negative polarity items - The difference between “We’ll ever be back to normal,” and “We’ll never be back to normal.”


Time magazine (Aug.2) reported that Toledo Mayor instructed city residents not to drink tap water polluted with toxin caused by algae bloom under the headline: Toledo, Ohio without drinking water for second day.



“In a Saturday press conference, Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins called upon residents to stay calm. 'I don’t believe we’ll ever be back to normal,' he said, the Toledo Blade reports. “But this is not going to be our new normal. We’re going to fix this. Our city is not going to be abandoned.” http://time.com/3074318/toledo-water/?xid=newsletter-brief



I’m drawn to the line - “I don’t believe we’ll ever be back to normal,” which sounds like to me as if the Mayor doesn’t believe the water will get back to normal.


What is the difference between “I don’t believe we’ll ever be back to normal,” which is simple negation and “I don’t believe we’ll never be back to normal,” which is double negation leading to affirmation?


Actually, this morning AP news reported that Ohio Governor, John Kasich declaired yesterday that toxin level in the water supply has gone down significantly .



Answer



Double negation is not an issue. What the mayor said was



I don’t believe we’ll ever be back to normal



There's only one negative in that sentence.
And there's only one negative in this sentence, which he didn't say, but which means the same



I believe we won’t ever be back to normal



I've boldfaced the negatives (don't, won't), as well as the Negative Polarity Item ever.
Since ever is an NPI, it's only grammatical inside the scope of a negative.
That's why another sentence the mayor didn't say, with no negative at all, is ungrammatical.



  • *I believe we'll ever be back to normal


Normally negating a main verb upstairs doesn't count as negating a complement clause downstairs:



  • She didn't say that he was coming ≠ She said that he wasn't coming.

  • He didn't realize that she was in the room ≠ He realized that she wasn't in the room


This is called "compositional" negation, because the negative composes only with the clause it's in.
It's the norm with most predicates, as shown above. But there are a number of predicates where compositional negation is not the norm. They're all verbs of mental perception.



  • She didn't believe that he was coming ≡ She believed that he wasn't coming.

  • He didn't think that she was in the room ≡ He thought that she wasn't in the room.

  • There doesn't appear to be a problem ≡ There appears not to be a problem.


This phenomenon is called Negative-Raising, and it is governed by these predicates only.
Unsurprisingly, these are called "Neg-Raising Predicates".


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