Re: Negation raising (was: introduction)

--- In conlang@y..., John Cowan <jcowan@R...> wrote:
> Christophe Grandsire scripsit:
>
> > I think I don't need to give a translation :)))
>
> 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."

So?  If it's valid, it sure is one heck of a grammatical stunt.


-- Christian Thalmann

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