Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 10:38:53 EST

From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU

Subject: Re: one as a pronoun?



Donald Lance writes,



The people who say "I ain't got none" and mean that 'none' is exactly what

they have are merely augmenting the negation, not negating the negation.

Does any native speaker of English ever assume that someone else's "I ain't

got none" or "I can't hardly do that any more" or "He won't never come

back" is actually a negation of a negative?



Depends on the context, including prior discourse and intonation/stress. Even

within a negative concord dialect, "I don't want nothing" can correspond either

to standard Eng. 'There's nothing I want' [= I don't want anything] or 'It's

not the case that I want nothing' [= I don't want nothing], but the latter

interpretation only arises if the prior discourse suggests that the speaker

DOES want nothing and with the appropriate marked contour.



Larry