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Negation and related phenomena
Negation is marked by individual words (such as
not, no, never) or by affixes within a word (such
as n’t, un, non). Very often there is an effect on
the whole clause.
POSITIVE CLAUSE
He has signed the
agreement.
NEGATIVE CLAUSE
He hasn’t signed the
agreement.
•Syntactically,
polarity.
positive
is
the
default
•All canonical clauses are positive.
•Positive and negative clauses differ in the
way they combine with other expressions
in the structure of larger units.
There are 3 major differences between positive
and negative clauses
1.Addition of not even
I. POSITIVE
CLAUSE
II. NEGATIVE
CLAUSE
I have read your book, not
even the introduction.
I haven’t read your book, not
even the introduction.
The addition of not is not obligatory (I
haven’t read your book, even the
introduction) but the crucial point is that it
can occur in the negative clause (ii) but is
impossible in the positive.
2. The connective adjuncts so and neither or nor
i. POSITIVE CLAUSE
I have read your book, and so
have my students.
ii. NEGATIVE CLAUSE I haven’t read your book, and
neither have my students.
Switching the connectives is ungrammatical.
3. Confirmatory tags
POSITIVE CLAUSE+NEGATIVE TAG
They have read my book, haven’t they?
NEGATIVE CLAUSE+POSITIVE TAG
They haven’t read my book, have they?
• Reversed polarity
So they have read my book, have they? Amazing!
•Constant Polarity
These tags don’t ask for confirmation, but suggest
an attitude such as surprise, disbelief, disapproval
or the like
•Negative constant polarity tags are usually not
accepted as Standard English
So they haven’t read my book, haven’t they.
Subclausal Negation
We have seen that the effect of a negative
element is to make the clause containing it
negative. Negative elements don’t always
have this effect however. In the cases
where they don’t, the negation is
subclausal.
Affixal negation
The most obvious case where elements don’t
make a clause negative is where the negative
element is an affix other than n’t that appears
on auxiliary verbs. Take negative prefixes as in
dislike, inattentive, non-negotiable, or
unwilling, or suffixes such as less in homeless.
SUBCLAUSAL NEGATION
CLAUSAL NEGATION
He wasn’t unkind, not
even to me.
He wasn’t unkind, not
even to me.
He was unkind, and so was He wasn’t kind, and
Sue.
neither was Sue.
He was unkind, wasn’t he? He wasn’t kind, was he?
There is a semantic difference between He was unkind
and He wasn’t unkind.
If He wasn’t kind is false, then He was kind is true.
If He was unkind is false, then He was kind could be
true or neutral (neither kind or unkind).
Clausal Negation
There are two types of clausal negation: verbal
and non verbal.
Verbal Negation
Non Verbal Negation
She didn’t tell me
anything.
She does not live here
any more.
She told me nothing.
She no longer lives here.
Verbal negation
The grammatical distinction between verbal and
non verbal negation is that verbal negation
requires the insertion of dummy auxiliary do
under certain conditions, whereas non verbal
negation never does.
Conditions for the insertion of dummy
do with verbal negation
(a) In clauses with a primary verb form
Positive
Negative
She is lenient with them. She isn’t lenient with them.
She rejected his offer.
She didn’t reject his offer.
(b) In imperative clauses
Imperative clauses with verbal negation always
require do:
Be lenient with them.
Reject his offer.
Don’t be lenient with them.
Don’t reject his offer.
Non verbal clausal negation
Non verbal clausal negation is marked by either
not added to a constituent other than a verb
or by other words such as nothing, never, few.
Admissible
Not everybody agrees
with you
Not all of her friends
supported her.
Not even Tom liked it.
Inadmissible
Not somebody agrees
with you
Not each of her friends
supported her
Not Tom liked it.
Other markers of non-verbal negation
There are two groups: absolute negators and
approximate negators
(a)Absolute negators
i. no, none, nobody, no one, nothing, nowhere
ii. neither, nor, never
Nobody objected to her plan.
We found no mistakes.
Neither Kim nor Pat has arrived.
He never apologizes.
Non-Verbal Negation
Equivalent Verbal Negation
We found no mistakes. We didn’t find any mistakes.
There is no one here.
There isn’t anyone here.
He never apologizes.
He doesn’t ever apologize.
Approximate negators
Few, little, rarely, seldom, barely, hardly, scarcely
Few of them realised it
was a hoax, did they?
She hardly spoke a word,
did she?
He rarely goes to church
nowadays, does he?
There’s scarcely any food
left, is there?
Few of them approximates to none of them
Rarely approximates to never
Hardly spoke approximates to didn’t speak
Scarcely any food approximates to no food
Non affirmative items
A fair number of words or expressions are
polarity sensitive in the sense that they occur
readily in clauses of one polarity but not of
the other.
Positive
Negative
I have some objections to I don’t have some
make.
objections to make.
Some (usually) has positive orientation.
Positive
*I have any objections to
make.
Negative
I don’t have any
objections to make.
*positive and declarative
Any has negative orientation: it occurs freely in
negatives.
Have you any objections?
Who has any objections to
make?
Any is admitted in interrogative
Scope of Negation