# I was not wanted to be understood



## ampurdan

Is this sentence correct? Does it mean that "people/someone did not want to understand me"?

Thanks.


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## You little ripper!

ampurdan said:
			
		

> Is this sentence correct? Does it mean that "people/someone did not want to understand me"?
> 
> Thanks.


I think it should be "I was not want*ing *to be understood" and it means that *I* didn't want to be understood.


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## ampurdan

Thanks, Charles Constante, but I want to say "They/someone/whoever did not want to understand me". I thought I could use the passive construction, but maybe I just can't with "want" in this sense. Any idea about how may I say it without expressing the subject? Or is it impossible?

Thank you.


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## You little ripper!

ampurdan said:
			
		

> Thanks, Charles Costante, but I want to say "They/someone/whoever did not want to understand me". I thought I could use the passive construction, but maybe I just can't with "want" in this sense. Any idea about how may I say it without expressing the subject? Or is it impossible?
> 
> Thank you.


Actually "I wasn't wanted to be understood" is probably correct grammatically, but I think it's a very clumbsy construction.


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## ampurdan

Thank you Charles Costante, it didn't sound proper to me either, even though I'm not a native English-speaker. Oh! And excuse my mispelling of your Last Name, my Spanish interfered.


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## You little ripper!

ampurdan said:
			
		

> Thank you Charles Costante, it didn't sound proper to me either, even though I'm not a native English-speaker. Oh! And excuse my mispelling of your Last Name, my Spanish interfered.


 As I said, I actually think it's probably grammatically correct. It's just that it sounds a little strange.

I think in all my life there has only one person who wasn't Italian who ever got my surname right, so there's no need to apologize.


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## elroy

I think it's incorrect as well.  There's a "double passive voice."  You have the passive voice with "to be understood," so you don't need it with "wanted" or "was wanting."

*I did not want to be understood.*
*I was not wanting to be understood.* 

If I'm not mistaken, you couldn't use a double passive here in Spanish either.  But that's a different topic.


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## majlo

ampurdan, can't you just use *They didn't want to understand me *or *They refused to understand me *or *They wouldn't understand me?*


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## ampurdan

Elroy: no, you're right, there is no double passive in Spanish, but there are constructions who allow not to specify who and how many want. Thanks for your explanation. I suspected something was wrong but I didn't know what.

"I did not want to be understood" and "I was not wanting to be understood" is not what I meant.

Majlo, I want no "they" nor whichever specification of the number and identity of the people who don't want to understand me.

"I was deliberately misunderstood" is the only sentence I've found suitable for my purposes so far. 

Thanks to you all.


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## panjandrum

I was being wilfully misunderstood.

How does that feel?  Wilfully implies deliberately and an element of malicious intent.


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## DaleC

> Is this sentence correct? Does it mean that "people/someone did not want to understand me"?


 
This is a superb question because more than one major point of grammar is entangled in it! Also it is an example of when a learner puts together something that a native would never think up, even in jest. Finally, the complete explanation for why your attempt is wrong may not even exist yet! (If it does, the answer may well be in fragments to be fournd only in academic literature of the field of linguistics.) 

Not only is this sentence impossible, but it's not processable, interpretable, to many native speakers. To put the latter remark in simpler words, most people won't even be able to tell what it's _supposed _to mean. I myself could not. 

On the double passive, see the note at http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/024.html As I mentioned, I don't know whether the double passive has been investigated thoroughly. For example, this construction is grammatical using "intend", but I have a hard time accepting it using "want". 

     I at least think it is interesting that the double passive only came into common use only a generation ago -- in the early 1970's, to be specific. It is in fact an innovation within the lifetime of middle aged speakers. I can remember when people would stumble over it in mid-sentence if they were speaking, and I remember how whenever it was spoken, there was at least a fifty fifty chance that one of the listeners would object to it as ungrammatical. Perhaps it existed in the language earlier, marginally. Even now, it's uncommon in speech.


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## Jessila

I like panjandrum's suggestion, but I'll try one too (just to see if I can get right on that ^^ )

So, what about: "I wasn't allowed to be understood"
or: "Being understood was denied to me"

(I feel my structures are a bit clumsy, but one's got to try to improve one's self  )


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## timpeac

I'm feeling a bit isolated given the comments above, but for me the sentence is fine - albeit colloquial.

