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.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday June 20 2015, @12:10AM
The problem is the English.
>それを開けないか?
>Are (you) unable to open that?
(Actually, I think your Japanese is wrong here. it should be それが開けられないですか。or more commonly just 開けられない? or 開けられないですか。)
"Can't you ?" is a special phrase in English, it doesn't mean "Are you unable to ?" (Natural languages are fun like that). It means "Can you (questioning, worried, request for explanation, offer to help)?".
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(Score: 2) by DarkMorph on Saturday June 20 2015, @02:21AM
As for が vs を with potential verbs, the topic has been done to death and quite frankly many natives are using を anyway despite strict grammar rules suggesting otherwise.
See: http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/25boisu.html [geocities.jp] Section 25.4.1
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday June 20 2015, @08:21PM
>No, the potential form is 開ける.
Dead wrong.
ドアを開ける。
それを開けてください。
開ける Ichidan verb, Transitive verb
開ける
1. to open (a door, etc.); to unwrap (e.g. parcel, package); to unlock
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%96%8B%E3%81%91%E3%82%8B [ wiktionary.org (Warning: Unicode in URL) ]
So now I'm confident that your original Japanese is wrong.
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(Score: 2) by DarkMorph on Sunday June 21 2015, @03:29PM
Perhaps you should spend a little less time accusing those who speak the language with native speakers for a few years of having poor grammar, and more time learning things yourself.