Author Topic: Double negatives (Read 4030 times)

Porter · « **on:** October 05, 2004, 09:19:45 PM »

This is really a linguistics question, and not an English question.

I know that in some languages, double negatives are perfectly acceptable.

For example, in Portugese, you would say "I can't get no satisfaction". That's the way you say it -- you always use double negatives.

How many languages are like this, and why did we get stuck with a stick-in-the-mud language that hates double negatives?

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1 on:** October 05, 2004, 10:54:46 PM »

In Portuguese, do the two negatives go around the verb? You do that in French - surround the verb with ne.... pas. However, in Spanish, you just preced the verb with no. I know nothing about Latin, so I'm wondering if that's where the double negative came from.

Porter · « **Reply #2 on:** October 06, 2004, 07:24:30 AM »

In Portugese, they do tend to go around the verb. I haven't been able to come up with an example where they don't.

For example, you would not say "Eu tenho nada" (I have nothing). Instead, you would say "Eu nao tenho nada" (I [don't] have nothing).

What does pas mean in French? Is this a double negative?

So Spanish doesn't have the double negative? I would have guessed it did.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #3 on:** October 06, 2004, 07:36:54 AM »

Ne and pas are a compound that together mean a negative.
Je ne suis pas, Je n'ai pas

They aren't often used alone in written French, but ne is used in other constructions, like rien n'est simple, and personne ne dit pourquoi. In spoken French, though, it's more common to drop the ne. Je sais pas is entirely acceptable, as is c'est pas juste.

sarcasticmuppet · « **Reply #4 on:** October 06, 2004, 08:30:21 AM »

You surround the verb with negations in Egyptian Arabic as well, but I don't think a double negative really comes into play. The word for not is "mish", but the word for I'm not going is maaruh'sh. Aruh'--I go surounded by mish.

Lady Montagu · « **Reply #5 on:** October 06, 2004, 08:34:36 AM »

Latin just includes the adverb non somewhere near the verb.

Jonathon · « **Reply #6 on:** October 06, 2004, 08:39:29 AM »

Well, there are thousands upon thousands of languages in the world, and I'm only familiar with a couple, so I can't really say how many use multiple negation. I know that Romance languages typically do use double negatives, but Germanic languages typically don't. (Though English used multiple negatives at least until Shakespeare's time, so I wonder if other Germanic languages lost it, or if we picked it up somewhere.) And according to this, many Slavic languages use double negatives.

So where does the English rule come from? From a bunch of grammarians who decided that language had to be logical. They figured that two negatives make a positive, even though in English, two negatives generally make something more negative (I guess they thought that you multiply them, when really they should have been adding). But the rule has been around for long enough that it's not going to go anywhere anytime soon.

Porter · « **Reply #7 on:** October 06, 2004, 09:00:47 AM »

It ain't going nowhere notime soon.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #8 on:** October 06, 2004, 12:03:37 PM »

It's not just a mathematical nullification of negatives - it makes sense.

"I don't have no bananas."

What don't you have? No bananas. If you don't have "no bananas," you must have some bananas.

It does come in useful every once in awhile - as in: "I don't have nothing," as in, "How dare you tell me I have nothing."

Anyway...

Jonathon · « **Reply #9 on:** October 06, 2004, 12:21:19 PM »

Good point. In English, sometimes double negatives are used for emphasis, and sometimes they're used to make a soft positive, like "I don't dislike her."

rivka · « **Reply #10 on:** October 11, 2004, 10:08:28 PM »

Add Hebrew to the list of languages that utilizes double negatives.

Porter · « **Reply #11 on:** October 12, 2004, 07:31:50 AM »

What do you mean? Are double negatives utilized as they are in English, or In Portugese?

rivka · « **Reply #12 on:** October 13, 2004, 06:00:49 AM »

I don't speak Portuguese, but it sounds like that would be the similar model.

Ayn lee cloom -- I don't have nothing, literally.

pooka · « **Reply #13 on:** October 13, 2004, 08:05:47 PM »

A lot of English grammar rules are derived from Latin and don't really fit, like the prohibition on dangling prepositions. I think the prohibition on double negatives may be one of these. What about Italian? Anyone know Italian?

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #14 on:** October 14, 2004, 09:48:17 AM »

I think the prohibition on dangling participles is quite practical; it prevents misunderstandings in your writing.

My favorite example from eighth-grade English is; "Dangling from the garage roof, I thought the Christmas lights looked beautiful."

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #15 on:** October 14, 2004, 09:49:30 AM »

I know a few key phrases in Italian, one of which is the colloquial Non me ne po frega de meno, meaning idiomatically "I really don't care." It sounds like it's got some double negatives going on there.

Jonathon · « **Reply #16 on:** October 14, 2004, 10:11:14 AM »

Quote

I think the prohibition on dangling participles is quite practical; it prevents misunderstandings in your writing.

My favorite example from eighth-grade English is; "Dangling from the garage roof, I thought the Christmas lights looked beautiful."

Yeah, but that's not from Latin. That's just common sense.

Porter · « **Reply #17 on:** October 14, 2004, 10:27:34 AM »

While there are times when a dangling participle can be confusing, most times they are used they don't cause any ambiguity at all.

Jonathon · « **Reply #18 on:** October 14, 2004, 10:30:41 AM »

And it's often not even a matter of being confusing, but of being silly. I'm sure everyone understood Annie's example.

pooka · « **Reply #19 on:** October 14, 2004, 08:37:28 PM »

It's not a dangling participle, but I've always enjoyed:

Quote

I saw Richard Nixon flying over the grand canyon.

Well, maybe it is dangling. Does dangling means not in the clause of the noun it is modifying? Anyway, a possible solution is to inflect participles for number, case, and possibly gender. Sometimes I'm content to leave English be.