[Fwd: can/can't]

[Donald M. Lance]

Thanks, Arnold, for taking the discussion beyond the level of "Well, that's the way I
understand it."  One might, smirkingly, say, "Well, Arnold said, "I'll see if I can't
explain all of this by demonstrating that there's a tight fit between logic and human
language.'"  The late Jim McCawley might respond, "Yes he did, and he couldn't, but
nevertheless it was an interesting disquisition."

We literalists tend to respond to implicatures in others' choices of words, but we still
fully understand that "ain't got none" is not a positive and that "see if I can't" really
means "see if I can" in everyday parlance -- we just can't pass up the opportunity to say
something about such utterances.  At the micro level, there is something about English
negatives (especially the second one in a concatenation of something-or-others) that
mitigates negative implicature in certain everyday expressions.  Robin Williams in the
early stage of his millennial robotness would misunderstand these expressions, but the
genius who kept fixing him up had him miraculously understanding such expressions by the
end of the story.

DMLance


Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> [this discussion is a spin-off from the TRY AND/TO thread.  it started
> on 21 july when don lance objected to the negative in "I'll try and
> see if I can't do that" - in which the "try and" is irrelevant to the
> negation issue.  a further spin-off is now going on about the
> phonetics of CAN and CAN'T; i have nothing particularly revelatory to
> say about that.  but i'd like to pursue the syntactic/semantic issues
> a little further.  larry horn (23 july) briefly discusses what i
> take to be a conversational-implicature treatment of the negative in
> "I'll see if I can't do that", referring to negatives in protases and
> in modal contexts, with a reference back to jespersen.]
>
> i'm dubious that this is merely conversational implicature, though.  i
> think what we have here is an idiom (perhaps a previously undiscussed
> one) of modern english. compare (1) and (2):
>
> (1) See if you can get across the finish line.
> (2) See if you can't get across the finish line.
>
> (1) is neutral; it's meaning is, roughly: 'Determine if the following
> assertion is true or not: You can get across the finish line.'
> (2) has a neutral reading ('Determine if the following assertion
> is true: You can't get across the finish line.'), but you have
> to torture the context to bring it out.  the natural and easily
> available interpretation is as a biased version of (1), with the
> meaning of (1) plus the assumption that the assertion is true;
> it conveys a prediction as to what's going to happen.
>
> this 'predictive SEE' interpretation requires not only negation in the
> embedded clause, but also the specific verb SEE in the clause above.
> SEE in (1) can be replaced by FIND OUT, DISCOVER, or DETERMINE, but
> the biased interpretation of (2) disappears under such a substitution.
> either IF or WHETHER can be the clause-introducing element in (2) (as
> well as (1)), but only (1) involves a true embedded alternative
> question:
>
> (1') See if you can get across the finish line, or if you can't.
> (2') ??See if you can't get across the finish line, or if you can.
>
> moreover, (2) is truly predictive, future-oriented, to the extent that
> though the content of (1) can be reported in a past-tense description,
> that's not possible with (2):
>
> (1'') So you saw if you could get across the finish line.
> (2'') ??So you saw if you couldn't get across the finish line.
>
> (the force of the prediction can be relatively modest, as in (2),
> or extremely strong, as in:
>
> (3) Just see if I don't outrun you!)
>
> finally, the embedded clause in examples like (1) allows polarity
> items that appear in negative clauses, in conditionals (whether
> positive or negative), and in yes-no questions (whether positive or
> negative):
>
> (4) See if you can ever get across the finish line.
>     See if you can move at all.
>
> (cf.: You can't ever get across the finish line.
>        You can't move at all.
>       If you can/can't ever get across the finish line, I'll cheer.
>        If you can/can't move at all, I'll be astonished.
>       Can/Can't you ever get across the finish line?
>        Can/Can't you move at all?)
>
> but these polarity items are not possible in examples like (2),
> despite the fact that (2) has both a conditional/interrogative marker
> (IF or WHETHER) and explicit negation in the embedded clause.  with
> respect to polarity items, the predictive SEE construction acts like a
> positive assertion:
>
> (5) ??See if you can't ever get across the finish line.
>     ??See if you can't move at all.
>
> (cf.: *You can ever get across the finish line.
>        *You can move at all.)
>
> [the question marks, rather than asterisks, are there on some examples
> only because of the possibility of literal readings.]
>
> undoubtedly, there's a lot more to find out about predictive SEE.
> these are just some quick thoughts (well, the product of some
> sleepless time in the middle of last night - tortured by ADS-L!).
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)