none

3. Nordquist (2019), cited that in English
Grammar, negation is a grammatical construction
that contradicts (or negates) all or part of the
meaning of a sentence. Also known as a negative
construction or standard negation.
In standard English
negative clauses and sentences commonly include
the negative particle not or the contracted
negative n't. Other negative words include no, none,
nothing, nobody, nowhere, and never.

4. In many cases, a negative word can be formed
by adding the prefix un- to the positive form of
a word (as in unhappy and undecided). Other
negative affixes (called negators) include a-, de-,
dis-, in-, -less, and mis-.

5. “All human systems of communication contain
a representation of negation. No animal
communication system includes negative
utterances, and consequently none possesses a
means for assigning truth value, for lying, for
irony, or for coping with false o r contradictory
statements

6. For example, verbs such as deny and refuse
that take non-interrogative clausal complements
and license negative polarity items (NPI,
elements that require a negative, or interrogative,
context, such as at all, ever, and anything) 5,
involve negation of alternatives. The same holds
for prepositions such as without.
a. He denied that he had done it.
Î He claimed that he had not done it.
b. He refused to do it.
Î He did not do it.
c. You must live without killing.
Î Thou shalt not kill.

7. Counter-factives, as in a, and irrealis modality
predicates, as in b, also presuppose negation:
a. He pretends that he is a linguist.
Î He is not a linguist.
b. I wish I was rich.
Î am not rich

8. The conditional complementizer if presupposes
that the condition may or may not be true:
If that is true then we are in trouble.
Î It may or may not be true.
Another example is the simple fact that
something can be wrong, i.e. not right:
Stealing is wrong.
Î Stealing is not right.
***Further examples include
children playing pretend, irony and
sarcasm, lies and deceit, etc.

9. This artificial language does not have a
negation marker and thus deviate from the principles
of universal grammar UG. Instead, negation is
expressed with word order: In negative clauses the
verb precedes the subject, and past tense is realized
by fronting the object:
a. Positive (Present and Future): Subj Verb Obj
b. Positive (Past): Obj Subj Verb
c. Negative (Present and Future): Verb Subj Obj
d. Negative (Past): Obj Verb Subj

10. Types of Negation
This is a very brief introduction to
negation. The point is to establish sentential
negation which will be one of the main topics of
this dissertation. For a comprehensive analysis
of negation, see e.g. Horn (2001) and Haegeman
(1995).

11. These three types of negation have
different structural positions in the syntactic tree,
but sentential negation is part of the clausal
spine; meta-negation is outside or above it, while
constituent negation can be anywhere else, for
example below it on a DP object (see e.g.
Zanuttini 1997 and Cormack & Smith 2002 for
analyses with multiple NegPs.) The scope of the
negative operators is their c-command domain:

13. The scope of negation can be tested with, for
example, an opposite truth value test, positive and negative
tags, and negative polarity items.
A negative sentence has the opposite truth value of
the corresponding sentence without negation: If X is true,
then the negation of X (¬X) is necessarily false; and if X is
false, then ¬X is necessarily true. For example, if (39)a is
true, the (39)b is necessarily false, and vice versa
a. I will not get it right. (Negative: ¬X)
b. I will get it right. (Positive: X)
Opposite truth values is a necessary but not a
sufficient condition on sentential negation.
Clauses with opposite truth values need not
be a clause (X) and its negated counterpart
(¬X).

14. For example, if (a) is true, then (b) must be
false, and vice versa, but the cannot possibly be
described as a clause and it negated counterpart.
This becomes even more clear when (c) is taken into
consideration. Only one of the three can be true at a
time, but neither (b) or (c) means the same as (d)
which is the real negative counterpart of (a).
Furthermore, if (a) is false and (d) is true, it does not
necessarily follow that either (b) or c are true; a, b,
and c may all be false at the same time.

15. a. Gunnar is in Oslo.
b. Gunnar is in Baghdad.
c. Gunnar is in Sweden.
d. Gunnar is not in Oslo

16. Negative sentences take positive tag-questions,
such as will I? or negative elliptic conjuncts, such
as and neither will you, as in (a) and (a),
respectively, while such tags are incompatible
with positive polarity, as in (b) and (b):
a. I will not get it right, will I? (Negative)
b. *I will get it right, will I? (Positive)
a. I will not get it right, and
neither will you. (Negative)
b. *I will get it right, and
neither will you. (Positive)

17. Likewise, positive sentences take negative tag-
questions, such as won’t I? or positive elliptic
conjuncts, such as and so will you, while such
tags are incompatible with negative polarity:
a. *I will not get it right, won’t I? (Negative)
b. I will get it right, won’t I? (Positive)
a. *I will not get it right, and so will
you. (Negative)
b. I will get it right, and so
will you. (Positive)

18. Furthermore, negative sentences take negative
polarity items (NPIs):
a. I will not get it right at all. (Negative)
b. *I will get it right at all. (Positive)

19. Constituent negation has narrow scope
compared to the wide scope of sentential negation;
it scopes over e.g. an NP, an AdvP, a small clause
or a VP:a. With [not [NP too many errors]], this should
work. (NP)
b. [Not [AdvP long ago]], Arnold spoke
German. (AdvP)
c. [Not [SC making it in time]] is really
irritating. (Small clause)
d. I shall [not [VP author a book]], but
write an essay (VP)

20. Constituent negation fails in all the tests
that sentential negation passed, and passes the
ones sentential negation failed.
A clause with constituent negation does
not have the opposite truth value of the
corresponding clause without negation: (a) is
not incompatible with (b) and they can both be
true at the same time. The true negative
counterpart of (a) is (c).

