[Grammar] Modal Dare and negation

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ucetnanic

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Hello,

As far as I know

She dare not write it. =
She does not have the courage to write it.

My question is: How do I say a sentence which uses modal dare and has this meaning:

She has the courage not to write it at all.
(by the way, is this sentence correct?)

Thank you. ;-)
 

Richard1

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Hello,

As far as I know

She dare not write it. =
She does not have the courage to write it.

My question is: How do I say a sentence which uses modal dare and has this meaning:

She has the courage not to write it at all.
(by the way, is this sentence correct?)

Thank you. ;-)

Hi,

I disagree with your opening. '...dare not' is not the same as not '...having the courage'.

The two words have different meanings. To 'dare not' implies the subject is under pressure not to write and furthermore is quite prepared to succumb to that pressure and certainly won't write.

Having the courage not to write implies that under the same pressure not to write, she is perfectly happy to ignore that pressure, and may or may not write - we can't tell from the short text given.

Rgds
 

ucetnanic

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Hi,

what I was trying to do was to write two sentences - both with "modal dare" but one containing negated dare one with negated write.
 

5jj

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Hi,

What I was trying to do was to write two sentences - both with "modal dare" but one containing negated dare one with negated write.
Modal dare is rarely used affirmatively.

You can say, "I daren't go, but I daren't not go"
 

5jj

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I disagree with your opening. '...dare not' is not the same as not '...having the courage'.

The two words have different meanings. To 'dare not' implies the subject is under pressure not to write and furthermore is quite prepared to succumb to that pressure and certainly won't write.
Having the courage not to write implies that under the same pressure not to write, she is perfectly happy to ignore that pressure, and may or may not write - we can't tell from the short text given.
I don't agree with you there, Richard.

I think that 'dare not' is similar to 'not having the courage'.

I daren't ask my boss for another day off
I haven't the courage to ask my boss for another day off.


I don't think there is any implication in the second that I might ask him.
 

Richard1

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I don't agree with you there, Richard.

I think that 'dare not' is similar to 'not having the courage'.

I daren't ask my boss for another day off
I haven't the courage to ask my boss for another day off.


I don't think there is any implication in the second that I might ask him.

I agree with that but isn't there a subtle difference?

In the original, "She has the courage not to write it at all", the task is a negative one, i.e. not writing, and the verb ''has' is positive.

In your example you're asking for something positive, i.e. a day off, and the verb 'haven't' is negative.

Somehow the two uses seem to distinguish themselves in my mind, but with so many negative and positives my brain's beginning to overheat and I'm now going round in circles. ;-)

Regards
 

birdeen's call

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I think this is a case of what is, in my opinion, one of the biggest deficiencies of the English language. There is virtually no way of distinguishing between negating the modal and negating the main verb (if that's what it's called).

"I must not do..." - usually "do" is negated. I have to say, "I don't have to do..." to negate the modality.

"I cannot do..." - "can" is negated. I might say, "I am able not to do..." or, "I am allowed not to do..." to negate "do".

It may not be the biggest problem for others but surely it irritates me most.

I have found an interesting article: modal difficulties of teaching modals
 

orangutan

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So in fact there are ways of distinguishing them. Or is the problem that some of them involve not using "proper modal verbs"?
 

birdeen's call

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So in fact there are ways of distinguishing them. Or is the problem that some of them involve not using "proper modal verbs"?
No, the (my) problem is that I need to change the modal verb and often have to use a long/complicated/formal construction to say what I want to say. The convenient word "can" that covers several types of modality can't be used to reword "I am able not to..." I need to extract the right type of modality from the word "can" to say it, which is inconvenient. The very change of the modal is incovenient too. (And illogical - to me.)

Also, when I said, "distinguishing", I did not mean my speech. It's inconvenient but I will find my way to say what I want (perhaps ambiguously). The problem is with understanding. While there exist some rules of applying negation to modal sentences, they are not strict. It's not difficult to find utterances violating them, which means that there is room for ambiguity. Stress helps in those cases of course.

