Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 108 November 21, 1991 1) Double negatives (Frederick Van Doren) 2) Which shtetl? (Mikhl Herzog) 3) Double negatives (Ellen Prince) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 8:16:29 est From: VANDOREN@DICKINSN.BITNET Subject: Mendele Vol 1.104 The idea that syntactic structure should reflect "logic" is culturally conditioned. English disallows double negatives, so we say it's a "logical" language. Standard Russian requires double negatives: "ja nichego ne znaju" [lit: 'I don't know nothing'], but no native speaker woul construe this to mean 'I do know something'. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 13:21 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.BITNET Subject: RE: Mendele Vol1.105 Fayvel: Do you know the town your Suvaler bobi(!) was from? It sounds to me as if it's an extension of the Womzi (Lomza) Grajvi (Grajewo) area. Mikhl. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 14:22:42 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.106 on harold bershady's question about yiddish negation: yiddish has what is called 'negative concord'--if the proposition conveyed is negative, all non-specific expressions in the proposition have to be negated. this is not unusual in european lgs, as has been pointed out. it works somewhat differently in each language family, however, and differently from language to language within a family. closest to home, black english has negative concord, of which perhaps the most famous/impressive example (from labov) is: it ain't no cat can't get in no coop which means: no cat can get in a coop, or: there's no cat that can get in a coop. (black english, like yiddish and just about every other germanic language, uses 'it' for 'there'.) closest to yiddish, bavarian german (which shares a zillion other features with yiddish) has negative concord. as for 'two negatives make a positive', this is a fact of (standard, two-valued) logic, NOT a fact of language. it was applied to english around the seventeenth century, i think, by some 'grammarian' who was trying to stamp out negative concord in english (chaucer had no problem with it, of course). one last note--dave sherman (and many grammar books) say that 'keyn' is required when 'an indefinite article is called for'. close, but not quite. what matters is whether the noun phrase refers to a specific or nonspecific entity. for example, in english: john wants to marry a norwegian is ambiguous. it may be that john has a specific woman in mind and i happen to refer to her as 'a norwegian'. in this case, i could continue with: but she doesn't want to marry him. in the other, nonspecific, sense, any norwegian will do--all john wants is to marry someone/anyone with the property of being a norwegian. in this sense, i couldn't continue with 'but she doesn't want to marry him'. however, i could continue with: but he'll never find one. now, if we make the sentence negative, there are still two readings: john doesn't want to marry a norwegian--and she doesn't want to marry him. john doesn't want to marry a norwegian, which is good since he'll never find any. ok, so now to yiddish. so far as i know, the first--specific--sense would not have keyn, whereas the second--nonspecific--sense would (for most speakers): yankl vil nit khasene hobn mit a norveger--un zi vil nit khasene hobn mit im. yankl vil nit khasene hobn mit keyn norveger, vos iz gut vayl er vet keyn norveger keynmol nit trefn. is that ok, you yiddish speakers? the crucial one is this--is it bad (as this account predicts)?: *yankl vil nit khasene hobn mit keyn norveger--un zi vil nit khasene hobn mit im. (note, by the way, that 'khasene' doesn't get a 'keyn'--so far as i know, yankl vil nit keyn khasene hobn mit... would have the literal rather than idiomatic sense--john doesn't want to have a(ny) wedding with... if this is true, then 'khasene' in the idiom khasene hobn 'get married' isn't even nonspecific--it doesn't refer in ANY way. it's just part of a complex predicate, like 'the bucket' in kick the bucket 'die'.) more than you ever wanted to know about negative concord... ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.108