For me it clearly (?!?!) means "there were some people who did not want me to be understood".

Other examples - 

"the delegate's microphone was deliberately broken because he was not wanted to be heard".

"the poor people were bussed out of the area because they were not wanted to be seen by the world's press"


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## ampurdan

Yes, now I realize I've made several mistakes in my first sentence.

I took a construction:

"You are not supposed to do that". This expression sounded very strange to me the first time I heard it. But I said, ok, it's the way it is in English.

Now I realize that what sounded odd to me in "you're not supposed to do" it's not only the passive voice with "suppose", but also the use of a infinitive after "suppose", which my native language does not allow. Nothing to do with the passive construction.

I guessed I could say: "They don't suppose you to do that".

"You don't want me to be here" is a common sentence. I guessed I could say "I am not wanted to be here". "To be" here is copulative. Now, after reading your post Dalec, I guess I couldn't.

"I am not wanted to be understood". "To be" here is modal for passive infinitive.

I don't know how to build the sentence with "intend" but "Someone don't want me to be understood", even if I could speak it, is not what I meant anyway.

Thanks.


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## ampurdan

panjandrum said:
			
		

> I was being wilfully misunderstood.
> 
> How does that feel? Wilfully implies deliberately and an element of malicious intent.


 
So simple... Perfect!


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## ampurdan

timpeac said:
			
		

> I'm feeling a bit isolated given the comments above, but for me the sentence is fine - albeit colloquial.
> 
> For me it clearly (?!?!) means "there were some people who did not want me to be understood".


 
Well, thank you Timpeac. I did clearly a mistake because want I tried to say in a passive contruction was "You/he/they do(es)n't want to understand me". I need a construction which allowed me not to specify who did not want to understand me.

Thank you for your input, though. It's very interesting to know how to some speakers these constructions are so incomprehensible and to others do make sense (even though not the one I meant )


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## timpeac

ampurdan said:
			
		

> Well, thank you Timpeac. I did clearly a mistake because want I tried to say in a passive contruction was "You/he/they do(es)n't want to understand me". I need a construction which allowed me not to specify who did not want to understand me.
> 
> Thank you for your input, though. It's very interesting to know how to some speakers these constructions are so incomprehensible and to others do make sense (even though not the one I meant )


 
Yes well, according to dale this construction only came into being during my life-time, so maybe I have grown up used to it while it is still surprising for others.


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## DaleC

timpeac said: 





> I'm feeling a bit isolated given the comments above, but for me the sentence is fine - albeit colloquial.


 
I respect that. Even as I was composing my earlier post, I wondered why I accepted "intend" but not "want". After all, they're synonyms. Very interesting to learn that some people do accept "want". 

Now that we're discussing this, I realize I much prefer 
"I was *wanted not* to be understood" instead. I still don't find that 100 percent correct, either. But now I know that's just me.  

So, whenever you say "I was not wanted to be understood", you should immediately ask, "Do you understand that?"  

Linguistic changes do not occur in an instant. They occur over years and decades. Also, they tend to be not quite exhaustive. That means, in the case of a sound change, that a handful of words survive unchanged. A classic case is the change in medieval French from _ca-_ to _cha-_ when _ca-_ began a word and had the word stress. Therefore, English _cat, castle_ are French _chat, chateau_. Well, it turns out that in Normandy a few _ca- _words never made the change. (English has some _ca-_ words and some _cha-_ words. England was conquered by medieval Frenchmen, the Normans, but it also has borrowed words directly from Latin, French's ancestor. Also, some words that might seem to be from Romance are from Anglo-Saxon, because Germanic and Romance in turn have a common ancestor language.)


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## You little ripper!

timpeac said:
			
		

> I'm feeling a bit isolated given the comments above, but for me the sentence is fine - albeit colloquial.
> 
> For me it clearly (?!?!) means "there were some people who did not want me to be understood".
> 
> Other examples -
> 
> "the delegate's microphone was deliberately broken because he was not wanted to be heard".
> 
> "the poor people were bussed out of the area because they were not wanted to be seen by the world's press"


I agree with you. After having said it to myself about three or four times, it now actually sounds correct to my ear. I do think tho' that there are better ways of saying that particular phrase.  I don't think there are _*better*_ ways of saying the other examples you've given.


