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I would recommend the chapter “Semantic shifts as sources of enantiosemy” by Aleksej Shmelev in “The lexical typology of semantic shifts” ed. by Päivi Juvonen and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, 2016, De Gruyter / Mouton.
<div class="">It focuses on Slavic languages, but has also interesting examples from English.</div>
<div class="">Maria<br class="">
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<div class="">Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm<br class="">
Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden<br class="">
tel.: +46-8-16 26 20 (office)<br class="">
<a href="http://www.ling.su.se/tamm" class="">www.ling.su.se/tamm</a><br class="">
tamm@ling.su.se<br class="">
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<div class="">On 24 Jan 2020, at 20:39, Daniel Ross <<a href="mailto:djross3@gmail.com" class="">djross3@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div class="">This reminds me of playful, emphatic usage in English like "I don't have good news for you. I have great news!" So it seems that one possible effect is that the negation is intended to convey that the description is beyond (better than) the negated
category. "It's not pretty. It's beautiful!" Then maybe just "It's not (even) beautiful" would indicate something like "There are no words for how beautiful it is!" or "Beautiful doesn't even describe it!" Of course in English it's hard to get this sort of
reading without the right context (both pragmatic and discourse), so it may be more grammaticalized in the other languages described here if they occur spontaneously without something leading up to that usage, but I imagine the development might be similar
in some ways. (From a pragmatic perspective it's interesting how this plays with or ignores scalar implicatures for emphasis, so it seems metalinguistic in a sense.)<br class="">
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<div class="">Daniel<br class="">
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 12:22 PM Heath Jeffrey <<a href="mailto:schweinehaxen@hotmail.com" class="">schweinehaxen@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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Sometimes "negative" = emphatic positive clauses are covert rhetorical questions without an overt interrogative element. I find this in some West African languages, highly conventionalized and indistinguishable in form from actual negation. A pain in the butt
for fieldworkers analysing texts. <br class="">
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<div id="gmail-m_8024165122730704139divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr" class=""><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" class=""><b class="">From:</b> Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank" class="">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>>
on behalf of Nestor Hernandez-Green <<a href="mailto:nestorhgreen@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">nestorhgreen@gmail.com</a>><br class="">
<b class="">Sent:</b> Friday, January 24, 2020 1:14 PM<br class="">
<b class="">To:</b> Bastian Persohn <<a href="mailto:persohn.linguistics@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">persohn.linguistics@gmail.com</a>><br class="">
<b class="">Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank" class="">
lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a> <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank" class="">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br class="">
<b class="">Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Ironic negative constructions</font>
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<div class="">In some regions of Mexico, there is a negative construction with similar effects:
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<div dir="auto" class="">Casi/no/es/borracho</div>
<div dir="auto" class="">almost/no/is/drunkard.MASC</div>
<div dir="auto" class="">"he's a heavy drinker" (lit. he's not much of a drunkard)</div>
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<div dir="auto" class="">I don't know if this has been researched yet in Spanish.</div>
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<div dir="auto" class="">Hope this helps<br class="">
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<div dir="auto" class="">= Néstor Hernández-Green =<br class="">
Sitio web: <a href="http://goo.gl/jsw4zs" target="_blank" class="">http://goo.gl/jsw4zs</a><br class="">
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[Este mensaje puede haber sido escrito utilizando funciones de dictado en Android]</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="">El vie., 24 de enero de 2020 11:16, Bastian Persohn <<a href="mailto:persohn.linguistics@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">persohn.linguistics@gmail.com</a>> escribió:<br class="">
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Dear group members,<br class="">
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I am posting the below on behalf of a student of mine. Any input will be greatly appreciated, be it on similar conventionalized uses of negation and irony in other languages of the world, general thoughts, or even specific remarks regarding isiXhosa (or the
larger Nguni branch of Bantu).<br class="">
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Best regards,</p>
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Bastian<br class="">
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I would like some help with finding resources/getting more information on ironic negative constructions, which are a rather frequent device in isiXhosa (Bantu, South Africa). I’m not sure if they go by any other name, I found this term in Oosthuysen’s (2016)
Grammar of isiXhosa. He describes it as “The use of a grammatical negative to convey a predicate with an emphatic positive connotation”. So, these constructions read as negative statements but in actual fact mean the opposite. The prosody is different which
helps in realising that<span style="display:inline;font-family:inherit" class=""> it’s the ironic negative. Here are some examples (numbers indicate noun classes, FV is the default final vowel morpheme):</span></p>
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<p style="margin:6px 0px;font-family:inherit" class=""><i class="">A-ka-se-m-hle lo mntwana</i><br class="">
NEG-SBJ.NEG.1-still-1-pretty PROX.1 1.child<br class="">
'This child is so/very beautiful' (lit: 'This child is no longer beautiful') </p>
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<p style="margin:6px 0px;font-family:inherit" class=""><i class="">A-ni-sa-hlafun-i</i><br class="">
NEG-SBJ.2PL-still-chew-NEG<br class="">
'You are chewing so much/so loudly' (lit: 'You are no longer chewing')<br class="">
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<p style="margin:6px 0px;font-family:inherit" class=""><i class="">A-ndi-sa-dinw-anga</i><br class="">
NEG-SBJ.1SG-still-be(come)_tired-NEG.PFV<br class="">
'I am so/very tired.' (lit: 'I am not tired anymore')<br class="">
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<i class="">Be-ndi-nge-minc-e</i>
<div class="">REC.PST-SBJ.1SG-NEG-tense_up-PFV<br class="">
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<div class="">'I was so very tense' (lit: 'I was not tensed up')<br class="">
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<div class=""><i class="">A-yi-nints-i imi-buzo ya-m</i></div>
<div class="">NEG-COP.4-many 4-question 4-POSS.1SG <br class="">
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<div class="">'My questions are so many' (lit: 'My questions are not many')<br class="">
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<p style="margin:6px 0px;font-family:inherit" class="">Any input in the form of papers, books, tiny excerpt, noting that it you’ve encountered a similar thing in another language etc would be of great help.</p>
<p style="margin:6px 0px;font-family:inherit" class="">Thanks!<br class="">
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