On minimal answers to yes-no questions in Czech and Spanish
Résumé
In this paper, we deal with minimal answers to polar questions in Czech and Spanish, ie. answers involving polarity particles and/or finite verbs. We show that polarity particles in these languages may express two types two of answers (polarity-based answers and truth-based answers, cf. Pope 1972) and are thus ambiguous. We propose an analysis of both types of answers in terms of clausal ellipsis (IP or TopP) and by distinguishing absolute (positive vs. negative) vs. relative (same vs. reverse) polarity features (cf. Farkas 2010). We claim that the preference for the polarity-based system in both Czech and Spanish comes from the surface identity between polarity and truth-based answers to positive questions, that makes the polarity interpretation prevailing.