Negation

Clausal and subclausal negation

Sentence	Type	Form and meaning
She was happy.	Positive	Syntactically and semantically positive
She wasn't happy.	Clausal negation	Syntactically and semantically negative
She was unhappy.	Subclausal negation	Syntactically positive but semantically negative
She wasn't unhappy	Clausal negation + subclausal negation	Syntactically negative but semantically positive (?)

Tests to distinguish clausal from subclausal negation

Clausal		Type of test	Subclausal/positive
She wasn't happy	, was she?	Tag (neutral)	She was (un)happy	, wasn't she?
		, either.		Too vs. either		, too.
		and neither/nor was he.		So vs. neither/nor		and so was he.

Ways of making a clause negative

1. Negation of the VP: auxiliary + not; inflectional—by means of an en-clitic, e.g. wasn't, or analytic, e.g. was not.

2. Nothing, nobody, no one—heads of NPs; never—head of AdvP; nowhere—head of AdvP or NP.

3. No—determiner in NP (no patience), or modifier in comparative AdjPs (no better) or AdvPs (no faster).

4. None—head in NP or modifier in comparative AdjP or AdvP (peceding the: none the worse).

5. Neither—determiner or head in NP; neither…nor—coordinating conjunction (correlative coordinators marking a single negation); neither, nor—cohesive adverbs/adjuncts.

6. Not—modifier of determinatives like much, many, enough, one/even.

7. Few, little—determiners or heads in NP.

8. Seldom, rarely, scarcely, hardly, barely—adverbs.

Items from (a) to (h) may appear in a non-finite clause embedded as complement within the larger clause that they mark as negative:

You certainly saw them doing nothing wrong, did you?

Subclausal negation

Subclausal negation is much more difficult to characterise.

1. Negative prefixes: un-, in- (im-, il-, ir-), non-, a-, dis-, or suffixes: -less.

2. Items from the previous list if they occur with modifying function within an AdjP used attributively, normally with a preceding determiner:

a not inconsiderable talent

a barely audible whisper

a not really very important matter.

3. Not as a pro-form anaphoric to a clausal antecedent: `Is it going to rain?' `I hope not.' (= `I hope it is not going to rain.').

4. He prefers not to tell her. (complement of `prefers');

We told you to do nothing.	= We told you not to do anything.
		≠ We didn't tell you to do anything.
	I was able to do nothing about it.	= I had an option to do nothing about it.
		= I wasn't able to do anything about it.

5. Sentences like We could do nothing are ambiguous between clausal (= `We couldn't do anything.') and subclausal negation (= `We had an option to do nothing.'). Subclausal negation of this kind is most natural when the auxiliary is separated from the negative element by an adjunct:

We could always do nothing.

He will sometimes not speak to her for days on end.

He has often not kept his promise.

6. If few/little are replaced by too few/little, fewer/less, the resulting negation is subclausal. Compare:

Few of them were perfect, were they? (clausal);

Too few/ Fewer of them were perfect, weren't they? (subclausal).

So it is when an NP containing few/little is not a subject:

He has few friends and so does she.

He's little better than a beast and so is she.

7. Double negatives in English either are non-standard (with intensifying function) or yield positive meaning:

He doesn't know nothing about it. clausal subclausal negation	He knows absolutely nothing about it.
		He does know something about it. knows

Analogically:

We couldn't do nothing.

He hasn't often not kept his promise.

One final syntactic distinction between clausal and subclausal negation concerns thematic fronting of negative elements. Clausal negation involves inversion, subclausal negation does not:

Clausal	She had complete faith in no man.	In no man did she have complete faith.
Subclausal	She solved the problem in no time.	In no time she solved the problem.

Likewise:

He at no time consulted his colleagues on the matter.

At no time did he consult his colleagues on the matter.

He in no time completely revitalised the company.

In no time he completely revitalised the company.

However, inversion is not confined to fronting negative elements:

Only then did she realise… (`only' may be treated to have some negative meaning)

So conceited was he…

Those sentences are nevertheless positive.

Affirmatives and non-affirmatives (assertives and non-assertives)

To a very large extent the system of clause polarity and clause type are independent: in general we find the same positive/negative contrasts in different clause types:

Clause type /Polarity	Positive	Negative
Declarative	He has read it.	He hasn't read it.
Interrogative	Who has read it? Has he read it?	Who hasn't read it? Hasn't he read it?
Exclamative	What a lot of people have read it!	What a lot of people haven't read it!
Imperative	Read it!	Don't read it!

Some exclamatives and interrogative, however, do not have a corresponding negative:

How tall she is!

How tall is she?

Additionally, certain expression may not be found in positive declaratives (e.g. ever `at any time'):

	Positive	Negative
Declarative	*He has ever been there.	He hasn't ever been there.
Interrogative	Has he ever been there?	Hasn't he ever been there?

Most positive declaratives are the central members of the affirmative class. What needs to be specified is (1) what items occur only or characteristically in one or the other of the two classes and (2) how the class of affirmative contexts is to be defined more carefully.

Expressions strictly limited to non-affirmative contexts:

• Ever `at any time';

• At all;

• Can help/stand +…-ing, bother + to…;

• Dare, need (as modal auxiliaries);

• Either (as a cohesive adverb—almost limited to negative clauses);

• Give a damn, lift a finger.

Other that can be found in affirmatives under certain conditions:

• Any and its compounds;

• Either (as determinative or pronoun);

• Yet (in its temporal sense) = `still';

• Ever `all time'.

