Abstract :
Two main hypotheses have been proposed to account for the word order of negative
inversion (NI) in varieties of non-canonical English (e.g. Don’t nobody else care). An
auxiliary inversion analysis argues that the word order is derived via movement of the
auxiliary to the left periphery, whereas an existential analysis argues that the word order
is an artifact of deletion of the expletive subject, paralleling there-insertion existential
constructions. After reviewing these hypotheses, I provide empirical evidence that neither
of these theories adequately explains the peculiarities of NI. I advance a third hypothesis,
namely that NI is the result of negative movement to the specifier of NegP, and that
this movement is pragmatically motivated by an existential meaning in NI constructions.
Syntactically, NI is made possible through the Neg-Criterion (Haegeman & Zanuttini
1991, 1996). This analysis explains problems encountered by prior analyses, and offers
a unified analysis for variation in NI across dialects. Finally, I explain cross-dialectal
differences in NI by considering the relationship between subject requirements and
agreement.
