Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 7/20/83; site ihnss.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxi!mhuxa!houxm!ihnp4!ihnss!knudsen From: knudsen@ihnss.UUCP Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Ree: Double negatives, and Russian Message-ID: <1619@ihnss.UUCP> Date: Fri, 22-Jul-83 13:43:32 EDT Article-I.D.: ihnss.1619 Posted: Fri Jul 22 13:43:32 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 23-Jul-83 05:16:56 EDT Organization: BTL Naperville, Il. Lines: 15 Double negatives are not confined to creole, pidgin, or whatever. My college Russian teacher empgasized that Russian uses double, triple, or more negatives as desired for increased emphasis -- "the more neg's you put in, the negativer it gets." In my own jargon, I would ssay the Russians prefer the "analog" interpretation of negatives (more is more) to our formal "digital" scheme (truth = even parity over # of negatives). Who the hell wants to compute parities in their heads in realtime? I HATE sentences in Enlgish like "...this criticism was not undeserved" or even "...it is unlikely that this criticism was not undeserved" (yes, I really saw that TRIPLE job recently in a book review).. Don't like to have to stop and count on my fingers to know whose side that author was on.... mike k