Query Details

Query Subject:	Sociocultural approaches to writing
Author:	Bart Geurts
Submitter Email:	click here to access email

Linguistic LingField(s):	Semantics Syntax

Query:	Tue, 14 Aug 2001 14:56:10 +0200 Bart Geurts bart.geurts@phil.kun.nl Quantification and negation It is generally agreed that the German sentence in (1a), transliterated in (1b), may be construed as being synonymous with (2). This reading is somewhat problematic, because it seems to require that only the negative part of ''kein Auto'' be fronted. (1a) Alle Professoren haben kein Auto. (1b) All professors have no car. (2) Not all professors own cars. It has been suggested to me that the English sentence in (1b) admits of the same construal, and I would like to know if that is correct, and if there dialectal or idiolectal variation in this point. It seems to me that it is fairly easy to read (3a), where I suppose ''no geniuses'' must be read predicatively, as synonymous with (3b), and would like to know if this is true, and if so, whether this reading is easier to obtain than in the case of (1b): (3a) All professors are no geniuses. (3b) Not all professors are geniuses. Finally, I would be interested to know if speakers' intuitions about (1b) and (3a) are somehow related to their intuitions about sentences in which negation associates with the verb, such as the following: (4) All professors aren't ill. Bart Geurts
LL Issue:	12.2064
Date posted:	20-Aug-2001
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