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Navitasan Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
Whether or not....
1) I didn't quite get his meaning. Actually, I don't know whether what he said indicates that he agrees with us or not.
Can't this be interpreted in two ways:
a) I don't know whether what he said indicates that he agrees with us or does not indicate that.
b) I don't know whether what he said indicates that he agrees with us or whether it indicates that he disagrees with us.
In 'a' it is possible that what he said indicated neither agreement nor disagreement. In 'b', that is not a possibility. 'Not agreeing' isn't necessarily 'disagreeing'.
Gratefully,
Navi.
Can't this be interpreted in two ways:
a) I don't know whether what he said indicates that he agrees with us or does not indicate that.
b) I don't know whether what he said indicates that he agrees with us or whether it indicates that he disagrees with us.
In 'a' it is possible that what he said indicated neither agreement nor disagreement. In 'b', that is not a possibility. 'Not agreeing' isn't necessarily 'disagreeing'.
Gratefully,
Navi.
Top answer
In English, sentence 1) has only one real interpretation: Based on what he said, you don't know if he agrees or disagrees. Maybe in other languages the distinctions outlined in a) and b) are made, but this kind of hair-splitting is not done in English.
- In English, sentence 1) has only one real interpretation: Based on what he said, you don't know if he agrees or disagrees.
- Maybe in other languages the distinctions outlined in a) and b) are made, but this kind of hair-splitting is not done in English.
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2 Answers
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In English, sentence 1) has only one real interpretation: Based on what he said, you don't know if he agrees or disagrees. Maybe in other languages the distinctions outlined in a) and b) are made, but this kind of hair-splitting is not done in English.
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I agree that this is a hair-splitting distinction that is very unlikely to trouble anyone in real life. However, I read it as (a). At the moment I don't see how to get (b) out of it.
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