Further aspects of negation in French

In A natural history of negation Horn (1989) claims that there are two types of negation, internal and external to the predication. While internal negation is strong, categorical, contrary, non-metalinguistic and unmarked, external negation is weak, non-categorical, contradictory and marked. This is expressed by two different negative markers in French, bare ne and ne pas, in registers where ne is maintained. Though bare ne expresses external negation, it is contrary. Though ne pas expresses internal negation, it is contradictory. Bare ne, however, cannot serve as a metalinguistic negation operator, unlike ne pas. The difference between bare ne and ne pas can be accounted for by a difference in their semantic make-up, which affects their binding strategy. Unlike ne pas, bare ne is non-quantified, hence cannot introduce an existential quantifier able to bind an event (or a tense) variable. Bare ne must bind a discourse variable introduced by the linguistic context.