[Fwd: can/can't]

[Robert S. Wachal]

I don't know about many but my upper-midwestern dialect has an ash in the
negative and an eh in the positive.  Also there are, I believe, southern
dialects in which the positive is lax [i]

Bob

At 08:13 AM 7/23/00 -0700, you wrote:
>It does seem strange. I was actually going off on a whole nuther tangent,
though, wondering whether in informal speech it's possible for the listener
to know that "can't" was uttered, rather than "can". I sometimes overhear
people asking each other: "Did you say CAN or CAN'T?" Are there many
dialects where these two forms are distinguishable because of the vowel or
something?
>
>-Mai
>
>On Sat, 22 July 2000, "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
>>
>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>> From: Mai Kuha <mkuha at altavista.com> said:
>>
>> Can "can" and "can't" be distinguished in that context? I thought they
sounded (almost) identical.
>>
>> -Mai
>>
>> On Fri, 21 July 2000, "Donald M. Lance" wrote:
>>
>> > And then there's "I'll try and see if I can't do that."  My stock
response, when
>> > opportunity occurs, is "Why don't you try to see if you CAN do it?"
>> > DMLance
>
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