Based on German corpus data, this study presents the structure and the formal and functional conditions of the rhetorical figure of litotes. By examining the form of double negation (not without controversy, not insoluble) the analysis exposes the pragmatic mechanisms of negating the opposite and reformulates the relationship between the semantics and pragmatics of litotes.

Autorentext
Laura Neuhaus, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.