Natural language generation of negative sentences in the minimalist paradigm

Different word orders will be resulted in during the generation processes of negative sentences in different natural languages. This brings us difficulties when we deal with the negative sentence generation problem. This paper studies natural language generation of negative sentences and the problem of how to handle the different word orders that occur in the generation processes in different natural languages through feature-checking theory of the minimalist paradigm. Without losing generality, we use examples in the languages of modern standard English (MSE), French, and early modern English (EME) to illustrate the issue. The main technical point is that weak tense- and agreement-features can be separated from the word that carries them and percolate up the structural tree on their own to get themselves checked; strong tense- and agreement-features cannot be separated from the word that carries them and can only move together with the phonetic form of the word when they need to get themselves checked. And this leads to different kinds of movement (i.e. attraction and movement). For the parameter of strength, we may set its value as (+) for EME and French, and (-) for MSE. Different parameter values lead to different kinds of movement that can be involved in the negative sentence generation processes. Therefore, the difference in word orders of negative sentences across languages can be handled uniformly through the approach of parameter-setting. By the study carried out in this paper, we might also justify the use of the minimalist program as the grammar that serves in natural language generation from a certain perspective.