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彼は彼女がオオカミではないかと疑った。
He suspected that she was a wolf. (given translation)

I have read this related post but I still struggle to understand when 疑う means 'doubt' and when it means 'suspect'. My feeling is that I should interpret it as 'doubt' unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise. Would that be fair? Can the compelling reasons be easily listed?

In this example sentence we seem to be doubting a negative statement; literally "I doubt that she is not a wolf". This would be a truly bizarre thing to say in English unless someone beforehand had said something like "That woman claims that she is not a wolf". Whereas, saying "I suspect she is a wolf" would not require any previous context in order to sound natural.

Is the above Japanese sentence natural without prior context? If Xと疑う means "I doubt X" then is (negated X)と疑う the natural way to express "I suspect X". If not, what would be a natural way?

user3856370
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    I suspect your doubt has more to do with ないか than 疑う. What do you think 彼は彼女がオオカミではないかと**思った** means? This is related: [ではないか Grammar translation](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/17947/43676) See also this: [嘘をついているのではないかと疑った。](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/57891/43676) – aguijonazo Jan 17 '22 at 21:22
  • @aguijonazo Ah, you're right. I'd completely failed to see the か particle in there. So that makes my second and third paragraphs redundant. I wonder if it's worth leaving the post up for the first paragraph. – user3856370 Jan 17 '22 at 21:29
  • Tried to close this as a 'misreading' rather than delete it since having the comment related to the question seemed vaguely useful. It seems I can't close it unilaterally though. – user3856370 Jan 17 '22 at 21:45
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    @user3856370 手伝いましょうか – Eddie Kal Jan 17 '22 at 21:49
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    The sentence has no typo and the question itself looks valid to me. I think it's better to resolve this as a duplicate. 疑う always means "to suspect" or "to think/see with a dubious feeling". – naruto Jan 18 '22 at 00:30
  • @naruto The 'typo' close option also has 'misreading' as a reason. For some reason I didn't see the か when I read it, so it seemed like an appropriate option. Anyway, thanks for your answer. Even though you've deleted it, it is helpful. – user3856370 Jan 18 '22 at 19:12

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