Double negative
Encyclopedia
A double negative occurs when two forms of negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause.
In most logics and some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative sense; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives intensify each other are said to have negative concord. Portuguese
,
French
, Persian
, and Spanish
are examples of negative-concord languages, while Latin and German
do not have negative concord. Standard English
lacks negative concord, but it was normal in Old English and Middle English
, and some modern dialects do have it (e.g. African American Vernacular English
and Cockney
), although its usage in English is often stigmatized.
Languages without negative concord typically have negative polarity items that are used in place of additional negatives when another negating word already occurs. Examples are "ever", "anything" and "anyone" in the sentence "I haven't ever owed anything to anyone" (cf. "I haven't never owed nothing to no one" in negative-concord dialects of English, and "Nunca devi nada a ninguem" in Portuguese, lit. "Never have I owed nothing to no one"). Note that negative polarity can be triggered not only by direct negatives such as "not" or "never", but by words such as "doubt" or "hardly" ("I doubt he has ever owed anything to anyone" or "He has hardly ever owed anything to anyone").
Stylistically, in English, double negatives can sometimes be used for understated
affirmation (e.g. "I'm not feeling bad" vs. "I'm feeling good"). The rhetorical term for this is litotes
.
, when two negatives are used in one sentence, the negatives are understood to cancel one another and produce a weakened affirmative. However, in many dialects, the second negative is employed as an intensifier
and should be understood as strengthening the negation rather than removing it.
, two negatives are understood to resolve to a positive. This rule was observed as early as 1762, when Bishop Robert Lowth
wrote A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes. For instance, "I do not disagree" could mean "I certainly agree". Further statements may be necessary to resolve which particular meaning was intended.
Because of this ambiguity, double negatives are frequently employed when making back-handed compliments. The phrase "Mr. Jones was not incompetent" will seldom mean "Mr. Jones was very competent" since the speaker would have found a more flattering way to say so. Instead, some kind of problem is implied, though Mr. Jones possesses basic competence at his tasks.
Although they are uncommon in written English, double negatives are employed as a normal part of the grammar of Southern American English
, African American Vernacular English
, and most British regional dialects, particularly the East London
and East Anglian dialects
. Dialects which use double negatives do so consistently and follow a different set of descriptive linguistic
rules.
Because of their non-standard nature, such double negatives are often employed in literature and the performing art as part of characterization, particularly to establish a speaker's lower-class or uneducated status. In the film Mary Poppins
, the chimney sweep
Bert employs a double negative when he says, "If you don't want to go nowhere..." Another is used by the bandits in the "Stinking Badges
" scene of John Huston
's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
: "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges!" More recently, the British television show EastEnders
has received some publicity over the Estuary
accent of character Dot Branning
, who speaks with double and triple negatives ("I ain't never heard of no license.").
In music, double negatives can be employed to similar effect (as in Pink Floyd
's "Another Brick in the Wall
", in which schoolchildren chant "We don't need no education / We don't need no thought control") or used to establish a frank and informal tone (as in The Rolling Stones
' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
.").
Historically, Chaucer made extensive use of double, triple, and even quadruple negatives in his Canterbury Tales. About the Friar, he writes "Ther nas no man no wher so vertuous" ("There never was no man nowhere so virtuous"). About the Knight, "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight" ("He never yet no vileness didn't say / In all his life to no manner of man").
Following the battle of Marston Moor
, Oliver Cromwell
quoted his nephew's dying words in a letter to the boy's father Valentine Walton
: "A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him what it was. He told me it was that God had not suffered him to be no more the executioner of His enemies." Although this particular letter has often been reprinted, it is frequently changed to read "not ... any" instead.