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## timpeac

DaleC said:
			
		

> Linguistic changes do not occur in an instant. They occur over years and decades. Also, they tend to be not quite exhaustive. That means, in the case of a sound change, that a handful of words survive unchanged. A classic case is the change in medieval French from _ca-_ to _cha-_ when _ca-_ began a word and had the word stress. Therefore, English _cat, castle_ are French _chat, chateau_. Well, it turns out that in Normandy a few _ca- _words never made the change. (English has some _ca-_ words and some _cha-_ words. England was conquered by medieval Frenchmen, the Normans, but it also has borrowed words directly from Latin, French's ancestor. Also, some words that might seem to be from Romance are from Anglo-Saxon, because Germanic and Romance in turn have a common ancestor language.)


 
True - but careful with that example. As you note the "French" influence on English came from the Normans. The Norman dialect of French was separate from that of Ile de France which became the standard. They were separate dialects (they were significantly different in other ways such as verb endings, and other word endings such as "ie" instead of "oire" giving English "victory" cf French "victoire") - Norman French never did have or develop "ch" for "c", the whole dialect was just ousted by the standard over time.

Sorry, I don't mean to go too far down the theme of the development of French dialects here in English Only, my point is that we didn't catch Norman French exporting to England the "c" pronunciation at a point before it developed "ch", that change only occurred in Paris.


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## DaleC

I really feel I have to apologize to ampurdan, who turns out to be in step with a sizable proportion of English speakers. I wonder if it's generational. 

But learners do have to take great care about this grammar point, far more so than with other points. Many native speakers, particularly the middle aged and old, *literally won't understand you *and/or they will suppose you don't know your grammar. This makes a sharp difference with other grammar disputes among English speakers. Some teachers deplore and decry the failure to use _should _more often, for example. But at least they _fully understand _an utterance that is "wrongly" constructed, using an alternative to _should_. 

How did ampurdan come up with the sentence? Perhaps it had been picked up unconsciously by exposure. That would indicate a keen observer. Otherwise, it was created by sheer exercise of reason, which would also be something to feel proud of. 

"I was not wanted to be understood". To find out that people are saying that, it just makes me feel -- old! While I will never again call it "impossible", I don't know if I'll ever bring myself to talk like that. 

This even though I can see how it might be an outstanding reflection the nature of English. It fits in with "Person likes X" and "Person was given/assigned/offered X". Namely, in linguistic terminology, English strongly likes to _promote _the sentence _topic_ to be the grammatical subject, and this "moral precept", as it were, becomes stronger still when the topic is a human. Other languages say "Coffee ice cream pleases me" instead of "I like ~" because _I _am the one affected, not the coffee ice cream. Now we can see that English has applied its "moral precept" spectacularly by taking 

"_People did not want to understand *me*_" 

and promoting *me *to be the subject of a "monster" derived sentence.


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## timpeac

DaleC said:
			
		

> "I was not wanted to be understood". To find out that people are saying that, it just makes me feel -- old! While I will never again call it "impossible", I don't know if I'll ever bring myself to talk like that.


 
Haha, don't worry Dale. This is an epiphany that many people have on these forums in the early days - "that's impossible" we say with absolute conviction, only to be inundated with examples to the contrary.

You'll quickly find that most things are said somewhere in the English speaking world, but you are certainly within your rights to say that you for one don't speak like that, and specify that the effect it makes on your ear is less than....euphonous.


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## foxfirebrand

It's a whole lot simpler than all this!

We're stuck on "they didn't want to understand," or some tortured variation on that, to make it convey an idea it doesn't even contain.

It's not that they didn't want to-- they wanted *not *to.

"They wanted not to understand me," but the "not" has to be emphasized in speech, or bold-fonted as I did.

Or, "They wanted to misunderstand me."

Or were unwilling to understand me, or determined not to.
.


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## ampurdan

"I was wanted to be misunderstood" is not the same as "They wanted to misunderstand me"; as "I was wanted not to be understood" is not the same as "They want me not to understand me".

In the second sentences the ones who "don't want" are clearly the same ones that won't be understood or will misunderstand according to this want. The subject of "want" and the implicit subject of "understand" is the same.

