Jespersen on "see if ...not..."

[Laurence Horn]

Mea culpa.  I'd forgotten that Jespersen (1917:  Negation in English and
Other Languages) does NOT assimilate this construction to other cases of
implicated negatives in modal constructions but in fact proposes a similar
(lexicalized/conventionalized) account to the one Arnold does.  He gives
the gloss (1917: 28) SEE IF I DON'T = 'I shall' and includes cites from
Shakespeare ("see if the fat villain haue not transform'd his ape") as well
as Brontë, Thackeray, Trollope, and Gissing.  He also notes that "exactly
the same phrase is usual in Dan.", and gives some Danish examples to show
it.  Jespersen does NOT anticipate Arnold's neat observation concerning the
licensing of positive (rather than negative) polarity items within the
protasis.

larry