Any and its compounds

*As soon as she phoned this morning, I dashed and bought any biscuits. (an affirmative context requiring a specific NP).

The shop was closed so I couldn't buy any biscuits. (a non-affirmative context).

Any imposes a non-specific interpretation on an NP, so it is only limited to such affirmative contexts which allow a non-specific NP—those signifying future or the potential. In such contexts any may mean `whichever' or `every', `all'; sometimes both interpretations are possible (usually limited by a wider context):

Take any of them. (any = 'whichever')

He'll buy any house meeting these requirements. (both interpretations possible)

Anyone could do that. (any = `every, all')

Ambiguity

There are thus two meanings of any: one limited to non-affirmative contexts and the other, which may occur is both—it is neutral as far as affirmative/non-affirmative contexts are concerned. These two meanings of any may lead to ambiguity in non-affirmative contexts:

Can anyone do that?	= `Is there anyone who can do that?'	Any (non-aff)
	= `Can everyone do it?' (Yes, anyone can do it.)	Any (neutral)
	I won't marry anyone.	= `I will remain unmarried.'	Any (non-aff)
		= `I shall exercise some discrimination in the choice of marriage partner.' `Nie wyjdę za byle kogo.'	Any (neutral)
	I won't marry just anyone.

Any (neutral) is always stressed; when in non-affirmative contexts, it is normally marked prosodically as contrastive.

The relationship between some and any

It is not true to say that some is an affirmative counterpart of non-affirmative any:

I didn't like some/any of her paintings.

Have you told somebody/anybody?

Some is not inherently specific or non-specific. After a negative, some tends to have a specific interpretation, while any is non-specific.

Never-ever, neither-either, no-any

Never n+ever `not ever'; neither n+either `not either' (morphologically analysable into n+… and semantically equivalent to `not …'):

Have you never been there?

Haven't you ever been there?

I liked neither of them.

I didn't like either of them.

Similarly:

I saw no one.

I didn't see anyone.

No cannot be ,however, analysed in general as `not any':

He's no genius. = `He isn't a genius.' (≠ `He isn't any genius.')

Non-affirmative contexts

Non-affirmative contexts cannot be identified with clause-size units:

He hasn't ever lied to anyone.

*He has ever lied to no one.

No one lies to me with impunity. `bezkarność'

*Anyone doesn't lie to me with impunity. (non-aff any)

The reason why in the two sentences (although negative) the non-affirmative items are out of place is that they precede the negative element. It is not true, however, that any negative element opens a non-affirmative context - in general those which do yield clausal rather than subclausal negation:

*A not inconsiderable number of people has ever been there.

*He will in no time do any better.

Constructions that produce non-affirmative contexts

1. Negative clauses;

2. Interrogative clauses;

3. Conditional clauses:

If he has ever been there, he may know her. (neutral truth commitment)

*Because he has ever been there, he may know her. (positive truth commitment)

4. Comparative clauses:

He ran faster than / as fast as he had ever run before.

(the comparative clause does not itself express a proposition, the standard of comparison being implicit rather than explicit: there is some affinity with an interrogative: the comparison is with how fast he had ever ran before);

5. Infinitival constructions dependent on the degree adverb too:

He was too tired to do anything about it.

(negative implication - he didn't do anything about it);

6. Only

Only John has ever been there.

(no one other than John - close semantic relationship with the negative);

7. Content clauses or non-finite constructions functioning as complement to verbs and adjectives with a negative component inherent in their lexical meaning:

Verbs: forget, deny, dissuade;

Adjectives: reluctant, unaware;

Preposition: against.

He was reluctant to do anything about it.

The complements of other verbs / adjectives are non-affirmative if the verb / adjective itself is in a non-affirmative context:

She doesn't know he has ever been there.

The semantic scope of negation

John hasn't read the book. (`John hasn't read the book' is negated)

John wasn't there, though he said he would. (`John was there' is negated - though clause is subordinate but not embedded)

There are no cases where the scope extends beyond the clause into another clause that is not embedded within it; the refinements thus involve cases where some of the semantic material encoded in a negative clause is outside the scope of negation.

Adjuncts

Peripheral adjuncts always fall outside the scope of negation:

He didn't finish it, however/obviously.

Adjuncts of reason and purpose characteristically fall outside the scope of negation, but can be brought within its scope by prosodic means:

He didn't do it because he was angry.
Outside the scope of negation: = Because he was angry, he didn't do it. When an adjunct falls outside the scope of negation, the sentence formed by omitting the adjunct is an entailment of the original.	Within/inside the scope of negation: = It is not the case that the reason why he did it was that he was angry. (He did it because she'd asked him to.)
Entailment
He didn't do it.	He did it.

Adjuncts like intentionally, deliberately, accidentally normally fall inside the scope of the negation if they follow the negative, but outside if they precede:

Adjuncts of manner generally fall inside the scope:

She didn't sing well.

He doesn't speak clearly.

Some other ambiguities:

In this book nothing happens twice. (inside the scope - `W tej książce nic nie zdarza się dwa razy.')

In this book nothing happens, twice. (outside the scope - `W tej książce nic zdarza się dwa razy.')

Modal auxiliaries

Outside the scope (main verb negation):

May not (epistemic sense = possibility):

She may have not read it yet.	= It is possible that she hasn't read it yet.
		≠ It is not possible that she has read it yet. (can't have)

Must not, mustn't (obligation):

You mustn't do that.	= You are required not to do that.
		≠ You aren't required to do that. (needn't, don't have to)

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