Re: OT: Negation as the indicative standard
From: | Doug Dee <amateurlinguist@...> |
Date: | Thursday, January 22, 2004, 0:40 |
In a message dated 1/20/2004 10:28:39 AM Eastern Standard Time,
fiziwig@YAHOO.COM writes:
>> OTOH, I now seem to recall reading somewhere about a
>> language (in Africa?)
>> that allegedly expressed negation solely by a change
>> of tone (on the verb, I
>> think).
>>
>> Doug
>What about the sarcastic tone in English. "Yeah,
>sure, I believe you." Meaning "I do NOT believe you."
That would fall outside the scope of what my source was discussing, since it
is not the major way of indicating negation in English.