LINGUIST List 5.903

Thu 18 Aug 1994

Qs: Double negation, Linguistic rights newsletters, Shoebox

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , Double negation in non-standard English
2. Bill Croft, Roberta Hendricks; Linguistic rights newsletters?
3. "RANDY J. LAPOLLA", IT, Shoebox

Query:

Double negation in non-standard English, as in (1), has received attention
in the literature:

(1) He didn't do nothing.

In the relevant varieties of English, the two negatives in (1) do not cancel
each other out, i.e., what looks like double negation isn't double negation but
single negation.
Does anyone know whether structures like (2) have been discussed in the same
context?

(2) He did not do nothing.

That is, where the verb is negated with not rather than 'nt, is double negation
attested? My own intuition is that structures like (2), with not rather than
'nt, can only have logical double negative interpretation, even in non-standard
English, i.e., (2) means `He did something'. What I really need is references
to relevant published material. Can anyone help? Or can anyone remember what
has been said/concluded in the literature? If this is all well-known stuff,
please excuse my ignorance.

Paul Rowlett

Two queries:

1. Does anyone out there have an address for Roberta Hendricks (now
married, I think her surname is now Krueger), a Mayanist who was a
student at U Chicago in the early 1980s? Snailmail is preferable, but
any way to contact her would be useful.

2. My second query is prompted by LINGUIST 5.759: "Kurdish protest,
linguistic human rights violations". Does there exist a newsletter,
electronic or hardcopy, on linguistic rights? That is, legal and extralegal
activities to suppress the use of a particular language, or efforts
to establish linguistic rights where such rights do not exist.
(Although linguistic rights obviously ties in with language endangerment
and language planning, I am not asking here about those topics.)

Thanks for info on either or both.

Bill Croft


Dept of Linguistics, U Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
w.croftman.ac.uk Phone: +44-61-275 3188 FAX: +44-61-275 3187

I have checked several ftp sites and have found the text management
programs IT and Shoebox for the PC, but not the corresponding versions
for the MAC. Can anyone tell me where I might obtain such? Thank you!

Randy LaPolla
Institute of History & Philology
Academia Sinica