[Lingtyp] fear + NEG

Thu Mar 19 09:30:47 UTC 2015

Dear colleagues,

A (possibly) related construction is found in the 
Lancianese dialect (Abruzzo, Central Italy, 
Central-Southern dialect; apostrophe stands for a schwa):

attend ca   n'n chesc
beware COMP NEG fall.PRES.2SG
lit. 'beware that you don't fall' (intended meaning: 
'beware that you may fall').

Best,

Giorgio F. Arcodia

-- 
Dr. Giorgio Francesco Arcodia
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Dipartimento di Scienze Umane per la Formazione
Edificio U6 - stanza 4101
Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1
20126 Milano

Tel.: (+39) 02 6448 4946(+39) 02 6448 4946
Fax: (+39) 02 6448 4863
E-mail: giorgio.arcodia at unimib.it
On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 10:19:06 +0100
 "Paolo Ramat" <paoram at unipv.it> wrote:
>>From Wikipedia s.v. ‘Pleonasm’:
> 
> <<The pleonastic ne (ne pléonastique) expressing 
>uncertainty in formal French works as follows
> 
>  "Je crains qu'il ne pleuve."
>  ("I fear it may rain.") 
>  "Ces idées sont plus difficiles à comprendre que je ne 
>pensais."
>  ("These ideas are harder to understand than I 
>thought.") >>
> The same holds for Italian, with some slight stylistic 
>differences:
> Temo che non piova (Subjunctive)  means usually “I’m 
>afraid that it will not rain” and the sentence with the 
>opposite meaning “I’m afraid that it will rain” is in an 
>unmarked style Temo che piova.
> On the contrary, the second sentence will usually 
>contain the negative non since it refers to an actual 
>negative state of affairs :I didn’t think that.... : 
>Queste idee sono più difficili a capirsi che non pensassi 
>(IMPF. SUBJ)
> ?? Queste idee sono più difficili a capirsi che pensassi 
>sounds very odd. Usually you would say  Queste idee sono 
>più difficili a capirsi di quanto (non) pensavo, where 
>non is quite correct, though not compulsory.
> 
> (See P. Ramat,  La comparazione negativa.  Arch. Glott. 
>Ital. 87/2002: 223-229 and the seminal article by Joseph 
>Vendryes, Sur la négation abusive, Bull. Soc. Linguist. 
>46/1950: 1-18). 
> 
> Prof.Paolo Ramat
> Università di Pavia
> Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia)
> 
> 
>From: Hannu Tommola 
> Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 9:21 AM
> To: Hartmut Haberland 
> Cc: list, typology ; Nina Dobrushina 
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] fear + NEG
> 
> As Hartmut, I feel a clarification of the original query 
>is needed here. I know that my competence in French is 
>poor, but isn't it that there is a difference between the 
>following utterances:
> 
>French:
> 
> Je crains qu'il ne vienne
> 'I'm afraid he'll come'
> 
> and
> 
> Je crains qu'il ne vienne PAS.
> 'I'm afraid he'll NOT come'
> 
> Similarly in Russian:
> 
> Ja bojus', chto on pridët
> 'I'm afraid he'll come'
> 
> and
> 
> Ja bojus', chto on NE pridët
> 'I'm afraid he'll NOT come'
> 
> Best wishes,
> Hannu
> 
>   Quoting Hartmut Haberland <hartmut at ruc.dk>:
>> I need a clarification here. The Japanese sentence can 
>>be paraphrased
>> as: Something bad may have happened. I am afraid of 
>>that. But do the
>> Hindi and French sentences mean: He may come. I am 
>>afraid of that. Or:
>>  He may not come. I am afraid of that. ?
>> It could just be a question whether the complementizer 
>>means that or if
>> (like Japanese ka); the latter would require a negation 
>>that disappears
>> when the complementizer is rendered by a that-like 
>>conjunction in a
>> different language. 
>> Hartmut
>>
>>    Sendt fra min iPhone
>>
>>    Den 19/03/2015 kl. 08.17 skrev "Anvita Abbi" 
>><anvitaabbi at gmail.com>:
>>     
>>> Dear All,
>>> Hindi is one language with such structures. One example 
>>>is given here.
>>> /mujhe       Dar     hai       ki           vo 
>>>        aa       na    
>>>   jaye/
>>> 1sg.Dat     fear     AUX    COMP   3sg       come  NEG 
>>> come
>>> Literal: 'I am afraid that he does not come'
>>>  
>>> Anvita
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Prof. Anvita Abbi
>>>
>>> Director: Centre for Oral and Tribal Literature
>>>
>>> Sahitya Akademi
>>>
>>> Rabindra Bhavan
>>>
>>> 35, Ferozeshah Road
>>>
>>> New Delhi 110 001
>>> www.andamanese.net[1]
>>> President: Linguistic Society of India
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 5:09 PM, Michael Daniel
>>> <misha.daniel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Dear all,
>>>>
>>>>         below is a letter I post on behalf of Nina 
>>>>Dobrushina. If you
>>>> have any references or ideas that you could share, 
>>>>please send them to
>>>> her: nina.dobrushina at gmail.com (also in the copy above)
>>>>
>>>>         Michael Daniel
>>>>
>>>>         Dear all,
>>>>
>>>>         could you give me hints on empirical evidence 
>>>>and literature
>>>> about languages where the predicates of fear (?fear?, 
>>>>?to be afraid?,
>>>> ?to worry?  and the like) (tend to) have negation in the 
>>>>complement
>>>> clause? I am aware of Russian, French (and other Romance 
>>>>languages),
>>>> Japanese, and some Turkic languages like Kumyk. Two 
>>>>examples are
>>>> provided below.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         French:
>>>>
>>>>         Je    crain-s    que    la    lettre    n? 
>>>>   arrive        pas
>>>>         I    fear    COMPL    DEF    letter    NEG 
>>>>   come.SUBJ.3SG    NEG
>>>>
>>>>         LT: 'I am afraid that the letter does not 
>>>>arrive'
>>>>         (less literal 'I am afraid that the letter may 
>>>>not arrive')
>>>>
>>>>         Japanese (example courtesy Tasaku Tsunoda):
>>>>
>>>>         Nanika        waru-i        koto=ga        
>>>> oki-nak-at-ta=ka        sinpai=da
>>>>         something        bad-NPST    thing=NOM   
>>>> happen-NEG-LINK-PST=Q    worried=COP.NPNST
>>>>          
>>>>         LT: ?[I] am worried whether something bad did 
>>>>not happen.?
>>>>         FT: ?I am worried that something bad happened.?
>>>>
>>>>         Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>         Nina Dobrushina
>>>>
>>>>        _______________________________________________
>>>>        Lingtyp mailing list
>>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hannu Tommola
> Professor emer. of Russian Language (Translation Theory 
>and Practice)
> School of Language, Translation and Literary Studies
>FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Finland
> Linkit:
> -------
> [1] http://www.andamanese.net/
> 
> 
> 
> 
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