我们英语读得少的，有时对一个感觉模糊的句式只好钻牛角尖儿，用语法去解析，然后会发现一些“潜规则”。这儿举一个简单的例子——偶然碰到的，不是很有分量，但也能说明一点儿问题。

那天说彭罗斯承认想象不出非欧几何的样子，原文有这么一句话： 

This did not mean that Penrose could actually visualize a proper Lobachevskian space or a four-dimensional Euclidean space, just that he expected that this would be possible as we get used to these things in the future. 

从结构看，两个that从句都归动词mean管辖，那么not也该管两句。但从意思看，显然not只管前一个that。拈出这个例子，是因为才见一个同样结构的句子： 

It does not mean that nothing lies beyond, only that whatever might be over the horizon cannot be seen from where we are. 

  然后又找到很多类似的句子： 

Just because you are happy it does not mean that the day is perfect but that you have looked beyond its imperfections. 

 

   Since this is not so unlikely, we would have less confidence that the medicine played a role, and the result would be inconclusive. It does not mean that the drug does not help, but that it has not been proven to help. 

 

The term connotes that evidence establishes a particular point to a moral certainty and that it is beyond dispute that any reasonable alternative is possible. It does not mean that no doubt exists as to the accused's guilt, but only that no Reasonable Doubt is possible from the evidence presented. 

从后面那个that前面的小词，just, only, but, but only，可以换一个角度来理解句子的结构：这几个词儿恰好就是代替前面那个does not的——所以，它本来应该是it does not mean that,…, it just (only, but, but only) means that……它是省略了后一个动词。省略相同动词，是中英文都常见的现象，如类似的句式：we cannot say that…, but only that…等等。我们最常见的例子是科技文献里方程下面对符号的解释：x is the…, and y the…等等。 

这个例子很容易理解，不容易误会后面也not。但我们常常也会遇到语法模糊意思也模糊的句子，这时钻语法的牛角尖儿也是模糊的，最好的解决办法是找相同结构的句子来比较，一般都能遇到意思容易理解的，就可以用它作标本去平行理解模糊的句子了。

 

 

 

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