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From: colin@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Colin Matheson)
Subject: Re: Comparison of languages for CS1 and CS2
Message-ID: <DD54E4.M0n@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <KANZE.95Aug9114322@slsvhdt.lts.sel.alcatel.de> <DD38LB.4CA@tigadmin.ml.com> <40eai1$lms@pipe4.nyc.pipeline.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 09:44:09 GMT
Lines: 47

In article <40eai1$lms@pipe4.nyc.pipeline.com> mlomark@nyc.pipeline.com (Mark Odegard) writes:
>In sci.lang pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428) said: 
> 
> 
>>Slavic languages tend to want all the words in negative form.  `On nikogda
>ne 
>>jest niczego': `He never doesn't eat nothing'. 
> 
> 
>Which means, to me, that he always does eat something. 
> 
> [ ]
>
>Indeed, two negatives usually equal a positive. It's not  
>something learned in school. It's just intrinsic to my 
>native-speaker-ness. 

I'm sorry, but I think you're kidding yourself.  There are cases in
English, with unusual stress and intonation, in which two negatives
are intended to be positive -

I *never* ate *nothing*

Whereas with neutral stress and intonation, "I never ate nothing"
clearly means that nothing was eaten.  Analysing the sentences means
imposing extra-linguistic processing, based (as I said before) on a
mistaken application of logic to natural language.  English looks as
if it always had, and probably always will make use of, mulitiple
negation as a means of emphasis.

There's a song (from "Hair"?) that goes "Ain't got no ... (and so
on)", and I'd be very surprised if anyone interprets that naturally as
a positive.

Obviously, what actually counts as a "negative" element in natural
language is often pretty unclear - I'm not saying that litotes doesn't
exist - so there are lots of caveats, but I for one have never heard
the Big Bopper say "I ain't got no money honey" and ever, for an
instant, got the impression that he was suggesting that he'd just been
paid.

Colin
-- 
Colin Matheson                    | Human Communication Research Centre
Phone: +44 131 650 4632           | University of Edinburgh
Fax:   +44 131 650 4587           | 2 Buccleuch Place
Email: Colin.Matheson@ed.ac.uk    | Edinburgh EH8 9LW Scotland
