May 27, 2007

Before nary an overnegation could be uttered


Stanford Daily columnist Alex Coley on 5/21/07:

But otherwise, the most entertainment I had on Friday was watching the makings of a fight shape up outside of Exotic Erotic, and, before nary a punch was thrown, listening to a group of four or five security forces as they quickly mobilized into action: "What? A fight? I'm there!" and "Right behind you Jimmy!"


Coley is reporting on two spans of time.  During the first, no punches were thrown (though, clearly, words were exchanged).  During the second, immediately following, the campus police mobilized into action.  Coley could have written

(1a) ... before a (single) punch was thrown ... a group of four or five security forces ... quickly mobilized into action ...

(1b) ... before any punches were thrown ... a group of four or five security forces ... quickly mobilized into action ...

or something like

(2) ... nary a punch had been thrown ... when a group of four or five security forces ... quickly mobilized into action ...

In (1) the negative proposition 'no punches were thrown' is conveyed implicitly via the subordinator before; this is easy to see from the negative polarity elements single in (1a) and any in (1b).  In (2) the negative is explicit in the modifier nary a 'not a single'.  Coley's original has both the implicit negative before and the explicit negative nary a, producing the overnegated "before nary a punch was thrown" 'before not a single punch was thrown'.  Probably Coley threw in nary a for its emphatic effect; the impulse towards emphasis often leads people into overnegation.  And the rather literary nary a stands out so much that the reader could easily fail to appreciate the implicit negation in before (after all, most occurrences of subordinating before have no negative import); it took me a moment, in fact, to appreciate that the original sentence was somehow odd.

(Hat tip to Pat Callier.)

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Posted by Arnold Zwicky at May 27, 2007 01:41 PM