What exactly is transferred negation??? Thanks for any suggestion

From this site:

When verbs like think, believe, suppose, imagine are used to introduce negative ideas, it is generally the first verb (think, etc.) that is made negative.

   I don’t think you’ve met my wife. (Not: *I think you haven’t met…)

This sounds like an expression that is reserved for linguistics courses.  I don’t think (;)) I’ve seen it mentioned before in any of the language classes I took in school.

-Tim

This transferred negative occurs mostly with verbs of perception or opinion. Technically, the negative is applied to a verb other than the one that has negative meaning. However, this transference does not make the sentence unintelligible as the main verb cannot be understood negatively.

  "I don’t think we can finish painting the house today."

This sentence does not (and cannot) indicate the absence of thought, but that the thought expressed in the contact clause is negated.

- Garzo.

It is more or less the same thing in Swedish. Perhaps the bringing to the front of the negation is a way of stating already initially that a negative opinion is being offered.

Either way, those sentences risk childish interruptions like

(hesitatingly) I don’t think ... [cutting in] But you should!
I think ... [cut] I don’t believe it!

And, Garzo, thank you for not using the four-syllable word "transformation" to describe the fronting.

I suppose it is fronting of a kind. I quite like the idea of it flagging up a negative opinion before the opinion is expressed. It is the opposite of the passing fad of delayed negatives:

  "I think we can finish painting the house today - not."

I think that there is a general preference for negating the operator - they negate more differently and use the -n’t suffix. With verbs that express an opinion or a perception it is not possible to say that you *un-perceive something. Therefore the negation can be placed on the operator without affecting the sense. Therefore, I feel that this matter is slightly more complicated than fronting. It is certainly a feature that has been with English since the beginning.

- Garzo.

[quote author=Garzo link=board=grammar;num=1088970831;start=0#4 date=07/05/04 at 20:51:56]. . . . It is the opposite of the passing fad of delayed negatives:

  "I think we can finish painting the house today - not."

This is exactly the normal word order of Japanese commands sentences to be.  I use this construction of yours when I interpret simultaneously from Japanese to English: especially my Japanese costomer launches into harangued eloqution, convincing himself that he has to say "NO."

Flam

It is a bit of a faddish construction in English. The joke is that the negation is left right until the end to tempt the listener to think that the meaning is not negated at all. Having the negation at the end of a sentence as the normal procedure, as in Japanese, must make it difficult to figure out what someone real means while they are saying it. The transferred negative, as Anders has mentioned, lets the listener know how the speaker feels about the statement before it begins.

- Garzo.

[quote author=Garzo link=board=grammar;num=1088970831;start=0#2 date=07/04/04 at 17:11:44] . . .  However, this transference does not make the sentence unintelligible as the main verb cannot be understood negatively.

  "I don’t think we can finish painting the house today."

This sentence does not (and cannot) indicate the absence of thought, but that the thought expressed in the contact clause is negated.

- Garzo.

Ah, but if one is in an argument, one had better substitute believe for think:

"I didn’t think we could finish painting the house today."

"That’s your problem:  you didn’t think!"

[quote author=KatyBr link=board=grammar;num=1088970831;start=0#8 date=08/10/04 at 16:39:21]
Stargzer:

"I didn’t think we could finish painting the house today."

"That’s your problem:  you didn’t think!"

so, you dont actually say that to anyone?

I can’t recall lately, but I know I’ve heard it before and I’ve probably been on the receiving end, too!

I hear it all the time. Not.

- PW