A Remark on English Double Negatives

This article claims that there are two partially distinct analyses for English no forms like no dog, nothing, no one, no philosopher. Each analysis involves recognition of a syntactic negative + a determiner some as a representation of no; but one analysis involves a second syntactic negative as well. It is suggested that a factually viable version of the traditional English prescriptive rule banning two or more instances of no forms in a single clause must distinguish the two distinct analyses. For while e.g. No gorilla wrote no symphony is indeed ungrammatical on a reading with weak stress on the second no, where it means No gorilla wrote any symphony, it is grammatical on a reading with strong stress ont the second no. This reading is equivalent to Every gorilla wrote some symphony, taken here to instantiate the double negative (hence logically positive) reading of the second no. A variety of arguments are presented to support the view that the grammatical status of the two no forms of the grammatical reading have distinct structures and various implications and problems arising from this conclusion are briefly considered.