3.832 Austria; yes and no (75)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Wed, 6 Dec 89 20:16:06 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 832. Wednesday, 6 Dec 1989.
(1) Date: Wed, 06 Dec 89 16:42:13 EST (8 lines)
From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM>
Subject: Austria correction
(2) Date: Wed, 6 Dec 89 00:36:39 EST (46 lines)
From: Brian Whittaker <BRIANW@YORKVM2>
Subject: Re: 3.780 no and yes, cont. (49)
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 89 16:42:13 EST
From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM>
Subject: Austria correction
In answer to Joel Goldfield's confusion, I asked about Bitnet to AUSTRIA,
not Australia. Incidentally I have recieved a number of excellent
responses to my query. This, to my mind, is an example of academic
cordiality at its best. My thanks to all those who wrote me.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------54----
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 89 00:36:39 EST
From: Brian Whittaker <BRIANW@YORKVM2>
Subject: Re: 3.780 no and yes, cont. (49)
The original posting on the relative frequency of "yes" and "no" in the
English translations of the bible noted, if I remember correctly, that
"no" has a more varied *grammatical* distribution in English than "yes".
The sentence "I see no problem with your suggestion" does not have as
its oposite "I see yes a problem with your suggestion." "Yes" is used
in English mainly as an exclamation, and exclamations of any sort are
much less frequent than statements in most genres of texts. Moreover,
of the two sentences given above, "I see no problem with your suggestion"
is actually an affirmation of the listener or reader's position rather
than a negation or refutation. The likely opposite, "I do see a problem
with your suggestion", using the auxiliary verb "do" as an emphatic or
affirmative auxiliary, is actually much more negative in its semantic or
transactional value. A quantitative description may yield suggestive or
disturbing hypotheses, but only a return to the text and its context will
yield a meaningful analysis.
Rather than giving way to easy hypotheses about the negativity of the
Judaeo-Christian tradition, with the obvious quotations from Exodus,
Paul's letters, Freud, Kafka and Grimm's _Hausmaerchen_ (not really fairy
tales), we might broaden the description, comparing the frequency of a
much larger class of negatives {no, not, never, did not, shall not, none,
nowhere, ...} with a contrasting list of affirmatives {yes, indeed,
truly, moreover, did, shall, everywhere, always, ever, ...}. Thus, in
the Gospels, we might compare the number of times Jesus is quoted as
saying "Truly I say to you..." with the number of times he is quoted as
saying "I do not say to you...". We might also compare the number of
all verb phrases that contain a negative with the number of all verb
phrases that do not contain a negative; I would expect negative verb
phrases to be very much in the minority. In the end, however, one must
examine the text and the context. "In all this Job did not sin or
charge God with wrong." "In all this Job did not sin with his lips."
In both of these sentences, the negative verb phrase "did not sin" would
appear to be used as a means of expressing a forceful affirmation.
Whether the everlasting nays outweigh the everlasting yeas in the Judaeo-
Christian tradition is an interesting question of theology, stylistics
and sociology, but comparing the frequency of "yes" and "no" can only be
a start.
Brian Whittaker
Atkinson College, York University
Downsview, Ontario
BrianW@YorkVM2