. A notable exception is Afrikaans
, where it is mandatory. (For example, "He cannot speak Afrikaans" becomes Hy kan nie Afrikaans praat nie, "He cannot Afrikaans speak not.") Dialectal Dutch, French and San
have been suggested as possible origins for this trait. Its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as in these examples provided by Bruce Donaldson:
While double negation is still found in the Low Franconian dialects
of west Flanders
(e.g., Ik ne willen da nie doen, "I do not want to do that") and in some villages in the central Netherlands such as Garderen
, it takes a different form than that found in Afrikaans. In Belgian Dutch dialects, however, there are still some widely used expressions like nooit niet ("never not") for "never".
Similar to some dialectal English, Bavarian employs both single and double negation, with the latter denoting special emphasis. For example, compare the Bavarian Des hob i no nia ned g'hört ("This have I yet never not heard") with the standard German "Das habe ich noch nie gehört".
, negation is generally expressed by placing a negative adverb (non in Latin and Italian
, no in Spanish
and Catalan
, não in Portuguese
, ne in French
, nu in Romanian
) before the verb, but more negative adverbs or pronouns may appear elsewhere to indicate what kind of negation is being made.
In French, a second negative particle pas is normally employed in simple negation. Standard Catalan uses the same particle, but only to express emphasis or reversal of one's expectations. In Latin, passus was the word for "step", so that originally French Je ne marche pas and Catalan No camino pas meant "I will not go a single step". In French, this initially emphatic usage spread so thoroughly that in colloquial speech it is often ne which is left out while pas serves as the sole negating element. A similar practice occurs in dialectal Catalan
, which omits no, and Occitan, which uses non only as a short answer to questions. In Venetan
, the double negation no ... mìa can likewise lose the first particle and rely only on the second: magno mìa ("I eat not") and vegno mìa ("I know not").
In Italian a second negative particle usually turns the phrase into a positive one, but with a different meaning. For instance Voglio mangiare ("I want to eat") and Non voglio non mangiare ("I don't want not to eat") mean "I want to eat", but the second one means more precisely "I'd prefer to eat".
Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese
and Romanian
often employ doubled negative correlative
s. Portuguese Não vi nada, não ("I did not see nothing, no"), and Romanian Nu văd nimic ("I do not see nothing") are used to express "No, I didn't see anything".
Other Romance languages employ double negatives less regularly. In Asturian
, an extra negative particle is used with negative adverbs: Yo nunca nun lu viera ("I had not never seen him") expresses "I have never seen him", and A mi tampoco nun me presta ("I neither do not like it") - "I do not like it, either". Standard Catalan also formerly possessed a tendency to double no with other negatives, such as Jo tampoc no l'he vista ("I neither have not seen her") to mean "I have not seen her either", but this practice is dying out.
, the word ddim (not) often occurs with a prefixed or mutated
verb form that is negative in meaning: Dydy hi ddim yma (word-for-word, "Not-is she not here") expresses "She is not here" and Chaiff Aled ddim mynd (word-for-word, "Not-will-get Aled not go") expresses "Aled is not allowed to go".
Negative correlatives can also occur with already negative verb forms. In literary Welsh, the mutated verb form is caused by an initial negative particle, ni or nid. The particle is usually omitted in speech but the mutation remains: [Ni] wyddai neb (word-for-word, "[Not] not-knew nobody") means "Nobody knew" and [Ni] chaiff Aled fawr o bres (word-for-word, "[Not] not-will-get Aled lots of money") means "Aled will not get much money". This is not usually regarded as three negative markers, however, because the negative mutation is really just an effect of the initial particle on the following word.
. With few exceptions, a simple negative (οὐ or μή) following another negative (e.g., οὐδείς, no one) results in an affirmation: οὐδείς οὐκ ἔπασχε τι ("No one was not suffering") means more simply "Everyone was suffering". Meanwhile, a compound negative following a negative strengthens the negation: μὴ θορυβήσῃ μηδείς ("Do not permit no one to raise an uproar") means "Let not a single one among them raise an uproar".
