[Ads-l] to "question"

[Laurence Horn]

> On Mar 30, 2015, at 10:57 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> 
> Wouldn't 'doubt (out loud) that' (or perhaps 'raise doubts') be closer than 'attempt to deny'?  The latter seems to strong for the intended meaning here, I think.  What makes it tricky is that affirmative uses of "question that" in the relevant sense seem less likely than negated uses like the one below or occurrences in questions--e.g. "Do you question that he loves you?" to take a random example from the internet; the question is whether the addressee would attempt

I meant, of course, "the question is *not* whether the addressee would attempt to deny that he loves her"...

> to deny that he loves her (I assume it's a her) but more like whether she wonders, worries, or has doubts about it.   
> 
> LH
> 
> 
>> On Mar 30, 2015, at 7:29 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> 
>> 'To attempt to deny (that)' :
>> 
>> CNN reports that the French government has criticized the release of
>> cockpit recordings from the Germanwings flight, "but does not question that
>> the information is accurate."
>> 
>> Some OED defs. come close, but definitely no cigar.
>> 
>> JL
>> 
>> -- 
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=KCAOJ_CPVgM4ljrznBaUj7MusoEHVd3qD0cmWRCtDp4&s=7yl1EFVgMgZDpRwOgHwHISalTvLF7j8zJsjtnOlxbmQ&e= 
> 

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org