- Negation (linguistics)
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In rhetoric, where the role of the interpreter is taken into consideration as a non-negligible factor, negation bears a much wider range of functions and meanings than it does in logic, where the interpretation of signs for negation is constrained by axioms to a few standard options, typically just the classical definition and a few schemes of intuitionism. Recent studies explore the relationship between the representation of the world in the brain and negation, in particular sentential negation.
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Grammar
In grammar, negation is the process that turns an affirmative statement (I am Australian) into its opposite denial (I am not Australian). The linguist D. Biber refers to two types of negation, synthetic ('no', 'neither' or 'nor' negation) and analytic ('not' negation). For example, "He is neither here nor there" (synthetic) or "He is not here" (analytic). Nouns as well as verbs can be grammatically negated, by the use of a negative adjective (There is no chicken), a negative pronoun (Nobody is American here), or a negative adverb (I never was American).
In English, negation for most verbs other than be and have, or verb phrases in which be, have or do already occur, requires the recasting of the sentence using the dummy auxiliary verb do, which adds little to the meaning of the negative phrase, but serves as a place to attach the negative particles not, or its contracted form -n't, to:
- I have a chicken.
- I haven't a chicken. (Rare, but it is still possible to negate have without the auxiliary do.)
- I don't have a chicken. (The most common way in contemporary English.)
In Middle English, the particle not could be attached to any verb:
- I see not the chicken.
In Modern English, these forms fell out of use, and the use of an auxiliary verb such as do or be is obligatory in most cases:
- I do not see the chicken.
- I have not seen the chicken.
The verb do also follows this rule, and therefore requires a second instance of itself in order to be marked for negation:
- The chicken doesn't do tricks
- not
- **The chicken doesn't tricks.
In English, as in most other Germanic languages (and many non-Germanic languages), the use of double negatives as grammatical intensifiers was formerly in frequent use:
- We don't have no chickens here.
Usage prescriptivists consider this use of double negatives to be a solecism, and condemn it. It makes the rhetorical figure of litotes ambiguous. It remains common in colloquial English. In Ancient Greek, a simple negative (οὐ or μὴ) following another simple or compound negative (e.g., οὐδείς, no one) results in an affirmation, whereas a compound negative following a simple or compound negative strengthens the negation.
- οὐδείς οὐκ ἔπασχε τι, everyone was suffering, literally no one was not suffering something.
- μὴ θορυβήσῃ μηδείς, let no one raise an uproar, literally do not let no one raise an uproar.
Other languages have simpler forms of negation; in Latin, simple negation is a matter of adding the negative particles non or ne to the verb. In French, the most basic form of verb negation involves adding the circumflexion ne ... pas to the main verb or its auxiliary; je veux un poulet ("I want a chicken"); je ne veux pas un poulet ("I do not want a chicken") / je ne veux pas de poulet ("I do not want any chicken").
Philologically, from the Latin non: no, not indeed, a categoric negative root concept found in languages, even if in different forms. "Not that I know of", expressive of categoric negative assertion, egotistic, defensive, cognitive. Also a negative prefix to concepts, especially as expressed in L. nihil, Eng. emphatic no, definitively not. L. nemo is person oriented, and opposite to L. nihil and means no man, nobody. ne hemo (old form) = no man (homo). Nihil, no + thing, nothing is thing oriented, opposite to nemo. L. nullus means no, not, none (of all those or anything involved). ne ullus = not any one, where unulus is the diminutive of unus, one. Both person and thing oriented, where emphasis is on insignificance. None has ever been so - emphatic, person oriented expression, emphasis being here also denoted by ever (L. aevum, Gr. aion} which here really means: No (one + ever) has been.
Further reading
- Laurence R. Horn, A Natural History of Negation. 2001. ISBN 978-1575863368
- Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, Randi Reppen, "Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use". 1998. ISBN 0521499577
- Marco Tettamanti, Rosa Manenti - Pasquale A. Della Rosa - Andrea Falini - Daniela Perani - Stefano F. Cappa and Andrea Moro (2008) "Negation in the brain. Modulating action representation." NeuroImage Volume 43, Issue 2, 1 November 2008, Pages 358-367. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.08.004
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