These constructions apply only when the negatives all refer to the same word or expression. Otherwise, the negatives simply work independently of one another: οὐ διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀκοντίζειν οὐκ ἔβαλον αὐτόν means "It was not on account of their not throwing that they did not hit him", and one shouldn't blame them for not trying.
Modern Greek
prefers double negation — Κανείς δεν μίλησε, "No one did not talk" — to single (here, Ουδείς μίλησε, "None talked").
other than Slavonic, multiple negatives are grammatically correct ways to express negation, while a single negative is often incorrect. In complex sentences, every part that could be grammatically negated should be negative. For example, in Serbian
, Niko nikada nigde ništa nije uradio ("Nobody never didn't do nothing nowhere") means "Nobody has ever done anything, anywhere", and Nisam tamo nikad išla ("I never did not go there") means "I have never been there".
A single negation, while syntactically correct, may result in a very unusual meaning or make no sense at all. Saying "I saw nobody" in Polish (Widziałem nikogo) in place of the more usual "I did not see nobody" (Nikogo nie widziałem) might mean "I saw an instance of nobody" or "I saw Mr. Nobody" but would not have its plain English meaning. Likewise, in Slovenian
, saying "I do not know anyone" () in place of "I do not know no one" () has the connotation "I do not know just anyone" — i.e., I know someone important or special.
satem
languages double negative is mandatory in Latvian
and Lithuanian
. Furthermore, all of the verbs and indefinite pronoun
s in a given statement must be negated, thus it could be said that multiple negative is mandatory in Latvian. For instance, a statement "I haven't ever owed anything to anyone" would be rendered as es nekad nevienam neko neesmu bijis parādā. The only alternative would be using a negating subordinate clause and subjunctive in the main clause, which could be approximated in English as "there hasn't ever been an instance that I would have owed anything to anyone" — nav bijis tā, ka es kādreiz būtu kādam bijis kaut ko parādā — where negative pronouns (nekad, neviens, nekas) are swapped for indefinite pronoun
s (kādreiz, kāds, kaut kas) more in line with the English "ever, any" indefinite pronoun structures.
with negative pronouns, e.g. Nincs semmim ("I do not have nothing") means "I do not have anything". Negative pronouns are constructed by means of adding the prefixes se-, sem-, and sen- to interrogative pronouns.
Double negation is required also in Finnish
, which uses the auxiliary verb
ei to express negation. Negative pronouns are constructed by means of adding one of the suffixes -an, -än, -kaan, or -kään to interrogative pronouns. An example: Kukaan ei soittanut minulle ("No one did not call me") is used to say "No one called me".
to phrase ideas in a more indirect and polite manner. Thus, one can indicate necessity by emphasizing that not doing something will not do. For instance, しなければならない (shinakereba naranai, "must") literally means "not doing [it] would be unbecoming". しなければいけません (shinakereba ikemasen, also "must") similarly means "not doing [it] will not go forward".
Of course, indirectness can also be employed to put an edge on one's rudeness as well. "He has studied Japanese, so he should be able to write kanji" can be phrased 彼は日本語を勉強したから漢字が書けないわけがありません (kare wa nihongo o benkyō shita kara kanji ga kakenai wake ga arimasen), the rather harsher idea that "As he has studied Japanese, an excuse for him to be unable to write kanji does not exist".
in a like manner. One common construction is 不得不 (Pinyin: bùdébù, "cannot not"), which is used to express (or feign) a necessity more regretful and polite than that expressed by 必须 (bìxū). Compared with "我必须走" (Wǒ bìxū zǒu, "I need to go"), "我不得不走" (Wǒ bùdébù zǒu) tries to emphasize that the situation is out of the speaker's hands and that he has no choice in the matter: "Unfortunately, I've got to go". Similarly, "没有人不知道" (Méiyǒu rén bù zhīdào, "There is not a person who doesn't know") is a more emphatic way to express "Everyone knows".