In passive constructions, the subject turns into object, so there we find the agent. Well, in our passive constructions the agent who "wants" and the agent who "doesn't understand or misunderstands" are not necessarily the same. "I was wanted to be misunderstood" means somebody wanted the people to misunderstand me. "Somebody" and "people" are not the same subject, even though "somebody" may be included in "people" ("I" may be included in "we" and that does not make them the same subject). So, there is a breaking of sense between active and passive voices...


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## panjandrum

Like Charles Costante, I found myself rolling the words *I was not wanted to be understood *around my head and gradually they began to acquire meaning.
Like DaleC, I was surprised to discover that this, and other examples of the same eccentric construction are normal in modern speech.

My sense of amazement comes from observing all the trivialising and simplifying dumbing-down going on out there.  I wonder what it is about this, in particular, that has bucked the trend.


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## foxfirebrand

panjandrum said:
			
		

> Like Charles Costante, I found myself rolling the words *I was not wanted to be understood *around my head and gradually they began to acquire meaning.


That is a real head-scratcher for me-- to my ear it is completely unidiomatic, ungrammatical, just plain wrong.  English from Middle Earth maybe, or outer space.
.


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## bpipoly

Since the verb want in this sense is intranstive (meaning it cannot take a direct object), you cannot put is int the passive voice in English.

In the sentence,

They do not want to understand me. 

The word _me _is an object of the infintive _to understand_ not the verb _want_.


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## timpeac

This isn't true. The fact that you _can_ is evidenced by the fact that some people _do - _however the meaning is "they don't want me to be understood" (which may not be what the originator of this thread intended) and so "me" is the object of "to want".


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## Jessila

I personnaly understood the original sentence like this!
For me "I was not wanted to be understood" means "they don't want me to be understood"...


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## DaleC

Jessila wrote: 


> I personnaly understood the original sentence like this!
> For me "I was not wanted to be understood" means "they don't want me to be understood"...


 
Wow, this misunderstanding would be a fascinating datum for scholars of grammar and of language evolution! 

I call it a "misunderstanding" because the native speakers who have responded to this thread and who have affirmed they understand such sentences, they interpret this sentence differently. 

But Jessila's input is yet another reason to think twice before using it with people. Imagine a group of learners of English, using this complicated construction, among themselves -- apparently there would be big confusion. As I have previously noted, this construction seems to have entered the language only within my lifetime.


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## timpeac

DaleC said:
			
		

> I call it a "misunderstanding" because the native speakers who have responded to this thread and who have affirmed they understand such sentences, they interpret this sentence differently.


 
Hem hem <<clearing throat noise>> I have said that I interpret those words in that way all the way through the thread, including the post immediately before Jessila's...I also give other examples in post 13.


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## Jessila

Yes Timpeac, I know you said it right before me, that's even why I said that, but maybe I should have quoted you first  ( sorry  )

I was reacting to this:


			
				timpeac said:
			
		

> the meaning is "they don't want me to be understood" (*which may not be what the originator of this thread intended*)


since during the development of the whole thread I had taken for granted that this was the meaning originally wanted by the poster of this topic.
Now I'd be very interresting to know what he would think about this, because obviously he _is_ wanted to be understood here... but I'm not quite sure he has been (understood) so far ^^ lol


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## panjandrum

There is some difference between:
*They did not want to understand me,*
*I was deliberately misunderstood,
I was being wilfully misunderstood, and
They don't want to understand me.*
all of which ampurdan has endorsed (see #3, 9, 15 & 16).

I would like to suggest, however interesting this thread might be, that the chances of the subject of the thread occurring naturally in the wild are just about zero. I mean that I simply can't believe that any native English-speaker would ever say "*I was not wanted to be understood*". If they did, the evidence of this thread would be sufficient to convict them on a charge of failure to communicate effectively


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## mje1001

You could always say 'I was not wanted to be understood' and if no-one got what you were saying you could say 'I never wanted to be understood' and laugh it off.


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## Jessila

panjandrum said:
			
		

> There is some difference between:
> *They did not want to understand me,*
> *I was deliberately misunderstood,
> I was being wilfully misunderstood, and
> They don't want to understand me.*
> all of which ampurdan has endorsed (see #3, 9, 15 & 16).


