Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Language question

Suppose someone asks: Isn't there anything I can do about it?

And suppose there's nothing they can do about it.

The answer to their question is Yes or No?

I know it's probably awkward (or just incorrect?) sentence structure, but it got me wondering. I'd go with No, but... I don't really know.

Thank you,
AnnaBtG.

Anna, I'd go with 'no', too.

It is good practice, though, to avoid putting negatives in questions. Is there anything I can do about it? is much simpler to understand and therefore to answer.

Hope that helps.

Chris

You would answer "No" if there was nothing the person could do. "Yes" would mean there *was* something they could do.

Why? In Greek would a "no" mean, "No, it is not true that there is nothing you can do"? (This is the case in Japanese. Students are warned of answering a negative question with a 'no', thus inadvertently implying 'yes'!)

"No" is one way many people would answer.

If you really want to avoid confusion, however, you could say, "I'm sorry, but there's nothing you can do."

Or, if the person talking is from the streets, they might say, "Ain't nothin'. Sorry!"

Hope this helps.

The same holds true even if you rephrase it a bit. Technically, it probably shouldn't go this way, but in practice, it does:

"Is there nothing I can do?"

"No, I'm afraid there isn't."

Confusing, but that's just how it goes. The answer is to the intent of the question rather than its actual phrasing.

Paul

Of course, strictly speaking, "Ain't nothin'" means that there is something...

Chris (living to muddy waters)

Although "Isn't there anything I can do?" would technically take a "yes" answer when there is nothing that can be done, the speaker is asking if any action is possible, so the appropriate reply is "no."

It might also be appropriate to say, "Correct. There is nothing you can do," but that's awfully stiff and formal for speech.

Actually, no, not really. "Ain't nothin'" belongs to African-American English, which is not just a "wrong" dialect of English. It actually formed over several centuries and has words and especially grammatical forms from several languages (based on countries where Africans were slaves). In this dialect, double negative is the standard, just as double negative is correct in French (I believe that this particular grammar came from Haiti, if I remember my linguistics classes right).

At least, that's from a linguistic point of view.

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Vicki - in Greek, the answer would be No as well. There's a linguistic difference, though: There's no 'anything' in the Greek language. There's 'something', and there's 'nothing' (which, incidentally, does NOT contain a negation in its form - only in its meaning).

So this same question, in Greek, and assuming the speaker does not really believe there's something they can do (which is what I was looking for in this case), could be put either as
1)Isn't there something I can do about it?
or
2)Isn't there nothing I can do about it?
(which is not a double negation, because, as I said, 'nothing' does not contain a negation).

Technically, the two mean the same thing and, if there's nothing the speaker can do, the answer they will receive is No.
About which one is going to be used, though, there's a little 'colouring' depending on what the speaker believes. If the speaker believes that there *is* something, maybe something very difficult, or the chances of it succeeding are very slim, but there is something all the same, they'll use 1. If they believe there's nothing but are asking in desperation or just to make sure they covered all bases, they'll use 2.

If the speaker is merely wondering whether there's something they can do, they'll go like in English: Is there something I can do about it?

And that's probably more than you wanted to know

Again, thanks to everyone. My English wouldn't be the same without you FoLCs

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Interesting...

You see, I'm originally from south west England, where, as you might imagine, there was a real shortage of African-Americans, but there was a wealth of people who said "ain't nothin'".

When I was at school, our teachers did their utmost to educate anyone who said "ain't" out of it, frequently lecturing us on the evils of the double-negative.

Chris

Perhaps some native French speakers can contribute, but as I remember my French and my linguistics course (singular), the negations in French are not so much "double negative" as the negative moneme taking the form of two words. Combining several of them, such as "Personne n'a rien fait a aucun d'eux," isn't a double-negative because there's only one "ne" no matter how many other negative words are used.

Of course, since in spoken French the "ne" is less and less often enunciated clearly....

French makes the original question a little more straightforward, with "Oui - Yes" "Non - No" and "Si - Your negative statement is incorrect; the truth is positive."

"Je ne peux rien faire?"
"Mais si!"

If nothing could be done, I would expect a "Non," though.