Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 109 November 23, 1991 1) Double negatives (Harry Katz) 2) Query (David Sherman) 3) To Ellen Prince (Dan Solomon) 4) Koyletch (Isabelle Kreindler) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 15:46:19 -0500 From: harry@nonvax.alf.dec.COM Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.106 > ...in Yiddish there are > "double negatives" that do not mean a "positive," as would > be the case in English. E.g."Ich hob nisht kein gelt" (a > refrain often heard). Is there a true double negative here? > If so, why doesn't the logical rule apply in Yiddish as it > does in English? The rule on double negatives is unique to the English language. All other languages that I have heard about allow double negatives for added emphasis. (The double negative rule in English seems to be based entirely on logical considerations, which make it unique even in English, as most language usage is idiomatic and relates very poorly to the logic of the words. For example, take the two idiomatic phrases, "What is going on?" and "What is coming off?" Both have the same meaning even though the words themselves indicate logically opposing actions. Moreover, the actual meaning of the phrases bears no relation to the literal meaning of the words.) 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 21:58:12 EST From: dave@lsuc.on.CA Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.104 I'm still waiting for the followups about dialect variants where nisht alone, or kein alone, is sufficient for the negative. Nu? 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 14:14:22 EST From: solomon@stat.ncsu.edu Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 1.108 In discussing negative concord, Ellen Prince takes it ain't no cat can't get in no coop to mean: no cat can get in a coop, or: there's no cat that can get in a coop. She cites an "it" for "there" substitution in partial explanation. I have no authority on which to question this reading, but my "ear" takes the sentence to mean quite the opposite: if it can't get in a coop, then it's not a cat or: there isn't a cat that can't get in a coop. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 12:20:19 IST From: isabelle Subject: RE: Mendele Vol1.105 Herschel Basser's 'koyletch' (vol 100) sounds to me close to 'kalatch'__ Russian for a kind of fancy loaf in the shape of a pretzel. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.109