[Fwd: can/can't]

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:32 PM -0500 7/22/00, Donald M. Lance wrote:
>Oh me oh my, surely the underlying presuppositions can't be the same. When
>one utters
>"I'll see if I can't do X," is one setting out to demonstrate that one is
>incapable of
>doing X or unwilling to do X?
>DMLance
>
>>
Not necessarily.  I read it as "I'll see if it's impossible for me to do
X", where actually DOing X demonstrates conclusively that it WASN'T
impossible, and at the same time ipso facto demonstrates that it was
possible.  Perhaps it's a bit like the half full/half empty glass.  In any
case, those negatives that show up in protases like "I'll see if I
can't..." or in analogous modal constructions have been around for quite
awhile and are amply attested and discussed in Jespersen's great monograph
on negation (1917).

>From: Mai Kuha <mkuha at altavista.com>:
>
>Can "can" and "can't" be distinguished in that context? I thought they
>sounded (almost) identical.
>
>-Mai
>
There are contexts in which the modals are foregrounded and in which the
vowel distinction is in fact neutralized.  Jespersen (1917), Marchand
(1938), and Horn (1989) discuss what I call "instances of postauxiliary
negation [that] may be signaled more by vowel quality, stress, and rhythm
than by the presence of of a segmental element" (Horn 1989: 458) as
illustrated by "he can come" vs. "he can't come", where the normal
disambiguation by rhythmic structure and vowel quality tends to disappear
when the modal is stressed, "leading to some rather extreme repair
sequences:  He can-yes or he can'T?"--the latter being a feeble attempt to
represent a two-syllable pronunciation of 'can't'.

larry