Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Philosophy
PhD in Linguistics, UCLA
Sun Mar 9 15:16:08 UTC 2008
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At 10:33 AM +0000 3/9/08, Michael Quinion wrote:
The phrase few would argue that appeared in the last World Wide Words newsletter and was criticised by numerous subscribers as being either an error or yet another example of the dumbing-down of English that was leading to ill-thought-out, new-fangled, ambiguous phrases like this one.
That it can be ambiguous there is no doubt, though context usually makes it clear which version is meant. From the Guardian last October: few would argue that classical music still provides one of the most effective means of teaching musical literacy; From the Grocer in 2005: Few would argue that running a convenience store is an effective remedy for stress.
Though there are examples from the late 18th century, the phrase seems to have become much more common in recent decades. Can somebody advise me: was it always ambiguous, or has one of the two senses crept in recently through some process of misanalysis?
I cant answer that one, but I suspect the circumstances for ambiguity and misconstrual are endemic to the construction. Thus It is arguable that p, and especially Its arguable whether p, is generally taken to imply its doubtful/unlikely that p, while It is arguably the case that p or Arguably p, generally implying its probable that p. The intuitions reported here are my own; AHD4, for example, simply lists arguably under the heading for arguable without a separate gloss, and gives arguable these two rather inconsistent senses, of which I would maintain only the second can survive the conversion to the adverb arguably:
1. Open to argument: an arguable question, still unresolved.
2. That can be argued plausibly; defensible in argument: three arguable points of law.
LH
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文章大概意思：
few would argue that…具备完全相反的歧义（好似claim对dispute）。当初，few would argue that用作few would dispute that之意时，遭到海量批评。读者觉得这是错误，要么是典型的语言趋于俗气案例，这种现象致使模棱两可、新奇怪异、粗制滥造的短语频频出现。
毫无疑问，这种结构模糊不清，读者只能通过语境判断few would argue that的意思。
劳伦斯•霍恩发现，few would argue that在18世界就已经出现，近几十年来势头强劲。
那样，这个结构到底是一直就模棱两可，还是因为错误剖析无声无息有了另一层意思？劳伦斯•霍恩发现自己也答不上来。但他觉得这个结构总带有模糊不清、引人误解的语境。
由此产生了另外一个问题，arguable也具备两个相反的意思：doubtful/unlikely和probable。
那样arguably呢？劳伦斯•霍恩觉得，Arguably p暗含 its probable that p，这只不过他个人的直觉。
譬如，AHD4的编排就有的混乱——给arguable两个自相矛盾的意思，简单地把arguably放在同一标签下，居然不另做注解。劳伦斯•霍恩倡导：只有arguable第二个义项可以派生出arguably。
后记：
昨天在http://forum.wordreference.com平台就此问题发了一个帖子，从回帖看：假如没语境，老外对few would argue that…的理解也会出现偏差。回帖内容如下：
如沐春风
【问】
Few would argue that his team has experience and proven ability.
Hi guys. The sentence above comes from collins dictionary. It totally confuses me.
What can we learn from the sentence?
【答】
grassy
It means that not many people would argue the team has experience and ability.
Uncle Jack
The general opinion is that this team does not have experience and proven ability. Few people would argue against this.
SevenDays
Few has a negative connotation. In Few would argue that this team has experience and proven ability, its understood that the team does not have experience and proven ability , and not many people would argue otherwise.
To signal positive connotation , language turns to a few. A few would argue that this team has experience and proven ability. In this sense, a few means some, with some having a positive meaning too. Notice that we cant use some with few, because of the overall negative meaning involved.
总结：
确如劳伦斯•霍恩论所述：
1. 这一结构确实势头强劲——咱们讨论的就是《柯林斯高阶英汉双解词典》的例句；刘老师提供的很多例句，有些源于字典，有些是权威语料；曹老师提供的例句，也是收入COCA的（我不不承认COCA 不如字典，但我觉得有参考价值）
2. 这一结构有歧义——譬如曹老师和刘老师看法截然相反；三个外国人在forum.wordreference.com的回答也偏离了本意，即便再多外国人回答也会莫衷一是。
3. 假如处置这个结构——单就一个孤立句子而言，或许会出现相反的理解，所以要结合语境做出判断。
本帖保留开放状况，老师们可以发表怎么看。谢谢。
帖子中的三个老外的看法其实是一致的，即：这个队没经验和能力。（几乎无人觉得该队有经验和能力）。
和我的剖析是一致的。
刘老师引用的《海词》的看法：
5. 当你去argue 一件事情的时候，常指反对该事，才去argue。如果是赞成该事，不该用argue，而是用dispute。
这个说法有问题。这是中国人对argue的误解。大家可以argue for sth, 也可argue against sth. 如何能说反对某事才去argue？
请看《牛津》的解释：argue：[intransitive,transitive]to give reasons why you think that something is right/wrong, true/not true, etc., especially to persuade people that you are right
argue 后接that从句，从句的内容就是主语给出的reason，这是主语同意或反对某事的原因。换句话说，that从句是说话人用来争辩的证据、理由，首要条件自然是说话人觉得that从句的内容是正确的。
假如主语用few或no one, 那样逻辑就是无人或几乎无人觉得that从句的内容是正确的，即that从句的内容是不正确的。