The problem is for a learner that some of those differences are very subtle, and I don't think I got them. Despite the tenses, I sense no difference of meaning in your sentences... I understand exactly the same idea with any which of them  

So if you don't mind, I would really like somebody to explain all this a bit more clearly ^^


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## ampurdan

panjandrum said:
			
		

> There is some difference between:
> *They did not want to understand me,*
> *I was deliberately misunderstood,
> I was being wilfully misunderstood, and
> They don't want to understand me.*
> all of which ampurdan has endorsed (see #3, 9, 15 & 16).


 
Thanks, Panjandrum, for remarking on it.

1. "They d_*id*_ not want to understand me and w_*ould* _never try".
4. "They d_*on't*_ want to understand me and w_*ill* _never try".

The difference I appreciate here is in the present/past tense.

2. "Despite my instructions, I found out that he did not only do it the way I told him, but he did it how it best suited himself and I realized I _*was*_ *deliberately* misunderstood".

3. "When _*I listened*_ to all those allegedly sensible people's easy evasive answers, I realized I _*was being*_ *willfully* misunderstood".

I think the difference is still in tense, except for the "malicious intend" in "willfully" (according to your post #10); I'm not very sure though.

I don't know if what I've said makes sense, I would appreciate you telling me if I am wrong.


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## ampurdan

Jessila said:
			
		

> during the development of the whole thread I had taken for granted that this was the meaning originally wanted by the poster of this topic.
> Now I'd be very interresting to know what he would think about this, because obviously he _is_ wanted to be understood here... but I'm not quite sure he has been (understood) so far ^^ lol


 
In my first post I said that what I meant was "They didn't want to understand me" (except for "they"). However, you understood it right and I said it wrong.

"They don't want me to be understood" > "me" changes into "I">
"I was not wanted to be understood".

"They didn't want to understand me". Here "to want" is not intransitive, as bpipoly said, because the object is "to understand me"; so "to understand me" should become the subject in the passive voice.

"Understanding me was not wanted" if you can speak such a sentence (I don't know).

Salut!


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## DaleC

I stand corrected in that I misread what timpeac said. But timpeac has misunderstood ampurdan. For timpeac, there are two wordings that have the same meaning. For ampurdan, they have different meanings. 

timpeac said (#13): 


> For me it clearly (?!?!) means "there were some people who did not want me to be understood".
> 
> Other examples -
> 
> "the delegate's microphone was deliberately broken because he was not wanted to be heard".
> 
> "the poor people were bussed out of the area because they were not wanted to be seen by the world's press"



When Jessila gave her interpretation of the title of this thread, I answered that it diverged from that of timpeac (although I didn't name anybody). But my mistake -- it doesn't diverge. So in post #31, I was corrected. 

Recall a thread from the last three days, there could be a difference in meaning between "it seems not to" and "it doesn't seem to", but general usage among native speakers sweeps the difference aside. 

Timpeac is asserting that to him/her, these sentences (1) and (2) mean the same (at least propositionally) 

1. "the poor people were bussed out of the area because *they *were not wanted to be seen by the world's press" 

versus 

2. "the poor people were bussed out of the area because *there were some people *who did not want *them *to be seen by the world's press" 

Now, on the one hand, what either of these sentences means for a native speaker is valid for that speaker. The speaker is not making a mistake. But on the other hand, the two sentences could have different meanings -- AND, that is what ampurdan wants. That is clear from scenarios ampurdan has given us in a later post. 

Sentence (1) is supposed to mean (for ampurdan) -- and it could mean, if the *syntax *was legitimate! -- that the world's press itself doesn't want to see the poor people. Sentence (2) tells us instead that keeping the poor people from the world's press is the wish of some third parties, and it does not tell us what the world's press thinks. 

Or to look at the thread starter: 

I was not wanted to be understood 
is supposed to entail _propositionally _(i.e., ampurdan wants it to entail) "there were some people who did not want me to be understood -- by themselves"

This clearly differs from timpeac's version: 
"there were some people who did not want me to be understood" -- by others.  

I have just alluded to different levels of meaning: propositional and "discourse-pragmatic". 

"They did not understand me" is propositionally equivalent to "I was not understood". The difference is "discourse pragmatic" (often simplified to "pragmatic"). This is what ampurdan was asking about. 


So apparently, the sentence ampurdan proposed may be acceptable to some native speakers, BUT not as he/she means it!! That would mean that the language change I have been persuaded has happened, has only happened halfway!!


