Abstract:Sentence Polarity and Word Order in Basque 1A well-known fact about Basque is that word order is sensitive to sentence polarity.In negative sentences, the relative order of the auxiliary and main verb...Sentence Polarity and Word Order in Basque 1A well-known fact about Basque is that word order is sensitive to sentence polarity.In negative sentences, the relative order of the auxiliary and main verb is V-Aux, while in affirmative (neutral) sentences the order is Neg-Aux-V.The main goal of this paper is to argue for a new approach to this phenomenon within a grammar that assumes antisymmetry (Kayne 1994), and only XP movement.The proposal has two main components.First, drawing on Cinque's (1999) universal hierarchy of functional heads, it argues that the negative order-Aux-V-is the merged order.The affirmative V-Aux order is produced by raising of the VP to a higher, polarity-related position called PolP.Second, PolP is also argued to host the negative morpheme, ez, in negative sentences, and the emphatic marker, ba, in emphatic affirmatives.Evidence from scope interaction between negation and evidential and speech act particles suggests that the surface position of ez cannot be its merged position; rather ez is merged in a lower position and raises to spec, PolP.Part 1 of this paper discusses the surface ordering of clausal functional heads within Cinque's (1999) framework, and argues for VP raising in affirmative sentences.Part 2 argues for raising of ez to PolP.Part 3 discusses the behavior of verbal dependents drawing on Koopman and Szabolcsi's (2000) analysis of verb movement in Hungarian, German and Dutch.Part 4 addresses some remaining empirical problems.Read More