21. a. Not long ago, Arnold spoke
German. (Constituent negation)
b. Long ago, Arnold spoke German. (Positive)
c. Not long ago, Arnold didn’t speak
German. (Sentential negation)

22. Constituent negation does not license
negative tags, neither positive tag-questions,
as in (a), nor negative tag-clauses, as in (b).
This means that the negative operator clearly
does not scope over the clause.
a. *Not long ago, Arnold spoke German, did
he?
b. *Not long ago, Arnold spoke German,
and neither did I.

23. In contrast, constituent negation is
compatible with positive tags, both negative
tag questions, as in (a), and positive tag-
clauses, as in (b). Again, this is a strong
indication that the clause as such is not
negative.
a. Not long ago, Arnold spoke German, didn’t
he?
b. Not long ago, Arnold spoke German, and so
did I.

24. Finally, unlike negation with sentential scope,
constituent negation does not license NPIs:
a. *Not long ago, Arnold spoke German at all.
b. *Not long ago, Arnold spoke German in
any way.

25. As stated above, meta-negation has a
wider scope than the wide scope of sentential
negation. Meta-negation is not the same as
sentential negation. It selects a CP (which can
be either declarative, as in (a) and (a), or
interrogative, as in (b) and (b) or a PP, (c) and
(c), not a TP or even a FinP, as in (d) and (d)
En: a. [Not [CP that it would do
any good]]
b. [Not [CP if I can help it]]
c. [Not [PP in this life]]
d. *[Not [FinP John left]]

26. Da: a. [Ikke [CP at det ikke nytter noget]] Not
that it not is.of.use any “Not that it doesn’t help.”
b. [Ikke [CP om jeg gider at høre mere om
det]] Not if I bother to hear more about it “I
simply don’t want to hear more about it”
c. [Ikke [PP på vilkår]] Not on conditions
“Under no circumstances!”
d. *[Ikke [FinP Peter gik]] Not Peter left

27. Note that it selects a subordinate clause.
This is particularly clear in the Danish examples
because the embedded word order is different
from the one in main clauses. Finite verbs move
to Cº (second position) in main clauses but
remain in situ in embedded clauses and thus
follow sentential adverbials and negation. Meta-
negation cannot be fronted/topicalized
sentential negation because
I. topicalization only takes place in
(matrix and embedded) main clauses,
and
II. topicalization of negation is
otherwise impossible in Danish and
English.

28. a. En: *Not have I done that.
b. Da: *Ikke har jeg gjort det.

29. Interestingly though, meta-negation
passes the tests for sentential negation and
fails the tests for positive polarity:
En: [Not [CP that I trust them]]
a. •I trust them (Opposite truth value)
b. … would I? (Positive interrogative tag)
c. … *wouldn’t I? (Negative interrogative
tag)
d. … but neither do you. (Negative
declarative tag)
e. … *but so do you. (Positive declarative
tag)
f. … in any way at all. (Licenses NPI)

30. Further evidence for the special status of
meta-negation is the fact that it cannot be a
complement clause, cf. (a); it can only be a
parenthetical adjunct as in ( b).
En: a. *He believed [not that he could trust
them] (Meta-neg)
b. He believed that he could not trust them
(Sentential neg.)

31. Negation is the process of changing a positive
sentence into its negative.
This is formed through adding word “not” after
the first auxiliary verb in the sentence. As a
review, the auxiliary verbs in English are:
Do Have am shall
Does Has is must
Did had are might
was Can
were will
wound

32. Negation can be applied to all verb tenses that
we have.
Remember, when we do not have an auxiliary
verb in the sentence, we add the auxiliary verbs
do, does or did.
Tense Positive Negative
Present Simple I play tennis I do not (don’t) play
tennis
Past Simple I played tennis I did not (didn’t)
play tennis
Future Simple I will play tennis I will not (won’t)
play tennis
I am going to play
tennis
I am not going to
play tennis

33. Present Progressive I am playing tennis I am not playing
tennis
Past Progressive I was playing tennis I was not (wasn’t)
playing tennis
I will be playing
tennis
I will not (won’t) be
playing tennis
Future Progressive I am going to be
playing tennis
I am not going to be
playing tennis
Present Perfect I have played tennis I have not (haven’t)
played tennis
Past Perfect I had played tennis I had not (hadn’t)
played tennis

34. Future Perfect I will have played
tennis
I will not (won’t)
have played tennis
Present Perfect
Progressive
I have been playing
tennis
I have not (haven’t)
been playing tennis
Past Perfect
Progressive
I had been playing
tennis
I had not (hadn’t)
been playing tennis
Future Perfect
Progressive
I will have been
playing tennis
I will not (won’t)
have been playing
tennis

35. Affirmative Negative
You must study your lessons You must not (mustn’t) study
your lessons
I had been to Canada I had not (hadn’t) been to
Canada
She will be visiting an old
friend
She will not (won’t) be visiting
an old friend
We can attend practice
tomorrow
We cannot (can’t) attend
practice tomorrow.
She has a beautiful garden She does not (doesn’t) have a
beautiful garden
They were having breakfast They were not (weren’t)
having breakfast
Exercise 1: Change the given affirmative sentences into
negative ones.

36. Christensen (2005). Interfaces Negation – Syntax – Brain.
The Department of English, University of Aarhus The MR Research Centre,
Aarhus University Hospital Ph.D. dissertation
http://services.cambridge.org/us/academic/su
bjects/languages-linguistics/grammar-and-
syntax/syntax-negation?format=AR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNNqkZ1J
zkE