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## Jessila

Why, this topic is getting more and more complex and interesting 
I sometimes get a bit confused about all the subtleties involved, but I'm loving all the teachings that lie within...

So, it seems after all - according to DaleC's interpretation at least - that timpeac and I had different opinions!!

For I understood ampurdan's first sentence "*I was not wanted to be understood*" to mean "They did not want me to be understood (by themselves *) which could also be said in a simpler way (if I'm not mistaken) as "They did not want to understand me" or maybe "They did not want to (make any effort to) understand me".

The only difference implied being that by avoiding to say "they", we do not know who is making the discrimination, and if the latter is made only for the one(s) doing it or for other people as well.

*we could say that "They did not want me to be understood by themselves_ and possibly nor by others either_" - even if I must say that I did not think of that possibility the first time I read the original sentence


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## DaleC

It seems that we don't find a successful criterion (to distinguish good examples from ungrammatical ones) in whether the two verbs "have different subjects" or the same subject. In some previous examples, the subjects are different. In other previous examples, they could be the same, although more likely they would be different or -- mysterious as it sounds -- halfway between same and different (which I won't elaborate on). Thus the well established 
- "the decision is expected to be announced at 11:00 tomorrow morning" or this one 
- "the delegate's microphone was deliberately broken because he was not wanted to be heard". (from _timpeac_, post #13) 

The thread title's grammatical construction is unclear, while the expected paraphrases are clear. Those paraphrases get rid of one of the two verbs by nominalization, changing the vocabulary, or other tactics. As Panjandrum noted, in reality we'd say 

"I was deliberately misunderstood" instead of "I was not wanted to be understood". This version also does allow you to start the sentence with a deeply buried object of a verb -- and *that *is the seed of this whole controversy. Similarly, for the thread title: 

*- I* gave a great interview, but they still did not want to hire *me*. 
--> 
- . . . but *I *still was not wanted to be hired. (almost certainly the implicit subjects of the two verbs refer to the same real world entity) 
We would expect rather, 
- . . . but *I* still was not wanted for the job. (Admittedly, if they had come to not want you at their company at all, this wouldn't work.) 



But maybe there _are_ cases where you cannot find a way, using _normal _grammar, to paraphrase a complex sentence so as to start off with the object in the clause "farthest in" or "farthest down". I've come up with this example: 

The *fire *did not spread far, even though nobody tried immediately to put *it *out. 
--> The *fire *did not spread far, even though *it *was not immediately tried to be put out. 

Any takers for _that_ paraphrase?  

Can anyone think of an idiomatic paraphrase (what _they _think is idiomatic) that both promotes *it* (the fire) to subjecthood _and _retains both verbs _as verbs_? Instead, one would say, 
- ". . . even though there was no immediate attempt to put *it *out."
- ". . . even though *it* was not attended to immediately."


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## ampurdan

Jessila said:
			
		

> For I understood ampurdan's first sentence "*I was not wanted to be understood*" to mean "They did not want me to be understood (by themselves *)


 In that case, you understood what I meant; maybe because your "_On n’a pas voulu me comprendre_" in French has almost the same grammatical structure as my "_No se me quiso entender_" in Spanish. We both have ways not to specify the real agent without resorting to passive structures. The subject of “comprendre” is clearly that of “vouloir”, i.e. “on”, there is no doubt and there is no other possibility. 

But it seems we both were wrong. And the reasons of our being wrong can be found not only in what a native like Timpeac has said.

"I was not wanted to be understood", means literally in French: "_On n’a pas voulu que je sois compris(e)_". Maybe it's not a sentence frequently heard in French, but I think it makes sense (In Spanish a sentence like “_No se quiso que se me entendiera_” sounds awful, but is still correct). What would you think this sentence meant if you happened to hear it? I think you won’t interpret it as “_Quelqu’un/Quelques-uns n’a/n’ont pas voulu que je sois compris(e) de lui/d’eux_” (Saying “_Quelqu’un n’a pas voulu que je sois compris(e) de *soi-même_" would be ungrammatical), in English: “They didn’t want me to be understood by them” (I think “themselves” is ungrammatical: when transforming the infinitive into a personal tense I notice that it’s not possible to say “I was understood by *themselves”). 

