Point being that the more narrowly-defined search does not require Google or Amazon to infer any meaning beyond what the object of the search is actually defined as.

A shirt lacking stripes would never be described or labeled as a "shirt without stripes."

In the absence of that actual description, you are asking google to assume what you mean.

I would just never expect that to work very well.

It seems quite doable to handle "shirt without stripes" in the following way:

1) Gather all items labeled as "shirts" (among other labels) 2) Filter out any labels that includes "stripes"

A shirt doesn't have to be labeled "shirt without stripes" for this to work. A shirt labeled "shirt with stripes" or "striped shirt" would not match, and lots of other shirts (solid shirts, shirts with prints, whatever) would match just fine.