it doesn't behoove you

[Wilson Gray]

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 11:10 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: it doesn't behoove you
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>
> At 12:11 PM +0100 9/3/10, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>>I don't really see why the Ciudad Juarez example is remarkable. Â Seems like
>>an application of the sense 'be advantageous'. Â It would not be an
>>advantage to you to go to CJ. And an easily accessible implicature from
>>that statement is: 'it would be a disadvantage to you to go'.
>>
>>Lynne
>
> Right, but I agree that it's a bit odd given the environments in
> which "neg-raising", i.e. the association of a higher (main clause)
> negation with a lower (embedded clause) meaning, tends to occur.*
> The classic instances of this phenomenon involve verbs like "want" or
> "think/believe" (or both, as in "I don't think she wants to leave"
> meaning "I think she wants to stay"). Â But we do get these readings
> with modals of weak obligation like "ought to", "should", "better",
> or "supposed to", so "you're not supposed to go" will usually be
> interpreted as "you're supposed to stay". Â The thing is that
> "behoove" might be expected to pattern with stronger obligation verbs
> like "have to", which doesn't license such interpretations (in
> English), so "you don't have to go" isn't read with the meaning "you
> have to stay"
> LH

As exemplifiedd by the blues verse,

Oh, baby, you don't have to go
[RPT]
I'm gonna pack up, darlin'
Down the road I'll go

--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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