| 词组 | raising |
| 释义 | raising Raising is a term used by linguists for the idiomatic shifting of a subject or a negative from a subordinate clause to the "higher" clause it is dependent on (Bolinger 1980). The more important phenomenon, for usage writers (who do not use the term raising), is the one in which a negative is shifted. Let's take an example: • But I suppose I oughtn't to say that. Does that seem a bit stiff and awkward? The most likely pattern in present-day English would show the negative shifted from ought, where it logically belongs, to the verb of the main clause: • ... but I don't suppose I ought to say that —Harry S. Truman, quoted in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking, 1973 Some of the most common expressions in which negative-raising is usual involve verbs like think, suppose, believe, and seem. The sentences "I don't think it will rain" and "I don't believe I'll go" were disapproved as solecisms by Vizetelly 1906. The objection was, of course, that the raised negatives are illogical. Illogical they may be, perhaps, but standard idioms nonetheless—especially in speech and relaxed writing. Flesch 1964 and Bolinger 1980 bother to defend them, so there evidently has been a fair amount of objection along Vizetelly's lines. Here are some examples of raising: • I don't suppose there is much room to doubt that we will be actually at war before another fortnight is out —Archibald MacLeish, letter, 4 Feb. 1917 • I don't suppose there was a scarcer or more highly prized item in all of Belgium —And More by Andy Rooney, 1982 • "I don't suppose you remembered that bagel," Megan says —Jay Mclnerney, Bright Lights, Big City, 1984 • Well, I don't think the writer finds peace —William Faulkner, 13 Mar. 1958, in Faulkner in the University, 1959 • I don't think those things fall in the same category —Senator Lowell Weicker, radio interview, 28 Nov. 1975 • ... he says that he doesn't think he's going to like "your chapter on editing" —James Thurber, letter, 3 Dec. 1958 • The roar of the traffic and continual street and building construction don't seem to faze the sidewalk cafe devotee —Barbara Gamarekian, N. Y. Times, 7 May 1978 • ... for as he did not seem in the least to lessen his Affection to me, so neither did he lessen his Bounty —Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, 1722 • ... I went up to New York to see Meyer Wolfshiem; I couldn't seem to reach him any other way —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925 Never is also raised sometimes. Vizetelly 1906 complains of one example, and Phythian 1979 corrects "I never expected to find it" to "I expected never to find it." But the raised position has long been established: • ... though 'Gondibert' never appears to have been popular —Samuel Johnson, Life of Dryden, 1783 (in Fitzedward Hall 1873) Objections to idioms like I don't think or can't seem (unfavorably noticed from Scheie de Vere 1872 to Shaw 1987) are a waste of good indignation; English idiom simply defies the dictates of abstract logic at some points, and this is one of them. See also can't seem. |
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