word order - "It doesn't always X" vs "It always doesn't X"


When I read these two sentences out loud, I feel that they express very different things.


 1. Job interviews don't always go well.
 2. Job interviews always don't go well.

At least to me, 1) implies that job interviews often don't go well, but there may be some that go well, and 2) is literally what it says, i.e. job interviews never go well. I believe I am correct as the "I don't always" meme also seems to imply the same concept.


Am I correct?



Answer



Your intuitions are correct. They do mean different things.


The particular difference is predictable from the relative positions
of the negative don't and the universal temporal quantifier always in the propositions.
There are two possible positions.




  1. The negative can include the quantifier in its scope
    Job interviews don't always go well, in logical terms
    NOT (ALWAYS (Go-Well (Job-Interviews)))




  2. The quantifier can include the negative in its scope
    Job interviews always don't go well, in logical terms
    ALWAYS (NOT (Go-Well (Job-Interviews)))




Quantifiers, Negatives, and Modals are all logical operators and have very complex interactions.
In particular, any clause with two of them is potentially ambiguous, unless it's compositional,
like your examples. See The Logic Guide for further information.


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