Easier into active: I don’t think you would interpret it as “_On n’a pas voulu qu’on me comprend_” (_c’est-à-dire_ : “_On n'a pas voulu me comprendre_”), in English, you would not interpet it as “They didn’t want themselves to understand me” (here “themselves” is not ungrammatical).

I think you would interpret that “they didn’t want other people to understand me”, so do the native English-speakers when they hear the same sentence in English (“I was not wanted to be understood”), even though the real agent of “understand” is not specified and grammar allows that it should be the same of “want”. So there must be a reason that makes us all, speakers of these three languages, interpret strange sentences like “I was not wanted to be understood” the way in which we agree to do.

“Those people didn’t want to understand me” allways means that those people didn’t want themselves to understand me. 
“They didn’t want me to be understood” tends to be interpreted as “they didn’t want other people to understand me”. Think in the sentence Timpeac has used and suppress "the press": “the poor people were bussed out of the area because they were not wanted to be seen”. I would think that the people who want it and the people who could see them must be different anyway. 




			
				DaleC said:
			
		

> Sentence (1) is supposed to mean (for ampurdan) -- and it could mean, if the *syntax *was legitimate! -- that the world's press itself doesn't want to see the poor people.


 Well DaleC, I think the syntax is legitimate, but the meaning intended by me is not the one a native would understand… not only a native, but anyone who analyzed grammatically the sentence and thought about which is or could be the use of it, especially when compared to the use of other grammatical sentences (paraphrases) which may or may not mean the same, depending on the circumstances. 

I understand the distinction you’ve made between “propositionally” and “discourse-pragmatics”, and I assume it. I propostionally meant something by one sentence. Discourse-pragmatics (the recipients of my encoded message, i.e. English-speakers, in the context we share) interpret it another way. I was not asking for this interpretation, although it's extremely interesting for me to know, but for the way to say what I propositionally meant without the possibility that it be differently understood ("I was wilfully misunderstood" sounds great to me).

I don’t see the point in pointing to me to account for any change in English language, since I am not a proficient user of it, but someone who failed translating a structure from his native language into English, even though my failure was not in grammar, but in discourse-pragmatics.


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## mje1001

I wonder if there is a problem of correlating grammer and semantics here. It seems that the sentence sounds difficult upon first hearing but that it has a clear eventual meaning although it is slightly difficult to find. I was not wanted to be understood suffers from a passive construction followed by an infinative (in which a subject is usually omitted often with the effect of adding authority) from which we can suppose that at least a single person did not want any of the people in a hypothetical room to understand the 'I'. This seems like not an act of stubbornness but a slightly malicious act (to hope that other people could not find meaning in something said) and is not something we suppose might happen. There are of course sentences found in linguistics course that do not pin down meaning which sound better on the ear - 'Mary hit the student with the book' in which we probably don't know if the book was used as a weapon or to specify which student Mary hit and the famous 'colourless green ideas sleep furiously' which again obey the rules of grammer but lie outside of our normal subject/ possible actions for that subject/ possible modes of actions for that action subject pair scope. Certainly if I heard the sentence spoken I would reject it and ask for clarification of who did not want you to be understood. Whereas if I heard the Mary sentence I would accept it and ask for clarification as well. Study of creoles and pidgens seems to suggest innate grammar for new generations and my 'gut reaction' is that the sentence is not valid English despite a clear semantic interpretation. I can confidently interpret I runned down the road and reject at least its morphology if not construction.


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## DaleC

Compare these two sentences, which at least one native speaker interprets as describing the same event. 
 (1) _They did not want me to be understood_; and 
(2) _I was not wanted to be understood _(this is the thread title, and its grammatical construction is novel and controversial). 

In my opinion, when interpreted _naturally_ (what is natural for native speakers, and when (2) can even be interpreted -- I couldn't do so until after I was told the intended interpretation) these two are _propositionally nonequivalent_, which means they describe different events. Here is how. The natural interpretation of sentence (1) entails "not ... by others". "Not ... by themselves" is also possible, but whenever that is the correct interpretation, then the sentence is in fact a trick being played on the audience. In contrast, the natural interpretation of (2) is "not ... by themselves". 

 With that, I make four points. 

