Re: Negation raising (was: introduction)

Christian Thalmann sikyal:

> > I point out this Christophe-ism, not in the spirit of correction, but
> > rather in the spirit of letting the imagination run away with it.
> > In English, "I think ..." raises negation from the embedded sentence
> > to the matrix, so we express this as "I don't think I need ...".
> > This can happen even across sentences...
>
> I have this weird sentence in my head...  could one of you native
> speakers tell me whether it's actual spoken English or just another
> brainfart of mine?  ;-)
>
> "I can't seem to do it" meaning "It seems that I can't do it."
Yep.  Perfectly natural, and how I'd say the sentence if I had a need.

> So?  If it's valid, it sure is one heck of a grammatical stunt.
Huh.  You're right--we raised the negative and the subject. How odd.

Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
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