The 'why-how' alternation and a new test for sentential negation—on negated 'how'-questions

It has been argued that negated 'how'-questions are, in contrast to negated 'why'-questions, ill-formed. Based on this generalization it was proposed that 'how' is located in a structural position below negation. In this squib, I will show that negated 'how'-questions exist and that they instantiate a case of sentential negation by using data from German and English. For this purpose, a new test for sentential negation that can be applied to questions is introduced. I will show that the reason why negated 'how'-questions have been argued to be ill-formed is not necessarily syntactic, but pragmatic (or semantic) in nature. However, I will also show that negative contraction in English negated 'how'-questions is blocked