浅析造成英语否定结构歧义的原因An Analysis of the Causes of the Ambiguity in English Negative Structure

论文总字数：27917字

摘 要

在含有否定结构的英语句中，如果是一个孤立的句子，往往会令读者觉得含有多种理解或者多种意义。这就导致了英语否定结构中常出现歧义现象，这种否定结构即是英语歧义结构之一。造成这种歧义现象的原因不尽相同。本文从否定范围，否定转移和否定转换三个方面入手，试图为正确理解否定歧义句提供一种新的思路。了解这种结构和现象，就能知道这种结构的正确意义，从而避免歧义，避免理解和表达的错误。

关键词：否定结构，歧义，否定范围， 否定转移，否定转换

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………1
3. The Causes of Ambiguity ……...............................……………………...2

3.1 Ambiguity by Scope of Negation………………………………………….2

3.2 Ambiguity by Transferred Negation……………………………........4

3.3 Ambiguity by Negative Transformation…………………………...6

1. Disambiguation.............................................................…………………8

5. The Illumination of this study on the translation of English negative structure………...........…………………………………………………..........10

6. Conclusion.....................................................................................................12

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...14

1. Introduction

As we know, the affirmative and negative structures are two main sentence structures in both English and Chinese. In English the negative structures are very complex in meaning, as the negative structures may not express the negative meaning. The English negative structures are the sentences or phrases that have the negative words or negative meaning unit. Generally speaking, it can be classified into seven categories according to the usage and effect of the negatives:1.Complete negative structure 2.Partial negative structure 3.Double negative structure 4.Continuous negative structure 5.Implicit negative structure 6.Transferred negative structure 7.Other special cases. Because of different ways employed to present such a structure, a negative sentence may cause some problems, especially those of misunderstanding and ambiguity in translation. Ambiguity is a very common phenomenon in English. As Kempson (1979) indicates, there might be two or more than two meanings for words and sentences. It is also defined by Leech (1983) as a language item with two or more than two cognitive meanings. According to Yang Junyan (2000), if a phrase or sentence has two or more than two grammatical or semantic relations, structural ambiguity occurs. This phenomenon is referred as ambiguity. As Empson (1987), who is an English linguist, says, ambiguity is associated with phonetics, vocabulary, syntax and grammar, so it will bring many linguistic problems and difficulties, which will hinder our comprehension and communication. Here are listed three main factors that lead to the ambiguity in English negative structure.

2. Literature Review

A lot of researchers both from abroad, such as, Mackay, 1965; Gorfein, 1989; Kooij, 1971; Zwicky and Saddock, 1975, and domestic, such as Ma Bosen, 1995; Zhou Shuqing, 1996; Xu Subo, 1999; Yu Jingbo,2001; Qiu Shude, 1998, etc., have carried out various researches about ambiguity, but there are still lack of sufficient concern about ambiguity derived from English negative structure, which is related to the most common and important negator in English, namely, not.

Even though there are a lot of researchers, such as Tottie, 1991; Halliday, 1994; Lyons, 1997; Horn, 1978; Jespersen, 1917; Jackendoff, 1969; Kahrel and Berg, 1994, who have made great contribution to the study of negation, quite few research pay particular attention to the scope of negation, transferred negation and negative transformation.

The three patterns mentioned above increase the range of possible interpretations of natural language, and sometimes they bring confusion and understanding obstacles in the process of translating English negative structure. Therefore, this study is undertaken to systematically discuss main causes of ambiguity in English negative structure. The thesis will elaborate the three main factors which determine the interpretation of ambiguous negative sentences. Besides, the thesis will also provide some examples to illustrate these theories during the discussion of some relevant causes in addition to confirming some related theories. Actually, it will be helpful in guiding how to handle ambiguity of negation if we can realize the cause of ambiguity of negation, which is definitely not hard to understand, particularly in the practice of translation. At this point, the topic for this study has important practical value. The thesis provides not only the further proof of causes in English negative structure but also necessary material for future study as well as practical translation in this field. Among the implications, there is no doubt that proposed strategies for disambiguation are very useful in English learning and teaching; besides, recommendations for future research are also very significant for future study. According to above theoretical and practical significance, it is necessary to carry out this study.

This thesis is divided into six parts, with a set of related theories and presents several examples in each part. The first part is to make a general introduction, namely, make a brief description about the study and also illustrate the important of the study. In part three, which is the main body of this thesis, the causes of ambiguity in English negative structure are presented, along with examples of different types analyzed. The following part is disambiguation which offers several ways to deal with ambiguity in English negative structure. Part Five focuses on the enlightenment this paper brings to translation. The last part of the thesis is the conclusion part which contains some findings and implications of this thesis.

