[lit-ideas] Re: The Saga of Jenny
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 11:00:18 EDT
"in twenty-five languages she couldn't say no"
('Jenny')
We are discussing
STONE: Do you mind if I sit here?
PERSON: Sure.
Stone writes:
>I know WHY they do it, but it STILL pisses me off.
>I agree with this. Yes. I sure do. It's GOT to be that. Yes. Yes I do, Yes.
>Uh Huh. You bet! That's affirmative Rampart. Darn Tootin'. Oh
>yeaaaaaaaaaah! I concur.
Mine was an 'implicature'-based explanation. There's a more elaborate
syntax-based explanation (put forward by Geary in _Papers in Foreign
Languages_,
State University of Memphis, Summer School, Paris).
In Geary's view, the underlying ("deep structure") of the erotetic
formulation:
"do you mind if I sit here" (raising intonation)
involves a 'phrastic' of _aseverative_ illocutionary force, to wit:
"I sit here"
If the person replies,
"No"
someone "not very versed in Chomsky's transformational syntax", Geary puts
it, may take the "no" to apply to that phrastic:
"No. Don't sit here"
The ability to apply the negation-operator to the higher-superordinate
clause requires some degree of metapsychical processes that have
'conventionalized
to nil', Geary regrets.
The sad thing, Geary, notes is that the initial questioner may _actually_
take the 'no' as applying to 'can I sit there?' and proceed accordingly: _sit_
and feel bad about it (when it's sit and feel good about it). "Life."
Cheers,
JL
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
