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From: mrz5149@rit.cs.rit.edu (M. R. Zucca)
Subject: Re: Words for yes
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Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 18:54:50 GMT
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In article <5vLbkdXCf$B@tiger.toppoint.de>, achim@tiger.toppoint.de (Achim
Stenzel) wrote:

> This is not a remarkable and outstanding of facet of  
> Japanese usage. If you are told a story in German, and you  
> respond with "ja", you do not necessarily state that you  
> agree with the speaker, but that you can follow.

However, this is an answer to the rhetorical question of "do you follow?".
In Japanese you might say "N" "Ee" "Soo desu" or any other yes/yeah response
patterns. It's just positive reinforcement to the speaker that the listener
is not only listening but that they understand. This further complicates
the use of "No" response in English as an affirmation.
  
I've often heard that English is one of the more clear, straightforward,
languages when it comes to expressing exactly what you mean in no uncertain
terms but it seems to fail quite miserably in the case we're discussing.

Japanese is certainly not in the group of "clear" languages (some thing about
"the art of being vague" comes to mind) :)

> roughly, [ao] with an inward suck of breath and, for some  
> speakers, finishing in an unreleased inward bilabial stop.

Would that happen to come out as "aof" with the f "reversed"?

> The only answer I can think of is the "No" answer to a  
> rhetorical question, like: "Do I have to tolerate this?" -  
> "No.", where "no" asserts that the first speaker's  
> implicature is correct.

Good explanation. It's still very strange, though. At what point did the
oposite of yes come to mean yes? I do believe Douglas Adams said it best:
"...'that was easy' says man and goes on to prove that black is white and
up is down..."

> Right?

No. (You guess what I meant!) :)

-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
 Michael Zucca <> mrz5149@rit.cs.rit.edu <> Rochester Institute Of Technology
     "If the speed of light is not infinite, then it's awful damned fast."
                                  - Galileo -
