[Ads-l] to "question"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Mar 30 14:57:28 UTC 2015


Wouldn't 'doubt (out loud) that' (or perhaps 'raise doubts') be closer than 'attempt to deny'?  The latter seems to strong for the intended meaning here, I think.  What makes it tricky is that affirmative uses of "question that" in the relevant sense seem less likely than negated uses like the one below or occurrences in questions--e.g. "Do you question that he loves you?" to take a random example from the internet; the question is whether the addressee would attempt to deny that he loves her (I assume it's a her) but more like whether she wonders, worries, or has doubts about it.   

LH


> On Mar 30, 2015, at 7:29 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> 'To attempt to deny (that)' :
> 
> CNN reports that the French government has criticized the release of
> cockpit recordings from the Germanwings flight, "but does not question that
> the information is accurate."
> 
> Some OED defs. come close, but definitely no cigar.
> 
> JL
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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