MAY NOT: prohibition and permission

Question

You may not look.How can the ambiguity of the sentence be removed?I realize the sentence can be rephrased to avoid equivocacy:1) You don't have to/don't need to/needn't look (if you don't want to) - for permission;2) You mustn't/can't/aren't allowed to look (as it's too graphic, for example) - for prohibition.However, my question concerns prosodic aspects that can be used to distinguish the two possible interpretations of the phrase.I suppose1) should sound sort of nonchalant;2) should sound 'kind?' sterner, stricter- that seems to be pretty obvious. Other than that, could you help me pinpoint the stress and intonation patterns that should help convey the messages clearly without having to paraphrase the sentence, if there are any?I realize how challenging the task of describing intonation patterns in letters can be, YET...YETY will be infinitely obliged.Thank you in advance.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

YETYlandthe stress and intonation patterns that should help convey the messages clearly without having to paraphrase the sentence, if there are any?

... if there are any? Hmm. Let me think.

OK. I've thought.

Impossible! The question is whether to stress 'may' or 'not', and both stress patterns can be ambiguous.

With the stress on 'may' you usually get 1), or sometimes maybe 2).
With the stress on 'not' you usually get 2), or sometimes maybe 1).

Where the vertical bar indicates a slower rhythm caused by holding the stressed word a bit and parentheses indicate a faster rhythm which squeezes the words together to form a word group:

If you want 1) you can do something like 'MAY | (not look)' with your voice.
If you want 2) you can do something like '(may NOT) | look' with your voice.

Nevertheless, there is no guarantee.

You see, it's really hopeless. Both in writing and in speech it's a problem, which is why it's not used unless context clearly and obviously resolves the ambiguity.

I've been preaching against 'may not' for some time, and I'm not likely to change my opinion now. Rephrasing is the only fail-safe answer.

CJ

MAY NOT: prohibition and permission

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