LINGUIST List 6.891

Tue Jun 27 1995

Sum: Negated questions and exclamations

Editor for this issue: Anthony M. Aristar <aristartam2000.tamu.edu>

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1. Elke Hentschel, Summary: Negated questions and exclamations

About two weeks ago, I posted a query on two subjects: I was looking for
languages (1) which can or, on the contrary, cannot use negated
interrogatives like "Look, over there - isn't that John?" in order to
express a positive expectation, and (2) which have negated wh-exclamations
like German: "Was du nicht alles weisst!" (lit.: 'what you don't know
all!') or Serbocroatian "Sta nije sve doziveo!" (lit.: 'what he didn't
all live through!'), that refer to the positive, not the negative fact.

First of all, I wish to thank the following colleagues for their
contributions:

Suzanne Albrecht (sanabriazedat.fu-berlin.de)
Gisle Andersen (hengaalf.uib.no)
Birgitta Englund Dimitrova (Birgitta.Englundtolk.su.se)
Frederik Fouvry (fouvryllsun4.essex.ac.uk)
Keith Goeringer (kegviolet.berkeley.edu)
Michael Israel (israelling.UCSD.EDU)
Dalina Kallulli (Dalina.Kallulliavh.unit.no)
Jussi Karlgren (jussisics.se)
E.H. Klein-v.d.Laaken (kleinlet.rug.nl)
James Kirchner (JPKIRCHNERaol.com)
Randy LaPolla (HSLAPOLLAccvax.sinica.edu.tw)
Pierre Larrivee (aaa552agora.ulaval.ca)
Bert Peeters (Bert.Peetersmodlang.utas.edu.au)
Francisco Raga (ragavents.uji.es)
Alexandr Rosen (Alexandr.Rosenff.cuni.cz )
Cristina Sanz (sanzcgusun.acc.georgetown.edu)
Karen Stanley (Karen_Stanleycpcc.cc.nc.us)
Jan Vorster (VORSTERJmtb.und.ac.za)
Ton van der Wouden (vdwoudenlet.rug.nl)
Deborah Yeager (kyeagerprism.nmt.edu)
Ning Zhang (zningepas.utoronto.ca)

The languages I received information about were:
Afrikaans, Albanian, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, English, Dutch, Norwegean,
Spanish, Swedish, Yucatec Maya.

No additional languages have been named where the use of negated
questions like "Look, over there - isn't that John?" was not possible; so
Apache and Navajo are still the only examples I have found so far..

As to the negated wh-exclamations, what is most interesting is that they
do exist in languages where the native speakers I had asked so far had
been convinced that they do not. Examples for this are English and
Spanish, cf.:
 What I didn't do to get that report finished on time! (Karen Stanley)
 Cuanto no tendre que sufrir hasta conseguirlo! (Cristina Sanz)

This type of construction can obviously be found in much more languages
than I had assumed. In some of them, it seems to be old fashened
and not very wide spread, but it still exists as such. (If anybody now
comes to think of one more language that allows that type of utterance -
I am still collecting, and I'm grateful for any help I can get!)

As to the question of why and how these negated questions and
wh-exclamations work: I am dealing with it in paper of mine (to be
published), and I'll be glad to mail it to anybody who is interested, but
I'm afraid it's in German.

Thanks once again to all who helped, and please feel free to contact me
if you have any questions.

Elke Hentschel