zompist bboard

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1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

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Ouch!

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Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

Polish is more weird; we've got sometimes triple negation or quadruple etc.
Example? OK:
Nikt nigdzie nikogo nigdy nie widział (literally: noone nowhere noone never no saw )
It means that we can negate 5 times (but Poles are clever, we can do more!)

IMHO, this concerns the tension between efficiency and redundancy. As for Czech (as well as other languages), there's a gender+number+case agreement in whole clauses or phrases:

Vide^l jsem hezkou mladou holku

I saw a nice+{fem.acc.sg.} young+{fem.acc.sg.} girl+{fem.acc.sg.}

The redundancy/efficiency dichotomy is, to some extent, an argument for dis/ambiguity.

I don't think there's much difference between Enlish and Czech in this respect, which can be shown by means of simple algebraic operation:

If A, B and C are negatable expressions, if -1 is the negation, and if * is multiplication, then, in general, we can observe the following pattern:

S1 (Czech): (-1) * A + (-1) * B + (-1) * C
S2 (English): (-1) * (A + B + C)

By simple maths: S1 = S2

Hence, as can be seen, the meaning is clearly the same. However, what if the language needed to express the following?

E.g.:

(-1) * A + B + C
A + (-1) * B + C
A + B + (-1) * C
(-1) * A + (-1) * B + C
(-1) * A + B + (-1) * C
A + (-1) * B + (-1) * C

Each would lead to grammatical, but nonsensical sentences in Czech, but what about other languages?

Best,

Petusek

Icelandic has a kind of double negative.

Ég veit ekki neitt - "I don't know nothing".

Swedish has no double negatives, neither in formal or vernicular langage. It is possible to form negative sentences in different ways, using different kinds of negatives:

Jag såg ingen.

"I saw nobody"

Jag såg inte någon.

"I didn't see anyody"

However, it would be very strange to combine the two negatives:

*Jag såg inte ingen. - I didn't see nobody.

Double negatives ar every common among the worlds languages, according to WALS:

http://wals.info/feature/115

Whether it is liked by prescriptivists or not a matter more of historical circumstances, than of logic.

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Blog:

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

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< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".

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< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".

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-

Emphasis seems like a likely candidate in English:

I ain't got any vs. I ain't got none

Although stress could also do the trick I think.

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You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.