 1. Vacillating again , I realize that I overestimated the degree of acceptance of the proposed construction (of which the thread title is an example) based on unconditional acceptance by just one or two persons. 

2. _If _the novel construction (which probably never existed in previous generations, which many speakers -- me included -- still see as violently ungrammatical, and which is convoluted) is indeed destined to add itself to the language -- i.e., if we _are _going to be put to that much trouble -- then it would be pitifully pointless -- silly -- for the novel construction to have the same (propositional) interpretation as one already existing. Maybe that will happen anyway (because languages do not evolve inevitably with the maximum of logical elegance).  

3. In Ampurdan's latest response (post #41), the thread title has been translated into French with two interpretations that are *not *propositionally equivalent, and the same has been done into Spanish. 



> "_On n’a pas voulu me comprendre_" in French has almost the same grammatical structure as my "_No se me quiso entender_" in Spanish. . . . The subject of “comprendre” is clearly that of “veut” vouloir, i.e. “on”, there is no doubt and there is no other possibility. Just as I interpret the thread title.
> 
> "I was not wanted to be understood", means literally in French: "_On n’a pas voulu que je sois compris(e)_". Maybe it's not a sentence frequently heard in French, but I think it makes sense (In Spanish a sentence like “_No se quiso que se me entendiera_” sounds awful, but is still correct).


Knowing Spanish and a little French, I am fascinated to now see how Ampurdan came up with the thread title. But I think these are mistranslations of the English. The French equivalent of 

_I was not wanted to be understood _
 would have to be, not _On n’a pas voulu me comprendre,_ 
 but rather "_Moi, on n’a pas voulu me comprendre. 
_These are equivalent propositionally but not discourse-pragmatically. 

As for Spanish, I think the thread title sentence 
translates not as _No se me quiso entender, 
_but rather _A mí __no se me quiso entender. 
_
4. The original example itself is material poorly suited to conducting an investigation into syntax because extraneous variables have not been controlled for. Namely, the word "understand" does *not *naturally have the same *interpretation *in all these sentences. It has only one interpretation, the "sincere" one (the literally true one), in sentence (1), but in sentence (2) (the thread title), it is in fact ambiguous. It would naturally be interpreted as a metaphor or a sarcasm, because in the real world it's unlikely that people literally _refuse to understand. _They are instead refusing to accept or refusing to acknowledge. The very scenario Ampurdan poses is one where the audience has grown hostile precisely because they understand and they don't like what they've just heard! It _is _possible that people could literally _refuse to understand_, but this is farfetched. 

P.S. When, in an old post, I said "ampurdan want this to mean X" and "ampurdan wants that to mean Y", I was only using "want" rhetorically. I think ampurdan is just trying to find out the facts.


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## ampurdan

DaleC said:
			
		

> Knowing Spanish and a little French, I am fascinated to now see how Ampurdan came up with the thread title. But I think these are mistranslations of the English.


 
Those are not translations of the English title of the thread, but the kind of sentence I was trying to translate into English. I don't think that



			
				DaleC said:
			
		

> _I was not wanted to be understood _
> would have to be, not _On n’a pas voulu me comprendre,_
> but rather "_Moi, on n’a pas voulu me comprendre._




So far, I think the only way to say "_On n'a pas voulu me comprendre" in English is "I was willfully misundertsood_", unless you native English-speakers disagree and provide another sentence.

I've said "I was not wanted to be understood" is translated into "_On n'a pas voulu que je sois compris(e)_", because in this sentence the grammatical ambiguity about who should understand/comprendre is kept.
 



			
				DaleC said:
			
		

> The original example itself is material poorly suited to conducting an investigation into syntax because extraneous variables have not been controlled for. Namely, the word "understand" does *not *naturally have the same *interpretation *in all these sentences.


 
They don't want me to be understood (by others/by them): you would naturally interpret by others because by them is indeed kind of sarcastical and is not the _natural_ interpretation of "to understand".
I was not wanted to be understood (by others/by them): the structure of "to be understood" does not change, nor should the interpretation do? I think it's the same, unless you don't specify who does not want and how many they are. 

I didn't know that putting "I" in first place does emphasize it as "Moi, on n'a pas..." or "A mí no se me quiso...", I just wanted to avoid "they wanted me..." or any other subject which specifies number and people. I wanted an impersonal construction.


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