We still conduct a research for archive materials concerning in this or other way Otto Stoltz' period of life in Berlin, and sometimes we find very interesting "secondary" results. We would like to present to your attention one of them. The article given here is written by Kurt Obermeyer, the student of Slavic Philology Department of Berlin University, in the autumn of 1939, and it was supposed to be published in the University transactions. Judging by some features and the fact that the name of Obermeyer is not known in the linguistic circles at all, the article has not been published neither in Europe, nor in America. More than this, judging by circumstantial pieces of information required quite recently in the result of the same archive researches, professor Alfred von Ditz' participation was crucial in making everything the article not to be published. He was the pro-rector of the University that time. Obermeyer was called up for service in the Wehrmacht in the summer of 1940 right after he had graduated from the University. The last mentions about him are dated back to the late spring of 1943, in the lists of personnel replacements of one of the infantry divisions there is a name of translator Kurt Obermeyer, born 1914.
There goes the article itself:
ON SOME FORMAL-LOGICAL PECULIARITIES OF NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
A stranger, who does not know the Russian language very well, is always revealed by phrases, such as: “íèêòî ñêàçàë ìíå”, “íèêòî ýòî ãîâîðèò”, “íèêòî çíàåò”, etc. which are a direct calque from English: “nobody said to me”, “nobody is saying that”, “nobody knows”, or from German: “niemand hat mir gesagt”, “niemand sagt das”, “keiner weiss”, or from almost any other European language. In Russian these phrases sound as: “íèêòî íå ñêàçàë ìíå”, “íèêòî ýòîãî íå ãîâîðèò”, “íèêòî íå çíàåò”, their cardinal difference from the English and German analogues is the double negative: the subject's and the predicate's inversion.
We shall try to show to what not incurious results the analysis of such double negative can lead from the formal logics' point of view. Let us take the variant with the verb “çíàòü” ("to know"). Let us see the figure ¹1.
Let us examine the phrase “íèêòî íå çíàåò” ("nobody knows") (it is equal in its sense to the construction “âñå íå çíàþò” ("everybody does not know")). It is clear that it must link the field of the inversion P(-)“íå çíàòü” ("not to know"), on the one hand, with a certain subject, on the other hand. “Íèêòî” ("nobody") means that not any of the elements of the set S can put in for the role of this subject: neither the element A, nor the element B, etc. Thus, every element (equal to “any of the elements”) does not have a link with the field of the inversion P(-), that means that every element of the set S has a link to the field P, it is shown on the figure ¹ 2: “Açíàåò” ("A knows"), “Bçíàåò” ("B knows"), “N çíàåò” ("N knows"), “Mçíàåò” ("M knows"), i.e. “âñå çíàþò” ("everybody knows").
The phrases, which are analogues to Russian “íèêòî íå çíàåò” ("nobody knows"), in German, English and other European languages are built according to the principle of the single inversion: it is sufficient to use one negation of the subject or of the predicate to make the whole construction negative: “keiner weiss”, “nobody knows”. These phrases are shown graphically on the figure ¹ 3, it means that the formal contradiction cannot be observed here, and logics' laws only prove the identities: “nobody knows” and “all don’t know”, “keiner weiss” and “alle wissen nicht”.
1.Let us assume that all of the given considerations are right. Then: either there must exist unknown yet, more perfect apparatus of formal logics and the theory of sets, the use of which according to the proposed scheme will not lead to a contradiction to the Russian language's practice; or, still, any mathematical apparatus cannot be applied to all semantic nuances of the Russian language, and then we have one more case of mystical and inexplicable from our point of view features of the Russian character. I would like to stress that the latter variant, which is less desirable and preferential for me, would be, of course, accepted with an easy imaginable pleasure and with triumph by professor von Ditz and by his high patrons, while it could scarcely be regarded as a scientific contribution to the development of linguistics.
2.In the given way of logical plotting a secret drawback can be hidden. One of such potentially thin-skinned thing is the Russian language's logical semantic apparatus which is used in attempts to logically analyze the language itself.
3. It is obvious that the Russians using in their language practice the above described phrases hardly notice that they (the phrases, of course) are not logical. On the other hand, the apparatus of formal logics and the theory of sets used here, undoubtedly, is known to their physicists and mathematicians. In connection with that, it would be interesting to try to explore the co-ordination and interaction of different parts of these scientists' brains in their language practice (both speech and writing). Maybe, we could become witnesses of examples of subconscious oppression of hidden not realized allogisms (or their unbelievably effective and prompt solution every time in the process of speech or writing). What specificity does it bring into peculiarities of individual (national) psyche and character, how does it reflect in the whole aggregate of what we call the highest nerve activity? The case of such researches initiated by a certain Russian who had perceived the essence of the question, would be especially interesting.
Kurt Obermeyer,
the 5-year student
of the Slavic Philology
Department of Berlin University,
Berlin, October 1939
We would like to express our deepest appreciation to everybody who has helped and continues helping us greatly in our researches
Authors
Koblenz – Berlin – Minsk,
April-July 1999
German-Russian translation:
authors
Russian-English translation:
Andrey Bursau, Minsk