Meaning in Negative Yes/No Questions

Logically, I coud have simply answered: "YES"
thereby affirming that I
"Aren't", as u put it.





David

I know a trial judge (retired) for the State of NY
who ordered the attorneys practicing in his court
never to ask any question cast in the negative,
e.g.: "Sir, did u NOT see the defendant shoot the decedent ?"

Witness says: "yes."

A former criminal prosecutor mentioned a successful appeal
of a homicide conviction based only on that reason;
i.e., defendant literally got away with murder
because of how the question was crafted.





David

It looks like this thread has lost its author, JT&T.

Aren't you a liar of gigantic proportions, OmSig?

Are you not a pedophile, David?

Aren't you a convicted murderer, Sig?

Don't you have AIDS, Om?

I am NOT all of those things, J. Yes!
Thank u for asking.

What is your point ??





David

There is no point because this is a dumb thread. It's just another unimaginative personal attack -- which is so typical, regardless of wherever one goes or whatever one says on the Internet. Ho-hum. Witty insults: None. Entertainment value (as compared to a Goldie thread): Zero.

Aren't you a liar of gigantic proportions, OmSig?

OmSig: Yes.

Are you not a pedophile, David?

David: Yes.

Aren't you a convicted murderer, Sig?

OmSigDavid: Yes.

Don't you have AIDS, Om?

Sig: Yes.

It's not at all a personal attack, wmwcjr. It's simply one way to illustrate that Dave is completely mistaken on his analysis of how negative Yes/No questions work in the English language.

Of course, I didn't for a moment believe that any of those questions had any measure of accuracy. Dave said that he could simply answer "Yes" to those questions. See the result in my post just before this one.

I'm surprised that no one has addressed it. This is a good illustration of how prescriptions become established. That exactly how the split infinitive, the that/which, the no can for permission, the no 'was' for counterfactuals rules developed.

Some guy or other, who knows nothing of how language works devises some cockamamie idea about language and some other idiot repeats it and it takes on a life of its own.

Notice the illogic you have used, David. You state that you could have simply used a "Yes" and yet you knew intuitively that a "Yes" would create a response that you certainly did not want.

You had to preface your "Yes" with an explanatory sentence because you were not following the natural rules of the English language by choosing a "Yes" reply.

Positive yes/no questions and negative yes/no questions in English differ in their meanings.

Positive yes/no questions are neutral in nature, ie. the speaker doesn't expect either an affirmative or negative reply.

Negative yes/no questions are different. They are not the neutral, information seeking questions that positive yes/no questions are. Negative yes/no questions [nynq] are used when a speaker has some prior knowledge or assumes that there is some prior knowledge.

For example, you think you recognize an individual as Sam Smith:

Aren't you Sam Smith?

Another example; you have info that leads you to believe that it is going to rain.

Isn't it going to rain today?/Isn't it supposed to rain today?

David erroneous response [he mistakenly thinks that it is based on some "logic"] is natural in some languages, notably most Asian and West African language - they agree or disagree with the form.

Don't you have bananas?
Yes (we have no bananas.)
No (we have bananas.)

English does not do that. In English, we address the information and affirm or negate it according to the information we, ourselves possess.

In other words and English speaker's 'yes' or 'no' isn't an agreement with the initial speaker, a sort of, "You're right", it's a focus on the actual fact situation.

Don't you have bananas?
Yes (we have bananas.)
No (we don't have bananas.)

[Overall review of this issue from The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teachers' Course]

what about whatever language you aren't not speaking above?

Just be honest, Thack, and say you don't understand. I'll try to explain it to you.

aww i'm just funnin' ya. by the way, what's your nationality?

What's yours?