Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 276
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language. For example, I dorít like it normally means ‘I dislike
it’, and the logically available meaning Tm indifferent to it’
is not intended, although as usual it can be pressed out by
explicitly excluding the normal meaning, as in I don’t parti-
cularly like it or dislike it.
This behavior of graded antonyms as opposites requires a
semantic rule, one of whose effects is to convert negation into
polar opposition with such predicates, turning NEG-like into
‘dislike’, NEG-gooú? into ‘bad’, NEG-many into ‘few’, and so
on. Consider now sentences like I don’t believe he’s here, which
normally means the same as / believe he’s not here (and contrast,
e.g., / dorít pretend he’s here, which never means the same as
I pretend he’s not here). It has been usual to assume a trans-
formational rule of ‘NEG-hopping’ which optionally raises the
negation out of the subclause into the main clause, provided
the verb of the main clause belongs to the small class believe,
think, suppose, etc. (and, among verbs taking subject comple-
ments, seem, appear, etc.). The synonymous sentences with the
negation are thus both derived from a deep structure in which
the negation is in the embedded sentence.
If the cited semantic rule concerning negation is recognized,
and applied to verbs like believe, think, suppose, these examples
cease to be semantically problematic, and no very good reason
remains for retaining the NEG-hopping transformation in the
grammar. For since the gradable predicates like believe are
subject to the rule that their negation is understood as polar
opposition, / dorít believe he’s here comes to mean ‘I disbelieve
he’s here’ (just as I’m not happy comes to mean ‘I’m unhappy’).
And now a fact about the logic of belief enters the picture.
‘I disbelieve he’s here’ means logically (by projection rules)
the same as ‘I believe he’s not here’ (whereas, for example,
‘I’m unhappy he’s here’ and ‘I’m happy he’s not here’ are
two quite different propositions). What seemed due to a
special and restricted transformational rule is, therefore, in
reality the interaction of two general semantic principles: a
semantic extension rule applicable to graded antonyms, and a