Another case of negative = positive?

[Wilson Gray]

Yes.

-Wilson

On 1/24/08, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Another case of negative = positive?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10:13 PM -0500 1/23/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >I was chatting with a Texas relative and mentioned to him that he
> >might want to read a particular book. He replied:
> >
> >a) "I'll see whether I _can't_ [keint] find it down here."
> >
> >Of course, he meant:
> >
> >b) "I'll see whether I _can_ [kin] find it down here."
> >
> >Except that that's not how people say it Down Home.
> >
> Leaving aside the phonology, the negative here isn't all that exotic.
> Jespersen (1917: 98) notes the use of "weakened negatives" in
> questions--
>
> How often have we not seen him? = 'We have often seen him'
> What have we not suffered? = 'We have suffered everything'
>
> --and exclamations--
>
> How often have I not watched him!
> Through what strange vicissitudes of life had they not followed me!
>
> "In these sentences", Jespersen observes, "the import of the negation
> is also weakened, so that it really matters very little whether a not
> is added or not".  And so too within the scope of your relative's
> "whether", as above.
>
> LH
>
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