Subject: summary : negated questions and exclamations

about two weeks ago , i posted a query on two subjects : i was looking for languages ( 1 ) which can or , on the contrary , cannot use negated interrogatives like " look , over there - is n't that john ? " in order to express a positive expectation , and ( 2 ) which have negated wh-exclamations like german : " was du nicht alles weisst ! " ( lit . : ' what you do n't know all ! ' ) or serbocroatian " sta nije sve doziveo ! " ( lit . : ' what he did n't all live through ! ' ) , that refer to the positive , not the negative fact . first of all , i wish to thank the following colleagues for their contributions : suzanne albrecht ( sanabria @ zedat . fu-berlin . de ) gisle andersen ( henga @ alf . uib . no ) birgitta englund dimitrova ( birgitta . englund @ tolk . su . se ) frederik fouvry ( fouvry @ llsun4 . essex . ac . uk ) keith goeringer ( keg @ violet . berkeley . edu ) michael israel ( israel @ ling . ucsd . edu ) dalina kallulli ( dalina . kallulli @ avh . unit . no ) jussi karlgren ( jussi @ sics . se ) e . h . klein - v . d . laaken ( klein @ let . rug . nl ) james kirchner ( jpkirchner @ aol . com ) randy lapolla ( hslapolla @ ccvax . sinica . edu . tw ) pierre larrivee ( aaa552 @ agora . ulaval . ca ) bert peeters ( bert . peeters @ modlang . utas . edu . au ) francisco raga ( raga @ vents . uji . es ) alexandr rosen ( alexandr . rosen @ ff . cuni . cz ) cristina sanz ( sanzc @ gusun . acc . georgetown . edu ) karen stanley ( karen _ stanley @ cpcc . cc . nc . us ) jan vorster ( vorsterj @ mtb . und . ac . za ) ton van der wouden ( vdwouden @ let . rug . nl ) deborah yeager ( kyeager @ prism . nmt . edu ) ning zhang ( zning @ epas . utoronto . ca ) the languages i received information about were : afrikaans , albanian , catalan , chinese , czech , english , dutch , norwegean , spanish , swedish , yucatec maya . no additional languages have been named where the use of negated questions like " look , over there - is n't that john ? " was not possible ; so apache and navajo are still the only examples i have found so far . . as to the negated wh-exclamations , what is most interesting is that they do exist in languages where the native speakers i had asked so far had been convinced that they do not . examples for this are english and spanish , cf . : what i did n't do to get that report finished on time ! ( karen stanley ) cuanto no tendre que sufrir hasta conseguirlo ! ( cristina sanz ) this type of construction can obviously be found in much more languages than i had assumed . in some of them , it seems to be old fashened and not very wide spread , but it still exists as such . ( if anybody now comes to think of one more language that allows that type of utterance - i am still collecting , and i ' m grateful for any help i can get ! ) as to the question of why and how these negated questions and wh-exclamations work : i am dealing with it in paper of mine ( to be published ) , and i ' ll be glad to mail it to anybody who is interested , but i ' m afraid it 's in german . thanks once again to all who helped , and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions . elke hentschel
