I was reading a fantasy novel and I came across this piece of dialogue:
Don’t you know what a Conquest Knight is?
And the main character replied by nodding his head.
But this confused me because the question could be asking if he does know, to which he nods his head, or it could be asking if he does not know, to which he nods his head.
Well from reading the story I can tell you that at this point in time the character does not know. And because he nods his head the question must be asking if he does not know.
But, left as is, it could be interpreted one of two ways:
“Do you not know what a conquest knight is?”
“Do you know what a conquest knight is?”
Basically, I am asking if the contraction don’t is used improperly in the sentence or if the contraction itself has always been that ambiguous.
Answer
Due to the position of not (n’t) in the sentence, the answers to the question will be the same as the non-negated version of the question:
Do you know what a conquest knight is?
So “yes” would mean “yes, I know” and “no” would mean “no, I don’t know”.
This conclusion is supported by several academic sources I have found. For example:
In negative questions with outer negation (i.e. with n’t instead of not) the negation is “interpreted high”, that is outside the TP. I presume this means that the copy of the negation within TP is [uNeg] while the copy outside is [iNeg]. Therefore the answers work as they do in the case of non-negative questions, under K&R’s theory.
On the syntax of yes and no in English
I can’t say I know why the line is written how it is (especially with no direct quote and little context). Was he lying? Is the line just written poorly? Was the question supposed to be rhetorical and the nodding a sign of an attentive listener?
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : SemperAmbroscus , Answer Author : Laurel
