Timeline for Double negation
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
6 events
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| Nov 11, 2010 at 15:16 | comment | added | Claudiu | @RegDwight: ah I think I was just misunderstanding the term of "double negative." I considered "I do not dislike him" double negation, or "I didn't not hurt him" the same, but not "I don't have no cheese" - I considered it equivalent to "I don't have any cheese," and not 'true' double negation. but yeah the russian is funny =P. it sounds perfectly normal in Russian, of course, not anything like the convoluted way it sounds in English. | |
| Nov 11, 2010 at 14:44 | comment | added | RegDwigнt | I suppose Rick Astley would be surpised to learn that in Russian, he would have to sing "Never gonna not give you up, never gonna not let you down, never gonna not run around and not desert you, never gonna not make you cry, never gonna not say goodbye, never gonna not tell a lie and not hurt you." | |
| Nov 11, 2010 at 14:33 | comment | added | RegDwigнt | @Mr. Shiny and New: that's rather interesting. But either way, dropping is dropping. Compare that to Russian, where double negatives are so deeply engraved that it's hard if not impossible to get rid of them even on purpose. The only way to say "I'm not going anywhere" in Russian is by saying "I'm not going nowhere". And the only way to say "not do anything with anyone anywhere anytime" is by saying "not do nothing with noone nowhere never". If you try to drop any of the negatives, the result won't be colloquial, nonstandard, or ungrammatical; it'll be utterly incomprehensible. | |
| Nov 11, 2010 at 14:06 | comment | added | Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 | @RegDwight: I always found it strange that we dropped 'ne' in French but in school I was taught that the 'ne' was the required element whereas it was ok to drop 'pas' every time. I attributed this to speaking Quebec French at home but learning some standardized French at school. | |
| Nov 11, 2010 at 11:13 | comment | added | RegDwigнt | A native French speaker would probably argue exactly the other way round: no need to have two words where one is enough. You'll notice that in French, ne is almost always dropped in everyday conversation. Heck, there's even a song by Celine Dion. :-) | |
| Nov 11, 2010 at 2:57 | history | answered | Claudiu | CC BY-SA 2.5 |