A Lecture about English

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day.

一天，一位语言教授在讲授他的英语课。

"In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

“在英语中，”他说，“双重否定构成肯定的语义。在有些语言中，比如俄语，双重否定仍然表示否定。然而，没有任何语言其双重肯定能表示否定的语义。”

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."注

教室后面传来一个声音，“是，对”。

注：这两个单词本身都是肯定的，但说话时可以通过语调的变化来表达“否定”的语义。这个组合在英语对话中是很常用的。