1

My question (also copied below) was closed because "This question already has answers here". The linked answer says that negative polarity items only appear in negative contexts and positive polarity items only appear in positive ones." But, I am not sure if 'at least' is a positive polarity item. I consulted both The Cambridge Grammar of English Language and A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, but didn't find 'at least' mentioned as a PPI in their chapters discussing polarity items. And there are sentences which seems to have 'at least' in negative contexts such as

  1. All had also not responded to at least one course of a high-dose oral steroid (1 mg/kg/day) for 2 weeks.

  2. the two health clinics did not notify at least 185 women about abnormal Pap smears.

  3. Hunter, was pulled from duty while internal affairs investigates him for not submitting at least 187 rape kits in 2014, 2015 and 2016 for testing.

So, my question is "Is 'at least' really a positive polarity item?"

My previous question is

I have a question about the following problem.

Fill the gap with appropriate words from the following options.

It won’t take ( ) 15 minutes to walk there, so put your shoes on and let’s go.

(1) at least, (2) at most, (3) less than, (4) more than.

The answer is (4). What I can’t understand is why (1) is not another answer. ‘at least 15’ means ‘the minimum is 15’, which means ‘more than 15’. Yet, ‘more than’ is correct and ‘at least’ is not. Why?

Aki
  • 1,165
  • Did you look at CGEL p837? – BillJ Apr 29 '22 at 13:33
  • @BillJ Yes, there is a description about 'at least' and 'at most' there, but, the page suggests 'at most' creates negative contexts but doesn't say 'at most' itself is a NPI, and only thing the page suggests about 'at least' is that it does not create negative contexts. – Aki Apr 29 '22 at 13:51
  • @BillJ I edited my question. – Aki Apr 29 '22 at 13:54
  • 1
    If A=B=C, then A=C. But if A implies B which implies C, you cannot say A=C. So, at least 15 means the minimum is 15, but doesn't mean more than 15. I'd never say It will not take at least anything. – Yosef Baskin Apr 29 '22 at 13:54
  • I'd prefer to say that "at least" means no less than. – BillJ Apr 29 '22 at 17:12
  • 'All had also not responded to at least one course of a high-dose oral steroid (1 mg/kg/day) for 2 weeks' sounds unnatural in standard English. 'Also, none of them had responded to in some cases a single course and in some cases several doses of a high-dose oral steroid (1 mg/kg/day) for 2 weeks' is getting more standard. But it's also getting prolix. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 29 '22 at 18:47
  • The answer to your original question is simple "because it's not idiomatic". There are often no rules for these things, it's just what has become common. Linguists try to find patterns among the common style and make up rules like PPI, but they aren't rigid. – Barmar Apr 29 '22 at 23:56
  • As to examples 2 and 3, the quantifications of the women and the rape kits are positive. That something negative is said about the quantities doesn't change that. – Jack O'Flaherty Apr 30 '22 at 07:22
  • @BillJ Could you explain what that means? – Aki Apr 30 '22 at 15:23

0 Answers0