Níhowhether
Níhowwhether is a term used in theoretical linguistics and literary studies to describe a construction that combines negation with a conditional inquiry in a single clause, yielding a stance of provisional doubt about a future outcome. The construction is argued to convey epistemic ambivalence more directly than standard negation or conditional clauses alone.
Syntactically, níhowwhether is described as a marker or particle that attaches to a clause introducing a conditional
In usage, níhowwhether appears in experimental literature and hypothetical thought experiments, as well as in discourse
Example: níhowwhether the plan will succeed, the team prepared contingency measures for both outcomes. The construction
Origin and reception are debated in speculative linguistics; the term is a modern coinage that has not
See also: hedging, epistemic modality, paradox, discourse analysis.