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The words 'yes' and 'no' may seem like two of the easiest expressions to understand in any language, but their actual behaviour and interpretation are surprisingly difficult to pin down. In a paper published in the scholarly journal Language, two linguists examine the workings of 'yes' and 'no' and show that understanding them leads to new insights concerning the understanding of questions and statements more generally.
Floris Roelofsen (University of Amsterdam) and Donka F. Farkas (UC -- Santa Cruz) provide a comprehensive account of 'polarity particles', as these words are called, across languages, and explain the intricate pattern of their distribution. For example, "Yes, it is" and "No, it isn't" are acceptable answers to the question "Is the door open or is it not open?," but not to "Is the door open or is it closed?." Furthermore, the intonation used when pronouncing a sentence can affect whether 'yes' or 'no' are appropriate responses to it.
The original article came from Science Daily, but was also covered by phys.org.
The abstract (full study available to subscribers only) can be found at the Project Muse page from Johns Hopkins University.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday June 19 2015, @04:08PM
A linguist was giving a lecture about the double-negative. See, in some languages and dialects, to say a negative sentence, you negate every word in the sentence (i.e. "He didn't do nothing."), while in other languages and dialects to say a negative sentence, you need to negate only one thing (i.e. "He didn't do anything."), so some would interpret the double-negative form as meaning the positive (i.e. "He did do something."). However, the linguist noted that there's no cases of a double-positive being interpreted as a negative.
At this point, a voice was heard in the back of the room: "Yeah, right".
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(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday June 19 2015, @05:35PM
you negate every word in the sentence (i.e. "He didn't do nothing.")
"He didn't don't nothing," surely? ;)
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(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday June 19 2015, @11:57PM
Necessary pedantry incoming.
The verb is "to do". The imperfective past negative form of "to do" is "did not do" or "didn't do". There's only one negation going on there. There's only one verb there, you can't negate both halves of one verb: "I did not un-run to the park".
Personally, I don't think the negative indefinite pronoun/adjective ("none", "nothing", etc.) should exist, it's redundant and confusing.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:00AM
He said that you negate every *word* in the sentence.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 19 2015, @05:50PM
Double Negative: -1 * -1 = 1 (positive)
Double Positive: 1 * 1 = 1 (positive)
Makes sense to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @07:16PM
I hate it when attorneys say "Is it not true that..." It's trying to confuse someone who might not understand how to answer a double negative question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @07:55PM
When replying to an attorney, I would be inclined to rephrase (and say) the question in a form that I could easily understand -- then provide an answer to my version.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @07:58AM
To which they might reply "Please just answer yes or no".
And by then you should have (the balls to say you don't understand the question and have) them rephrase it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by choose another one on Friday June 19 2015, @07:55PM
So answer with "No, it is not true that" (or equally, "yes, it is not true that"). They'll soon get bored.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Katastic on Friday June 19 2015, @08:30PM
From what I remember of Spanish, many languages allow multiple negatives that don't ... negate each other. Instead of flipping the sign, they reinforce it. "I'm not never going to give you my money to you, mugger." Would mean "I'm REALLY SERIOUS about not handing my money over." Double, and even triple negatives exist in Spanish.
I may be wrong, or missing some context, so definitely do some fact checking before you start telling people around the watercooler. But I still think it's a neat distinction from English.
(Score: 2) by DarkMorph on Saturday June 20 2015, @02:45AM