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Double negation | ||
Tags: Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 36 15 August 2005 at 3:41pm | IP Logged |
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One of the many exotic features of Russian is the double negation. In Russian, you do say 'We don't need no education'. You would expect it to be more mathematical and do like other languages where only one negation can be expressed ('We need no education' or 'We don't need any education').
Since my education always encouraged me to take out the extra negation in phrases, it is quite unnatural to me to put it back in Russian (Ya netchevo ne vidil 'I nothing not saw'). I wonder if other languages have such a double negation? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Nephilim Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 7145 days ago 363 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English*, Polish | Message 2 of 36 15 August 2005 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
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I think in Polish you can have triple negation. For example:
Nikt tu nigdy nic nie robi = no-one ever does anything here. A literal translation would be: Nobody here never doesn't do nothing very strange indeed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7207 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 3 of 36 15 August 2005 at 3:59pm | IP Logged |
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In Spanish you say "No necesitamos ninguna educación" which is a double negation (we don't need no education). Do other Latin languages include this feature?
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| Marin Triglot Groupie Croatia Joined 7059 days ago 50 posts - 51 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Italian Studies: German, Russian, Persian | Message 4 of 36 15 August 2005 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
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In Croatian it's also possible to have a double negation. And that Polish sentence in Croatian is 'Nitko tu nikad ništa ne radi', which is again 'Nobody here never doesn't do nothing'. Guess it's a Slavic thing :) Now when I think of it, double negation in Croatian is more of a rule than an exception... Edited by Marin on 15 August 2005 at 5:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bart Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 7160 days ago 155 posts - 159 votes Speaks: Dutch*, French, English Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish | Message 5 of 36 15 August 2005 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
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I know that in Afrikaans you always have a double negation, but you don't have it in Dutch!
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| Giordano Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7174 days ago 213 posts - 218 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Cantonese, Greek | Message 6 of 36 18 August 2005 at 11:00am | IP Logged |
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Personne ne fait rien içi = lit. No one does nothing here
On n'a pas besoin de ça = lit. We no/not have not need of that Is the Slavic double negative like the French one (ne pas, where the 'ne' is clitical), or like the ungrammatical English "Don't need no ..."? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Marin Triglot Groupie Croatia Joined 7059 days ago 50 posts - 51 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Italian Studies: German, Russian, Persian | Message 7 of 36 21 August 2005 at 2:47pm | IP Logged |
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I think it is closer this ungrammatical English stuff. My Croatian is not as good as it used to be ;)
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| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7238 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 8 of 36 21 August 2005 at 4:26pm | IP Logged |
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This is a true story. In a college course a professor was saying something to the effect of:
“In English, a double negative indicates a ‘yes’ meaning. In Spanish, a double negative just means a more forceful ‘no’. However, in no language does a double positive ever mean ‘no’.” To which someone in the back replied sarcastically: “Yeah… right” 1 person has voted this message useful |
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