NEGATION

                                                      

NEGATION

Negation, as maintained by the likes of Merriam Webster refers to

“the action or logical operation of negating or making negative”.

In simpler terms, negation defines the polar opposition of affirmative, denies the existence or vaguely – a refutation. This is also known as “Not”. Classical logic resembles negation with truth function which takes truth to falsity and is perfectly capable of running the opposite operation. It denies the truth of a sentence. It’s just the conversion of the affirmative sentence which converts the simple affirmative sentence into negative.

Example

o    I like to sing = I do not like to sing.

o    Rick is not here.

o    Peter has no books.

o    Sam has never been there.

o    John did nothing for this project.

o    Neither I nor you attended the program.

o    None of us liked the movie.

o    Pam has rarely cooked any food.

o    Richard is buying unnecessary things.

o    Rock is not sure about it.

o    Patrick has no knowledge about it.

o    I have nothing to say.

o    Why are you so careless?

o    Nobody was in the classroom.

o    I found the book

o    Alice rarely sings a song.

o    Bob roughly has any idea about it.

o    Jim is not

o    Harry is not

o    Nobody liked the picture.

o    Neither Jack nor Robin was in the party.

 

 

Rules of Negation:

By changing the auxiliary verb of the sentence into negative, we can apply Negation in a sentence.

1. Negation in Tense:

1.	Present Indefinite Tense	Do = do not/ don’t, does = does not/doesn’t.
2.	Present Continuous Tense	Am = am not, is = is not/isn’t, are = are not, aren’t.
3.	Present Perfect Tense	Have = have not/haven’t, has = has not/hasn’t
4.	Present Perfect Continuous tense	Has been = has not been, have been = have not been
5.	Past Indefinite tense	Did = did not/didn’t
6.	Past Continuous tense	Was = was not/wasn’t, were = were not/ weren’t
7.	Past Perfect Tense	Had = had not/hadn’t
8.	Past Perfect Continuous Tense	Had been = had not been/ hadn’t been
9.	Future Indefinite Tense	Shall = shall not, will = will not/won’t
10.	Future Continuous tense	Shall be = shall not be, will be = will not/won’t
11.	Future Perfect Tense	Shall have = shall not have, will have = will not have/won’t have
12.	Future Perfect Continuous Tense	Shall have been = shall not have been, will have been = will not have been/won’t have been

 

 

Examples:

o    Edward can swim= Edward cannot swim

o    We must go there= We must not go there

3. Negation in Words

Some words such as ever, anybody, anyone, anything, anywhere, instead of never, nobody, no one, nothing, nowhere, etc. represent the Negation.

Examples:

o    I do not think he can ever reach within time.

 

Examples of Negation Adding Suffixes:

o    Jim is so careless that he will not do anything.

o    John won’t listen to you because he is so fearless.

o    The food was so tasteless.

o    We should help the homeless people.

o    Alice was feeling so hopeless.

o    There was no one there to help Jack and he was feeling very helpless.

o    Throw away the pot because it’s bottomless.

o    We are doubtless about her performance.

o    Rick has endless stories to tell.

o    We are thinking of discarding the useless things.

o    Bill is so restless that he cannot stay long anywhere.

o    Have patience! Stop being restless!

o    We cannot forgive such a careless behavior.

o    Peter is very reckless.

o    We worried about Allen’s reckless driving.

o    How can we eat such tasteless food?

o    We aware of Bob’s restless nature.

o    Why have you become so hopeless?

o    Don’t feel so helpless.

o    The printer is getting out of order every now and then; it has become useless.

 

Examples of Negation Using Negative Adjectives & Adverbs:

o    John had little hope of success in this project.

o    Few people will support you.

o    Robin was a little tired.

o    A few of the people were happy.

o    I have hardly seen John working so hard.

o    Barely we had reached the theatre when it started to rain.

o    Scarcely Jack had finished the speech when everyone started clapping.

o    We have roughly seen Tom attending any class.

o    We have rarely seen any singer like Richard.

o    Robin seldom comes here.

o    Bob is little stubborn.

o    Suzan is a little scared.

o    I have found few places like this.

o    There are few people like you.

o    Rick has hardly done any work.

o    Aric had rarely sung any song.

o    Alice had roughly attended any program.

o    Albert is a little exhausted.

o    Anna has a little courage to do it.

o    Allen had roughly read any of the books.

 

Examples of Negation Using Negative Words:

o    Robin has no relatives here.

o    Jack is not right.

o    Bill has nothing to say.

o    I have never seen this case.

o    There was no one in the field.

o    None can hide the truth.

o    Nobody asked me anything about Bob.

o    John found the pen nowhere.

o    My mom doesn’t like this movie, neither do I.

o    Neither I nor my brother attended the party.

o    My friend did not taste the pudding, I didn’t either.

o    None of us liked the program.

o    Not any of the apples were fresh.

o    Ben has no problem with this decision.

o    Bob was not looking okay.

o    Alice has nothing to do.

o    No one supported Jeff.

o    Never do anything against humanity.

o    Richard found nothing in the right place.

o    None of the students were happy to hear it.

 

Double negative on the other hand, simply defines the existence of two forms of negation in the same sentence. Please, notice that a double negative can often result in an affirmation in the English language (e.g., He hardly stops for small-talks). The rhetorical term for such a phenomenon is ‘litotes’.

Example:

o    I can not find him nowhere.

Double Negation

Uses of Double Negative

Double Negative can be used in two ways. They are:

1. Using negative words

such as never, nobody, anyone, nothing, nowhere, etc

Example:

o    He cannot go nowhere without informing me

2. Using prefox:

Such as ir, un, non, pre, anti, il, im, etc.

Example:

o    John is not uncontrollable by his family member though he is a special child.

 

Examples of Negation Adding Prefixes:

o    Why are you bringing unnecessary things to the house?

o    This is impossible to be there now.

o    John disrespected the person.

o    Bill found it as a degradation.

o    The user account has been deactivated.

o    The management is thinking of decentralization.

o    The contestant was disqualified from the contest.

o    This matter is unimportant.

o    Many unwanted thoughts are coming to Jack’s mind.

o    This table is imperfect to be used at the office.

o    This water is impure.

o    Jim did an immature behaviour.

o    Point out the disadvantages of this plan.

o    This is simply unbelievable that Aric has come.

o    Allen disobeyed the order.

o    Mack is an unqualified person.

o    Paul doesn’t have any disregard for you.

o    The chemist is de-acidifying the solution.

o    This is an unjustified behaviour.

o    The behavior of Steven was inhuman.

In modern English, Double Negatives are highly avoidable as it is grammatically wrong. We know we cannot use more than one negative word in a statement. It usually used in informal conversation or speech and in songs’ lyrics as well. To form a correct sentence, we must avoid using a double negative in a single sentence formally.