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