3. Causes of ambiguity

3.1 Ambiguity by Scope of Negation

3.1.1 Definition

As a technical and logical notion ( Ted Honderich，1995), "Scope" refers to an area where something acts, operates or has power or control. In analogy to formal logical, "scope" denotes the range governed by operators; in linguistics "scope" denotes the range of semantic reference of negation, linguistic quantifiers, as well as particles (Aoun and Li, 1993). The scope of negation is the stretch of language where negative item has a semantic effect (Quirk, 1985). In common use of English, people will have different understanding or interpretation of the language due to different identification of the scope of negation.

3.1.2 Auxiliary Negation VS Main Verb Negation

It is uncertain whether the scope of negation may or may not include the meaning of the modal auxiliaries, which also causes this type of ambiguity. Modal auxiliary will have different underlying meanings due to the different identification of the scope of negation. Actually, this difference exists even in the same sentence. That’s to say, although modal auxiliaries are in the same sense, the interpretations of the sentence can also be different due to distinct identification. Sometimes, ambiguous sentence can be regarded as having ambiguous scope of negation, i.e. auxiliary negation and main verb negation. Let’s take following as examples:

"The boy can not answer the question."

a. It is not possible for the boy to answer the question.

b. It is possible for the boy not to answer the question.

"They may not leave here now."

a. They are not allowed to leave here now.

b. They are allowed not to leave here now.

3.1.3 Different Focus Interpretation

Focus of the sentence is an important factor of scope interpretation. Since the scope of the negation is ambiguous, it can be indicated through the location on which we place the information focus. Various focus interpretation or scope interpretation represents different meanings, thus ambiguity occurs. Ambiguous understanding due to various focus interpretation will be illustrated through following sentences:

"Bob didn"t hire her because she was a woman."

a. Because she was a woman, Bob didn"t hire her.

b. Bob hired her, but it wasn"t because she was a woman.

In fact this situation occurs more commonly in spoken English.

3.1.4 Full Negation VS Partial Negation

Many English sentences can be interpreted by two ways, i.e. full negation and partial negation, and both ways are acceptable. The negative sentences with all, both and every often make people confused. Following sentences will be took as examples:

"All the children don"t study hard."

"Both students don"t know the truth."

"Every student doesn"t like exams."

Obviously, there are two possible meanings for above sentences due to the scope of not:

"No children study hard." VS "Not all the children study hard." (Some study hard)

"Neither of students knows the truth." VS "Not both students know the truth." (one may know the truth)

"No students like exams." VS "Not every student likes exam." (Probably some do, but some don"t)

There are two different interpretations. First, the negator "not" negates the predicate; second, the negator" not" negates the rest of the sentence or the modifier of the subject. Two scope interpretations occur: surface scope interpretation, i.e. All/Both/Every...not; and inverse scope interpretation, i.e. Not all/Both/Every.... The meanings of negative sentences are affected by different scope interpretations. Ambiguous and confusing as above sentences are, when we express them, we can use them by some methods, for example, "None of the students smoke./ Not all the students smoke. Neither of the windows is open./ Not both windows are open. Nobody likes the book./ Not everybody likes the book." to express full negation and partial negation.

3.2 Ambiguity by Transferred Negation

3.2.1 Definition

In English language, "Transferred negation" is regarded as a special syntactic phenomenon and also tagged as "negative raising" or "negative transportation"(Quirk et al, 1985). But it also has a broader meaning, which refers to any grammatical phenomenon that the negative operator or the negative element moves from its original place to a new position in a sentence, which finally causes ambiguity. In general, there are two different kinds.

3.2.2 Ambiguity by Transferred Negation in Simple Sentence

The phenomenon of transferred negation originated from English thinking habit. People in this nation prefer a rectilinear thinking style. In order to achieve a communicative goal better, they are costumed to pointing out main information especially the negative one first. Because of the differences in expression, we transfer the negator "not" to predicate in English instead of subject, object, object complement, infinitive and adverbial in Chinese. Theses sentences may easily cause much confusion and misunderstanding in translation because they always have two or more meanings. The structure aims to negate other elements like adverbial , in terms of form, it negates predicate instead . So we can get two explanations from different aspects. For example:

"He doesn"t go to work by bus."

( He goes to work, but not by bus./ He doesn"t go to work.)

"He didn"t come to see me."

(He didn"t come at all./ He did come, but not to see me.)

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