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Paco2004 Posted 21 years ago
Grammar
Negation
0 Hello Teachers 02 br
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00 When I was in school, my teacher taught us the English language rather in a mechanical manner. For example, I remember, when we learned a sentence like "He has lived here for five years", we were forced to make its negative sentence, without being given a context it is used. I made a sentence like "He has 01 i 00 not 02 i 00 lived here for five years", but I could not get then (and still now not clearly) was what word was negated by 'not'. So I asked it to my teacher but no good reply came back. In negation sentences of the Japanese language, we have some marker to indicate what word is negated in the sentence. But I feel some English negations are ambiguous in this respect. 02 br
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00 What I'd like now to ask you to confirm is, first of all, whether a sentence like "He has 01 i 00 not 02 i 00 lived here for five years" sounds natural to you. And then, if it does, which phrase do you think is negated by the 'not'? I mean, when you have no context, which one do you naturally tend to take as its meaning, "It is not here but there where he has lived for five years" or "It is not so long or short a time as five years that he has lived here for"? And furthermore, do you think I can say "He has not lived here for five years yet" to avoid this kind of ambiguity? 02 br
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00 paco 0-
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00 When I was in school, my teacher taught us the English language rather in a mechanical manner. For example, I remember, when we learned a sentence like "He has lived here for five years", we were forced to make its negative sentence, without being given a context it is used. I made a sentence like "He has 01 i 00 not 02 i 00 lived here for five years", but I could not get then (and still now not clearly) was what word was negated by 'not'. So I asked it to my teacher but no good reply came back. In negation sentences of the Japanese language, we have some marker to indicate what word is negated in the sentence. But I feel some English negations are ambiguous in this respect. 02 br
02 br
00 What I'd like now to ask you to confirm is, first of all, whether a sentence like "He has 01 i 00 not 02 i 00 lived here for five years" sounds natural to you. And then, if it does, which phrase do you think is negated by the 'not'? I mean, when you have no context, which one do you naturally tend to take as its meaning, "It is not here but there where he has lived for five years" or "It is not so long or short a time as five years that he has lived here for"? And furthermore, do you think I can say "He has not lived here for five years yet" to avoid this kind of ambiguity? 02 br
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00 paco 0-
Top answer
0 Hi Paco, 02 br 02 br 00 Let me help you to clear your doubts. 02 br 02 br 00 First, I'm sure that the sentence given by you sounds natural to them. e.
- 0 Hi Paco, 02 br 02 br 00 Let me help you to clear your doubts.
- 02 br 02 br 00 First, I'm sure that the sentence given by you sounds natural to them.
- e.
- in this case 'not' negates the sentence ' He has lived here for 5 years'.
- 02 br 02 br 00 "He has not lived here" means "He has lived somewhere else" (but he might have lived here 5 years ago).
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21 Answers
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0 Hi Paco, 02 br
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00 Let me help you to clear your doubts. 02 br
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00 First, I'm sure that the sentence given by you sounds natural to them. 02 br
00 In my opinion it is not ambiguous at all, 'not' negates the whole sentence, i.e. in this case 'not' negates the sentence ' He has lived here for 5 years'. 02 br
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00 "He has
02 br
00 Let me help you to clear your doubts. 02 br
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00 First, I'm sure that the sentence given by you sounds natural to them. 02 br
00 In my opinion it is not ambiguous at all, 'not' negates the whole sentence, i.e. in this case 'not' negates the sentence ' He has lived here for 5 years'. 02 br
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00 "He has
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0 Hello Yogi 02 br
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00 Thank you for the quick reply. I understand what you mean, but I am sorry I have to say it is not what I want to know. Grammatically we can take the sentence ("He has not lived here for 5 years") as a sentence negating "He has lived here (PLACE) for 5 years (DURATION)" as a whole. But semantically, when a speaker utters the whole sentence negation, he
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00 Thank you for the quick reply. I understand what you mean, but I am sorry I have to say it is not what I want to know. Grammatically we can take the sentence ("He has not lived here for 5 years") as a sentence negating "He has lived here (PLACE) for 5 years (DURATION)" as a whole. But semantically, when a speaker utters the whole sentence negation, he
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0 Hi Paco! It must be nice to speak a language where ambiguities like this are eliminated by grammatical markers! Such a sentence can be ambiguous in English - I'll use your example to try to explain how we handle it. 02 br
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00 "He has not lived here for five years." Normally I would take this sentence to mean that he used to live here, but left five years ago. It is a p
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00 "He has not lived here for five years." Normally I would take this sentence to mean that he used to live here, but left five years ago. It is a p
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0 THANK YOU, Khoff! Your answer is real GREAT! 02 br
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00 "He has not lived here for five years." Normally I would take this sentence to mean that he used to live here, but left five years ago. It is a perfectly natural sentence, and I would use it myself, if, for example, I got a piece of mail addressed to someone who had resided at my address more than fiv
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0 To my knowledge, when a speaker negates a sentence which includes a KNOWN "duration"(e.g. 5 years), he is negating the "duration". However, when the "duration" is unclear/unknown, he is negating the "place". e.g. "He has not lived here for ages!" = "He may have lived here before, but he has not lived here for "***(****) knows how long"! 0-
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0 Hi Paco - glad I could clear up a misunderstanding. Yes, the most common meaning of "he has not lived here for 5 years" would be "he has been gone for 5 years." I think your explanation of why you didn't understand it this way is really interesting. And I think, as usual, you're being too hard on yourself. Very few , if any, native speakers understand English "completely"! Your understand
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0 By "negating the 'duration'" are you saying the sentence means "He has not lived here at any point during the last five years?" Because I, perhaps like the original poster (although I am not positive as to the exact particularities of his question), interpreted the initial sentence "He has not lived here for five years" to mean "He has lived here for an unspecified amount of time (which coul
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0 Thank you again, Khoff. 02 br
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00 I think now I get the sense of the negation of "have done for a duration". I understand it means the state of NEGATIVE-do has continued for the said duration. 02 br
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00 The difference between 'study' and 'learn' you explained is also new to me. I have long believed 'study' were an activity more intent than 'learn'.
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00 I think now I get the sense of the negation of "have done for a duration". I understand it means the state of NEGATIVE-do has continued for the said duration. 02 br
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00 The difference between 'study' and 'learn' you explained is also new to me. I have long believed 'study' were an activity more intent than 'learn'.
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0 Hello Gormenghast. 02 br
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00 I was completely wrong in interpretinig "He has not lived here for 5 years". So please neglect everything what I said in the previous postings. 02 br
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00 paco. 0-
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00 I was completely wrong in interpretinig "He has not lived here for 5 years". So please neglect everything what I said in the previous postings. 02 br
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00 paco. 0-
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