Meaning of negation Simple grammatical negation of a clause, in principle, has the effect of converting a proposition to its
logical negation. This is done by replacing an assertion that something is the case with an assertion that it is not the case. In some cases, however, particularly when a particular
modality is expressed, the
semantic effect of negation may be somewhat different. For example, in English, the meaning of "you must not go" is not the exact negation of "you must go". The exact negation of this phrase would be expressed as "you don't have to go" or "you needn't go". The negation "must not" has a stronger meaning (the effect is to apply the logical negation to the following infinitive rather than applying it to the full clause with
must). For more details and other similar cases, see the relevant sections of
English modal verbs. Negation flips
downward entailing and upward entailing statements within the scope of the negation. For example, changing "one could have seen anything" to "no one could have seen anything" changes the meaning of the last word from "anything" to "nothing". In some cases, by way of
irony, an affirmative statement may be intended to have the meaning of the corresponding negative, or vice versa. For examples see
antiphrasis and
sarcasm. For the use of double negations or similar as understatements ("not unappealing", "not bad", etc.) see
litotes.
Grammatical rules for negation Simple negation of verbs and clauses Languages have a variety of grammatical rules for converting affirmative verb phrases or clauses into negative ones. In many languages, an affirmative is made negative by the addition of a
particle, meaning "not". This may be added before the verb phrase, as with the
Spanish : :(5) ::a. (affirmative) :: "(S)he is at home" ::b. (negative) :: "(S)he is not at home" Other examples of negating particles preceding the verb phrase include
Italian ,
Russian and
Polish ; they can also be found in
constructed languages: in
Esperanto and in
Interlingua. In some other languages the negating particle follows the verb or verb phrase, as in
Dutch: :(6) ::a. (affirmative) :: "I see him" ::b. (negative) :: "I do not see him" :: Particles following the verb in this way include
not in archaic and dialectal English ("you remember not"), in
German (, "I am not sleeping"), and in
Swedish (, "he did not jump"). In
French, particles are added both before () and after the verb phrase (): :(7) ::a. (affirmative) :: "I know" ::b. (negative) :: "I don't know" However, in colloquial French the first particle is often omitted: . Similar use of two negating particles can also be found in
Afrikaans: ("He cannot speak Afrikaans"). In English, negation is achieved by adding
not after the verb. As a practical matter,
Modern English typically uses a copula verb (a form of
be) or an
auxiliary verb with
not. If no other auxiliary verb is present, then
dummy auxiliary do (
does,
did) is normally introduced – see
do-support. For example, :(8) ::a. I have gone (affirmative) ::b. I have not gone (negative;
have is the auxiliary) :(9) ::a. He goes (affirmative) ::b. #He goes
not (negative) but that wording is considered archaic and is rarely used. It is much more common to use the dummy auxiliary to render ::c. He
does not go (since there is no auxiliary in the original sentence). Different rules apply in
subjunctive,
imperative and
non-finite clauses. For more details see . (In
Middle English, the particle
not could follow any verb, e.g. "I see not the horse.") In some languages, like
Welsh, verbs have special inflections to be used in negative clauses. (In some language families, this may lead to reference to a negative
mood.) An example is Japanese, which conjugates verbs in the negative after adding the suffix - - (indicating negation); e.g., ("eat") and ("do not eat"). It could be argued that English has joined the ranks of these languages, since negation requires the use of an auxiliary verb and a distinct
syntax in most cases; the form of the basic verb can change on negation, as in "he
sings" vs. "he doesn't
sing".
Zwicky and
Pullum have shown that ''n't'' is an
inflectional suffix, not a
clitic or a derivational suffix. Complex rules for negation also apply in
Finnish; see . In some languages negation may also affect the dependents of the verb; for example in some
Slavic languages, such as
Polish, the
case of a
direct object often changes from
accusative to
genitive when the verb is negated.
Negation of other elements Negation can be applied not just to whole verb phrases, clauses or sentences, but also to specific elements (such as
adjectives and
noun phrases) within sentences. This contrast is usually labeled
sentential negation versus
constituent negation. Ways in which this constituent negation is realized depends on the grammar of the language in question. English generally places
not before the negated element, as in "I witnessed
not a debate, but a war." There are also negating affixes, such as the English
prefixes
non-,
un-,
in-, etc. Such elements are called
privatives.
Multiple negation There also exist elements which carry a specialized negative meaning, including pronouns such as
nobody,
none and
nothing,
determiners such as
no (as in "no apples"), and adverbs such as
never,
no longer and
nowhere. Although such elements themselves have negative force, in some languages a clause in which they appear is additionally marked for ordinary negation. For example, in
Russian, "I see nobody" is expressed as , literally "I nobody not see" – the ordinary negating particle ("not") is used in addition to the negative pronoun ("nobody"). Italian behaves in a similar way: ("nobody can see you"), although is also a possible clause with exactly the same meaning.
The negative in other languages Russian In Russian, all of the elements ("not", "never", "nobody", "nowhere") appear together in the sentence in their negative form.
Italian In Italian, a clause works much as in Russian, but
non does not have to be there, and can be there only before the verb if it precedes all other negative elements: . "Nobody ever brings you anything here", however, could be translated or .
French In French, where simple negation is performed using (see above), specialized negatives appear in combination with the first particle (), replacing the second (): :(10) ::a. ("I
never drink") ::b. ("I see
nobody") ::c. ("I have
never seen
anybody")
Ancient Greek In
Ancient Greek, a simple negative ( "not" or "not (modal)") following another simple or compound negative (e.g., "nobody") results in an affirmation, whereas a compound negative following a simple or compound negative strengthens the negation: • , "nobody was not suffering something", meaning "everybody was suffering" • , "let (not) nobody raise an uproar", meaning "let nobody raise an uproar"
Dagaare In Dagaare, negation is marked specifically by pre-verb particles, where only four, out of the nearly 24 pre-verb particles, are designated as negation markers. The four negation markers are , , , and . == Affirmative and negative responses ==