Negation (grammar)

The negation is a linguistic element used to deny a sentence element or an entire sentence by means of a lexicalized seme, a word, normally an adverb, or a locution. The fact of denying implies the expression of the non-existence of something or the non-performance of an action. From the syntactic point of view, modern generative grammar analyzes sentence negation through the presence of a negation phrase whose nucleus must be a particle of negative polarity. In languages such as Spanish and the Romance languages there is a concordance of polarity, unlike the Germanic languages where double negative is usually not possible.

Semantic expression of negation

Negation in Spanish is usually produced by putting the negative adverb no (I'm not hungry) before the verb.

Also through other adverbs, for example:

(1) Never: I never said..

(2) Nothing: Nothing brought..

Through verbs that imply it, such as.

(3) Negar: I deny I did..

(4) Refuse: He refused to..

Locutions:

(5) In my life: In my life I'll go (equivalent to the adverb never.)

Note the previous expressions whose semantic interpretation is the negation of a simpler sentence and that is why they are forms of semantic negation. However, structurally they are very different; specifically (3) and (4) are syntactically declarative affirmative sentences, and the interpretation as negation is lexicalized in the verb. Next, the difference between semantic negation (according to the meaning) and syntactic negation (according to the internal structure) is examined.

Negative questions

Interrogative sentences can often be equivalent to an affirmative imperative phrase and are a pragmatically neutralized alternative to a direct command:

(6th) Why don't you get out now? (chuckles) Get out!)

(6b) Why are you closing the door? (chuckles) Better, don't close the door.)

Syntactic expression of negation

Syntactic analysis of prayer "John never told me anything."with the negation core occupied byNo.".

Syntactic analysis of prayer "John never told me anything."with the negation core occupied byNever."Don't mention the prayers."*John never told me anything"or"*John never told me anything", they can't be right because "Never."and..."No."They should simultaneously occupy the position of the negation core, which is not possible.

Within traditional grammar, negation is treated as a simple adverbial modifier. However, the morphosyntactic behavior of negation is more complex than that of conventional adverbs. For example, in Spanish, no is incompatible with some forms of the verb such as the imperative mood:

(7a) Shut up, please!

(7b) ♪ Don't shut up, please! (chuckles) Don't shut up, please!)

The behavior of (7b) parallels the behavior of the complementor that in (8):

(8) ♪ Shut up! (chuckles) Shut up!)

Which suggests that syntactically the negation occupies a position outside the verb phrase. Other facts show more parallels between interrogative, negative, and imperative sentences:

• Negative questions are sentences that are formally interrogative and contain a denial and which semantically amount to prayers in imperative.
• On the other hand some indefinite in some languages seem to require the same form in question as in negative sentences. For example in English:

(9th) I have seen something

(9b) I have not seen anything

(9c) Have you seen anything?

Or in Catalan:

(10th) What et passa res? ('Is something wrong?')

(10b) No e passa res! ('It's okay with me')

Some authors have proposed the existence of a negation phrase whose syntactic nucleus must be occupied by a negative element. Some peculiarities such as some double negatives in Spanish can be explained by conjecturing the existence of this type of phrase:

(11a) No. I've seen him. Never.

(11b) Never. I've seen him.

(11c) ♪Never. I haven't seen him.

(11d) ♪ I've seen it ♪ Never.

Sentence (11c) is incorrect, since in the preverbal position a negative element can only appear in the negation head position. Although never can appear in several positions, if the preverbal position is occupied by no, the attachment of any other negative element is not allowed; for that reason (11c) is not well formed. This suggests that the never of (11a) has a different nature than that of (11b) and could be in the same position as adverbs, although as shown by the fact that (11d) is incorrect, the adverbial position only admits an element of negative polarity, if the negation head is present, so it is possible that there is some form of agreement between the head of the negation phrase and other negative polarity elements of the sentence.

Linguistic universals of negation

The expression of negation in the languages of the world is very varied, since it can include simple logical negation marks (not), such as words of negative polarity and additional semantic content ( none, nobody, nothing, never), and the negation can be done through independent morphemes or through affixes or clitics. One of the best studied issues is logical negation by syntactic means, taking into account the order. Among the languages of the world, there are six possibilities for the relative order of the subject, object and verb, the most frequent being in order: SOV, SVO, VSO and VOS (OVS and OSV also exist but are very rare in the languages of the world). world), and there will be 24 possible orders for the position of negation in a transitive sentence with only subject, object, verb and negative element. When the best available data are examined, it is observed that the position of the negation is not entirely arbitrary and is strongly correlated with the position of the other constituents, only 5 of the 24 possible types being common, which are collected in the following table:

Frequency of possible types of relative syntactic order of S, O, V and Neg

	SOV	SVO	VSO	VOS
Neg in 1.a position	weird. (NegSOV)	weird. (Neg-SVO)	common (Neg-VSO)	common (Neg-VOS)
Neg in 2.a position	weird. (S-Neg-OV)	common (S-Neg-VO)	Dudosa (V-Neg-SO)	NE (V-Neg-OS)
Neg in 3.a position	common (SO-Neg-V)	weird. (SV-Neg-O)	NE (VS-Neg-O)	NE (VO-Neg-S)
Neg in 4.a position	common (SOV-Neg)	weird. (SVO-Neg)	NE (VSO-Neg)	NE (VOS-Neg)

NEnot found; DudosaOnly a doubtful case has been found.

Frequency order: common ▪ weird. ▪ Dudosa ▪ NE.

Double Negation

Unlike other languages, such as English, the double negative in Spanish is not an affirmation but continues to be a negation.

(12) No. There. Nobody. home.

Given the important communicative function of negation, it is very common for many languages of the world to resort to double negation as a way of marking redundantly. Technically the double negative is in fact a phenomenon of agreement of negative polarity. Simple negation runs the risk that if the negative element goes unnoticed by the listener, misinterpretation problems appear; double negation or redundant negation is a strategy that reduces this problem.

M. S. Dryer, on a sample of 345 languages, shows that 20 regularly use the double negative; that redundancy rate is not common in other parts of speech. An example of regular use of the double negative is written French:

(13) Jean ne Voit pas Marie.

Juan NEG See...PRES.3SG NEG Mary

John doesn't see Mary.

Latin also presents complications when several elements of negative polarity interact: