Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 14:15:12 EST

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

Subject: Re: No tickee, no washee



I've actually used this line (in Mark's rather than Peter's 'no shirtee'

variant) precisely to illustrate the conditional, as opposed to conjunctional,

interpretation of the "no X, no Y" construction. Here's the relevant passage,

for anyone who might be interested:



The formula 'No X, no Y' may be filled in--depending on context and

contour--either conjunctively or conditionally:

(40)a. No retreat, no surrender. No smoking, No drinking. (P & Q)

b. No pain, no gain. No tickee, no washee. (P-- Q)

Even here, the context is paramount in determining context [oops, that

should have been "content"]: 'No vegetables, no dessert' will be taken

as a conditional or a conjunction depending on whether it's uttered as a

parent's warning or a maitre d's apology. But the sign posted on the

Yale commons cafeteria door reproduced in (41) must first be assigned a

conditional content; only at the bottom does this content get erased and

replaced by that of a loony conjunction.



(41) NO SHIRT, NO SHOES

NO SERVICE



ALSO -- NO SKATES



(This appears in "The Said and the Unsaid", SALT II (1992), p. 186, in the

context of a discussion of retroactive accomodation in which I also consider

the behavior of Retro-NOT.)

This said, I really have no idea to what extent other languages exploit this

ambiguity/indeterminacy. But I understand that positive statements of the

form "P...Q." can be interpreted as conditionals in many languages, including

Chinese, where the disambiguation (cf. You want it...You got it.) is typically

provided by intonation and pause duration. I wonder if this is discussed in

depth somewhere.



--Larry