But-not, not-but, and-not and -not

We are analyzing conjoined structures such as The women but not the men with a multi-anchor conjunction tree anchored by the conjunction plus the adverb not. The alternative is to allow not to adjoin to any constituent. However, this is the only construction where not can freely occur onto a constituent other than a VP or adjective (cf. NEGvx and NEGa trees). It can also adjoin to some determiners, as discussed in Section 19. We want to allow sentences like ((433)) and rule out those like ((434)). The tree for the good example is shown in Figure 22.7. There are similar trees for and-not and -not, where is interpretable as either and or but, and a tree with not on the first conjunct for not-but.

(432)0(432

(433)

Beth grows basil in the house (but) not in the garden .  (433)0(433

(434)

^*Beth grows basil (but) not in the garden . 

{Tree for conjunction with but-not: $\beta$px1CONJARBpx2

 

Although these constructions sound a bit odd when the two conjuncts do not have the same number, they are sometimes possible. The agreement information for such NPs is always that of the non-negated conjunct: his sons, and not Bill, are in charge of doing the laundry or not Bill, but his sons, are in charge of doing the laundry (Some people insist on having the commas here, but they are frequently absent in corpus data.) The agreement feature from the non-negated conjunct in passed to the root NP, as shown in Figure 22.8. Aside from agreement, these constructions behave just like their non-negated counterparts.

{Tree for conjunction with not-but: $\beta$ARBnx1CONJnx2