THE PROBLEM OF NOT ... UNTIL

This article addresses the question why sentences like John didn't wak e up until nine are grammatical while their positive counterparts are not: John woke up until nine. It adduces evidence against the two exi sting analyses (the one claiming that not is a durative predicate, the other that there is a negative polarity item until that collocates wi th punctual predicates). The analysis that is offered here rests on th e claim that not until is an instance of integrated lexicalization, wh ereby two different semantic elements (roughly, the meaning of tempora l at and that of an exclusive focuser like German erst or only) are fu sed into a single (but complex) lexical item. The author adduces a gre at many pieces of evidence supporting this analysis and points out som e interesting theoretical consequences.