Language desk
< January 3	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 5 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 4

Disambiguating "may not"

The sentence "he may not have ~~have~~ acted alone" can mean either "it is impossible he acted alone" or "it is possible he did not act alone". You could disambiguate the two by clarifying the structure of the sentence by having a slight pause between "not" and "have" for the first meaning and between "may" and "not" for the second meaning. But suppose that pause is missing, does stressing "not" suggest to you the first meaning and "may" suggest the second meaning? Or the other way around? Or neither (i.e. it is still ambiguous)? Contact Basemetal here 08:18, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence isn't ambiguous in standard English - it can only mean "it is possible he did not act alone". "He may not act alone" is ambiguous - it can either mean "he is not permitted to act alone" or "if he acts, it's possible that he won't be alone". To disambiguate, it would be usual to put the stress on "not" for the first meaning, and "alone" for the second. Tevildo (talk) 08:58, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would reword "He may not act alone" to either "He must not act alone" or "He might not act alone", to make it unambiguous. StuRat (talk) 09:10, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how - "He might not act alone " - may be of help here. Let's assume somebody says: "I didn't turn to the right, because I thought I might not do that", can't this mean "I didn't turn to the right, because I thought I was not permitted to do that " ? HOTmag (talk) 12:46, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

'Might' is both a conditional and a past tense. In principle 'might' in "I thought I might not do it" could be both but I find that 'might' is relatively rarely used as a past tense (especially in an independent or principal clause) but it occasionally happens: e.g. Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Blubeard", 1st line: "This door you might not open, and you did." Contact Basemetal here 13:25, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

e/c) I don't see how it could mean "it is impossible he acted alone".

At a stretch, I could sort of accommodate the meaning "he was not permitted to act alone". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How about "he could not have acted alone"? Contact Basemetal here 09:20, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, is "he may have not acted alone" good English? Contact Basemetal here 09:40, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. StuRat (talk) 09:46, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Better would be "he may not have acted alone". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

StuRat do you then also accept "he could have not acted alone"? Contact Basemetal here 10:50, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Iffy. StuRat (talk) 00:16, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The answer for the OP's original question is as follows:

The meaning of "not " in "He may not " depends on the meaning of "He may ": If "He may " is intended to mean "He is permitted to " (e.g. in "He may enter ") - then "He may not " means "He is not permitted to ", but if "He may " is intended to mean "Maybe he will " (e.g. in "He may notice it ") - then "He may not " means: "Maybe he will not". HOTmag (talk) 13:13, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Both those usages come from "may" as in "is able to".[1] The subtlety is that if you say, "You may not leave", there's an implication that you will be prevented from leaving, i.e. that you will not be able to leave. In modern usage, it's often said on the "honor system", i.e. that you are trusted not to leave even if you're not being supervised directly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But following on what HOTmag wrote, the first usage ("He is not permitted to") must be followed by an present infinitive: "He is not permitted to act alone." In order to get to "to have acted alone" with this sense, you would have to start with "He was not permitted to have acted alone," and in any event the "was not permitted" would allow you to finish with "to act alone" and still get a past-tense sense of the sentence. No, only the second sense ("maybe he will not"/"maybe he did not") works in Standard English. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that I've never claimed the sentence "He may not have acted alone " can have two meanings: I've only pointed at the linkage between, the meaning of "may not " - in any given context, and the meaning of "may " - in that context. If "may " - in any given context - means: is permitted to, then "may not " - in that context - must mean: is not permitted to. In our context, being the negative sentence "He may not have acted alone ", the word "may " does not refer to a permission but rather to a possibility, so the parallel positive sentence: "He may have acted alone " should have meant: Maybe he acted alone, and that's why the given negative sentence "He may not have acted alone " - can only mean: Maybe he did not act alone. That's exactly what I was trying to say to the OP, and thank you for letting me clarify myself. HOTmag (talk) 09:40, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You "reasoning" is invalid. For example "He could have acted alone" means "it is possible he acted alone" but "He could not have acted alone" means "it is impossible that he acted alone". Contact Basemetal here 10:38, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've only been talking about "may". "Could" is another issue, and has another semantic rule - having nothing to do with the semantic rule of "may". Anyways: the rule I've given for "may", is not logical - but rather semantic, and is definitely valid and correct. HOTmag (talk) 12:46, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]