It's not a big problem; it's the biggest. ;-)
 

orangutan

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OK, I see. Though I believe the forms you are looking for do exist in dialects. For example from Scottish English (this is remembered from a lecture, I am not a speaker myself, and may well have remembered certain things wrongly):

- She can nae be there. (it is not possible that she is there)
- She can no be there. (it is possible that she is not there)

In general, I don't think the problem you are talking about is confined to modals (as commonly defined in TEFL). It occurs, for example, with "think":

- I don't think Newcastle will win the Champions League in the next few years.
(= I think that they won't)

Not sure what this shows, and I am certainly not disagreeing with you. But for what it is worth...
 

birdeen's call

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- I don't think Newcastle will win the Champions League in the next few years.
(= I think that they won't)

Not sure what this shows, and I am certainly not disagreeing with you. But for what it is worth...
I thought about it too when I was writing my post, but I don't find this one irritating. Perhaps because this one exists in my language too, while the modal ones do not...

PS: And this one's different too. It doesn't arise because of syntax limitations. You easily reworded the sentence by moving "not" where it belonged. Simply,

I don't think Newcastle will win the Champions League in the next few years.


has the literal meaning different from the intended. But it's not ambiguous in the platonic world of perfectly logical speakers and listeners.
 
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orangutan

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It's not ambiguous, but the surface syntax is different from the logical form, where the negation belongs to the embedded clause. I don't find it irritating either. But the issue is similar to the one you raised, I think.
 

birdeen's call

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It's not ambiguous, but the surface syntax is different from the logical form, where the negation belongs to the embedded clause. I don't find it irritating either. But the issue is similar to the one you raised, I think.
Thanks, I didn't know the term "surface syntax" and was having trouble expressing it.

I've thought of another example.

He could not be right.

Was it impossible for him to be right or was it possible for him not to be right? (Of course, context and stress might help.) I think I'm more likely to accept or at least consider the second option here than in

He couldn't be right.

I think I might think, on hearing the first sentence, "Hmm... Why not 'couldn't'? Do they perhaps want to mark a difference in meaning?" What are your thoughts about this one?
 

5jj

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He could not be right.

Was it impossible for him to be right That's the reading we'd expect or was it possible for him not to be right? Just about. (Of course, context and stress might help.) Absolutely essential for the second reading. I think I'm more likely to accept or at least consider the second option here than in

He couldn't be right. In my opinion, the second reading is impossible here. The second reading requires a heavily stressed 'not'.
5
 

orangutan

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I agree with fivejedjon's comments, except that I am not sure how heavy the stress on "not" has to be. In any case, the second reading is certainly not available if it is reduced to "-n't".

I wasn't using "surface syntax" in any technical sense, by the way. I just wanted to highlight the mismatch between form and meaning.
 
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5jj

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I agree with fivejedjon's comments, except that I am not sure how heavy the stress on "not" has to be. In any case, the second reading is certainly not available if it is reduced to "-n't"..
How long is a piece of string?

There has to be sufficient pause before 'not' and sufficient stress on 'not' for the unusual reading to be clear to the listener.

And please don't ask me how I define 'sufficient'. I can model it, but I can't define it.:oops:
 
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orangutan

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I deliberately wasn't asking that, partly because I don't know either :)

I agree with your post.
 

Tdol

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And please don't ask me how I define 'sufficient. I can model it, but I can't define it.:oops:

How about defining it as long enough to convey the desired meaning? Admittedly, it suffers from being utterly meaningless, but hey, nobody's perfect. :)
 

birdeen's call

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I agree that stressing "not" is necessary for the second meaning. But it's not sufficient in my opinion. One might want to stress "not" having the first meaning in mind too. This would mean that stress alone cannot lead the listener to certainty. I think only contex could make the desired meaning clear and contex may happen to be insufficient. (Well, I think it may. I haven't come up with any real-life example.)
 

5jj

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I agree that stressing "not" is necessary for the second meaning. But it's not sufficient in my opinion. One might want to stress "not" having the first meaning in mind too. This would mean that stress alone cannot lead the listener to certainty.
This is causing me stress.:)

I also wrote, "There has to be sufficient pause before 'not'. I think that in the could_not reading, the flow of air is unbroken between /d/ and /n./, but there is a brief pause in the flow in the could not_be reading. I also think that not and be are produced more as if they constituted one word in the second reading.
 
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