuns negative utterances. For example:
| i |
Ze moest nergens aan denken. She must nowhere of think. `She didn't have to think of anything.' |
This sentence is not ungrammatical, but rather marked, unless there is a specific notion of duty or order involved (Geerts et al. 1984), as in ii:
| ii | Ze moest nergens aan denken,
alleen maar slapen, zei de dokter. She must nowhere of think, only just sleep, said the doctor. `She should not think about anything, but only sleep, the doctor said.' |
The distribution of nog is rather limited. This expression cannot occur in the scope of negation. Thus, the following example is ungrammatical:
| iii | *Frank is er niet nog. Frank is there not still. |
The distribution of nog, however, is not exactly complementary to that of the NPI meer. Nog is also allowed in environments which are possible licensers for meer, such as niemand (nobody) and zelden (rarely):
| iv |
Tegenwoordig is niemand nog geïnteresseerd in
politiek. Nowadays is no one still interested in politics. `Nowadays, no one is interested in politics anymore.' |
| v | We zien Frank zelden nog. We see Frank rarely still. `We see Frank rarely anymore.' |
On the basis of these distributive properties, Van der Wouden (1988; 1994a) characterizes nog as a weak positive polarity item in his classification of polarity sensitive expressions. See also section 4.5.2.
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