Polar particles in Farsi: Anaphora in the scoreboard model of discourse

Abstract

Cross-linguistically, polar particles can be used in two readings: 'polarity' and 'conformity'. In response to positive polar questions/assertions, the two readings of each particle generate the same proposition. However, in response to negative initiatives, they lead to ambiguity (Krifka, 2013; Roelofsen and Farkas, 2015; Geist and Repp, in press). In this paper, we investigate the reading(s) of the particles 'âre' ‘yes’ and 'na' ‘no’ in Farsi for five types of initiatives: (i) positive assertions, (ii) negative assertions, (iii) negative polar questions (NPQs), (iv) biased negative questions with the discourse particle 'dige' ('dige'-NPQs) and (v) tag questions (TQs). Based on the distribution of readings, we argue that different readings of polar particles react to propositions placed in different compartments of the Scoreboard Model representation.