"Do you miss not having a job?"

[jkpate]

One possibility is that "double negation" represents a different logic in the semantics. Another possibility is that "double negation" represents a different mapping from syntax to semantics. That is, two different language varieties might have the same logic in the semantics, but one variety has a syntax-semantics interface that maps "I didn't see no birds" to something like [latex]\neg\mbox{see}(\mbox{I},\mbox{birds})[/latex], and a different variety has a syntax-semantics interface that maps it to [latex]\mbox{see}(\mbox{I},\mbox{birds})[/latex]. Since we know that languages vary in their syntax-semantics mapping anyway, the second possibility might be more parsimonious.

[Daniel]

I think that's definitely true, although that presupposes that a formal semantics representation exists, which is probably true at least in some sense.
But I don't know whether we need special mappings-- the combinatorial possibilities work out if you assume that "no" can have different meanings in different varieties.


But for the original data in question, I still don't get it. Why does that sentence (more or less) work? Critically, it's ambiguous within the same dialects.

[freknu]

I just had an idea in the shower (a Eureka, you could say)

a.

• I haven't got any money
• I haven't got no money

b.

• we won't have any of that
• we won't have none of that

So continuing djr's idea —I can't remember the thread where we discussed it — it would indeed seem that "any" and "no" are related.

[Daniel]

Negative Polarity Items (like any) are triggered under Negative Polarity contexts (such as negation) and substitute for negative forms (like no). There's been a lot of research on this, although a number of questions remain (such as whether the two forms are exactly semantically equivalent, why other uses (eg, free-choice any "Have anything at all that you want!") are related, and exactly what defines Negative Polarity environments).