[Lexicog] Fw: Your reply

[Lexicography List Facilitator]

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Aubin" <gaubin at eve.assumption.edu>
To: <wayne_leman at sil.org>
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 5:38 PM
Subject: Your reply


Wayne:

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, after doing a bit more research
and sending a slightly changed message along to the address you
suggested, it was rejected. If you want to post it, here it is:
=
I've been following the recent discussion of negatives, and I would
like to point out that the French examples given, while accurate, do
not quite tell the whole story.

It is certainly true, as some have pointed out, that negative words
used in sentences without verbs generally retain their negative
meaning regardless of their historical origins. And it is equally
true that one can accumulate multiple negatives in French without any
change in the individual negative words or in their negative meaning
(two, four, six, ... negatives do _not_ equal a positive). Thus, a
sentence such as: "Je ne vais plus jamais nulle part avec personne"
is perfectly grammatical with the negatives "ne...plus, ne...jamais,
ne...nulle part, ne... personne" and has the approximate English
meaning: "I no longer ever go anywhere with anyone."

But, as a minor comment on this discussion, there are some cases in
which two negatives in French _are_ equal to a positive, with 'pas'
apparently required as the first negative in these somewhat unusual
combinations. Two examples:

1) "Ce n'est pas rien" means literally "It is not nothing", i.e. "it
is something of some importance";

2) "Il n'est pas personne" means literally "He is not nobody", i.e.
"he is someone of some importance."

In spite of Molière's implied criticism of structures of this type
--- one of his characters (Bélise to Martine, Les femmes savantes,
act 2, scene 6) says: "De pas mis avec rien tu fais la récidive, Et
c'est, comme on t'a dit, trop d'une négative" (roughly, "by putting
'pas' with 'rien', you are falling into your bad habits again, and
that's because, as you've been told, there is one negative too many")
--- they are perfectly grammatical in modern French.

George Aubin
=

For some reason, I receive many if not all of the Lexicography
postings, but I'm apparently not a full member of the group S Curious.

George



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers.
At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/EA3HyD/3MnJAA/79vVAA/HKE4lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->


Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/