● Back Numbers 033〜036
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今回から、4回にわたり、辞書などに載っている訳語が実際の使用と一致しないフレーズを扱います。まず最初は、 "if not the 〜est"です。 |
 No. 033 What does "if not the 〜est" mean? (Part 1)----"if not the 〜est"の本当の意味は？（その1） |
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The following kind of expression can be very confusing, and many native speakers will say that it is has two very contradictory meanings: Newton is a great scientist, if not the greatest. This sentence has two different interpretations: 1. Newton is probably the greatest scientist. In fact, most native speakers will accept the first meaning, rather than the second meaning. If you look at the grammar of the sentence, this is actually a little bit strange. In other words, "Newton is a great scientist, if not the greatest" seems to be almost the same as "Newton is a great scientist, even if not the greatest", which is the same as the second meaning. Here are some more examples: Manchester United is the most famous football club in Britain, if not the world. [= ... is probably the most famous football club in the world.] In the next Column I will discuss the conditions under which the "even if not" interpretation becomes the likely interpretation. |
● Words & Phrases ●
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（帝京大学教授 Christopher Barnard） |
次回掲載予定9月26日 |
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前回に引き続き"if not the 〜est" を扱います。この言い回しが日本の辞書に載っているような意味になるのはどんな場合でしょうか。 |
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No. 034 What does "if not the 〜est" mean? (Part 2) ----"if not the 〜est"の本当の意味は？（その2） |
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In the last Column I wrote that sentences like "Newton is a great scientist, if not the greatest" usually mean "Newton is probably the greatest scientist". Such sentences do not usually mean "Newton is a great scientist, but perhaps not/even if not the greatest scientist". However, let us look at a sentence like this: Newton, if not the greatest scientist, is a great scientist. In this sentence, as you can see, "if not the greatest scientist" has been moved towards the beginning of the sentence. In such cases the concession becomes stronger, and probably the only meaning is "Newton, even if not the greatest scientist, is a great scientist". Here is one more example: Manchester United, if not the most famous football club in the world, is the most famous in Britain. [ = even if not the most famous club in the world, ...] So, to summarize Column 033 and Column 034, we can say that: 1. ... "if not the 〜est" is an ambiguous expression, but it most commonly means " ... is probably the 〜est". In Column 035 and Column 036, I will discuss one more "meaning puzzle". |
● Words & Phrases ●
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（帝京大学教授 Christopher Barnard） |
次回掲載予定10月3日 |
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今回から二回にわたり、"... not to say ..."について扱います。これも辞書の訳語と実際の意味が逆になってしまう例のひとつとか。 |
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No. 035 What does "... not to say ..." mean? (Part 1) ----"... not to say ..."の本当の意味は（その1） |
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If you look at various reference works and dictionaries, you will find that the model Japanese translation is 「Ｂとは言わないまでもＡ」. Unfortunately this is not correct. Let us look at this sentence: 1. The information is inadequate, not to say misleading. The following translation is not correct: 2. その情報はまぎらわしいとは言わないまでも物足りない。 Here are some ways to translate this Japanese sentence (2) back into English: 3. I will not say that the information is misleading, but it is inadequate. However, the original English sentence (1) does not mean the same as (3), (4) and (5) above. Rather, it can be paraphrased in the following ways: 6. The information is not only inadequate, it is also misleading (which is much worse). To take another example, we can say, "she is pretty, not to say beautiful". This does not mean: 8. 彼女はとてもきれい [beautiful] とは言わないまでも、かわいい [pretty]。 It means: 9. Rather than being just pretty, she is actually beautiful. The correct Japanese translations for these "not to say’sentences will probably use patterns like "AというよりもB" and "A だけでなくB". We could thus translate sentence (1) like this: 3. その情報は物足りないだけでなく、実際にまぎらわしい。 In Column 036 I will discuss the reasons why this English sentence pattern has this meaning. |
● Words & Phrases ●
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（帝京大学教授 Christopher Barnard） |
次回掲載予定10月11日 |
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前回に引き続き、"... not to say ..."の話です。なぜこの言い回しがこの意味で使われるのかについて、具体的に理由を解説しています。 |
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No. 036 What does "... not to say ..." mean? (Part 2) ----"... not to say ..."の本当の意味は（その2） |
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In Column 035 I said that "she is pretty, not to say beautiful" means "彼女はかわいいと言うよりも、とてもきれいです. It does not mean "彼女はとてもきれいとは言わないまでも、かわいい". The problem is that it seems as if "not to say" means "I will not say" or "I will not go so far as to say". Because of this, "not to say" gets translated into Japanese as "とは言わないまでも". But actually, "not to say" means "Although I want to say it, I will not say it directly because I have a feeling of modesty, or politeness, or reserve, or I lack the desire to make an extreme statement". Therefore we can sum up this "not to say" pattern as meaning: Someone/Something is [UNDERSTATEMENT], not to say [PROBABLE TRUTH]. Here are some examples:
The above may be called "emphasizing" situations. And this is one use of "...not to say...". In the next Column, I will discuss how this pattern is used in "different from expected" situations. |
● Words & Phrases ●
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（帝京大学教授 Christopher Barnard） |
次回掲載予定10月18日 |