Double negatives nearly always resolve to a positive meaning even in colloquial speech, but illogically so can triple negatives as well. Saying "我不相信没人不来" (Wǒ bù xiāngxìn méi rén bù lái, "I do not believe no one will not come") should mean "I believe some people will not come" but is more often understood to mean "I think everyone will come". However, triple and multiple negatives are considered obscure and are typically avoided.
, where an original negative particle is replaced by another, passing through a intermediate stage employing two particles (e.g. Old French
jeo ne dis >> Modern Standard French je ne dis pas >> Modern Colloquial French je dis pas "I don't say"). In many cases the original sense of the new negative particle is not negative per se (thus in French pas "step", originally "not a step" = "not a bit"), but in Germanic languages such as English and German the intermediate stage was a case of double negation, as the current negatives not and nicht in these languages originally meant "nothing": e.g. Old English ic ne seah "I didn't see" >> Middle English
I ne saugh nawiht, lit. "I didn't see nothing" >> Early Modern English
I saw not. A similar development to a circumfix
from double negation can be seen in non-Indo-European
languages, too: for example, in Maltese
, kiel "he ate" is negated as ma kielx "he didn't eat", where the verb is preceded by a negative particle ma- "not" and followed by the particle -x, which was originally a shortened form of xejn "nothing" - thus, "he didn't eat nothing".
In most logics and some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative sense; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives intensify each other are said to have negative concord. Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
,
French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
are examples of negative-concord languages, while Latin and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
do not have negative concord. Standard English
Standard English
Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
lacks negative concord, but it was normal in Old English and Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
, and some modern dialects do have it (e.g. African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
and Cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
), although its usage in English is often stigmatized.
Languages without negative concord typically have negative polarity items that are used in place of additional negatives when another negating word already occurs. Examples are "ever", "anything" and "anyone" in the sentence "I haven't ever owed anything to anyone" (cf. "I haven't never owed nothing to no one" in negative-concord dialects of English, and "Nunca devi nada a ninguem" in Portuguese, lit. "Never have I owed nothing to no one"). Note that negative polarity can be triggered not only by direct negatives such as "not" or "never", but by words such as "doubt" or "hardly" ("I doubt he has ever owed anything to anyone" or "He has hardly ever owed anything to anyone").
Stylistically, in English, double negatives can sometimes be used for understated
Understatement
Understatement is a form of speech which contains an expression of less strength than what would be expected. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression....
affirmation (e.g. "I'm not feeling bad" vs. "I'm feeling good"). The rhetorical term for this is litotes
Litotes
In rhetoric, litotes is a figure of speech in which understatement is employed for rhetorical effect when an idea is expressed by a denial of its opposite, principally via double negatives....
.
English
In standard written EnglishStandard Written English
Standard written English refers to the preferred form of English as it is written according to prescriptive authorities associated with publishing houses and schools. As there is no regulatory body for the English language, there is some disagreement about correct usage, though there is enough...
, when two negatives are used in one sentence, the negatives are understood to cancel one another and produce a weakened affirmative. However, in many dialects, the second negative is employed as an intensifier
Intensifier
Intensifier is a linguistic term for a modifier that amplifies the meaning of the word it modifies. Examples are "very," "quite," "extremely," "highly," and "greatly." An intensifier is the opposite of a qualifier, a modifier that weakens the word modified: "fairly," "somewhat," "rather," "a...
and should be understood as strengthening the negation rather than removing it.
Two negatives resolving to a positive
In Standard EnglishStandard Written English
Standard written English refers to the preferred form of English as it is written according to prescriptive authorities associated with publishing houses and schools. As there is no regulatory body for the English language, there is some disagreement about correct usage, though there is enough...
, two negatives are understood to resolve to a positive. This rule was observed as early as 1762, when Bishop Robert Lowth
Robert Lowth
Robert Lowth FRS was a Bishop of the Church of England, Oxford Professor of Poetry and the author of one of the most influential textbooks of English grammar.-Life:...
wrote A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes. For instance, "I do not disagree" could mean "I certainly agree". Further statements may be necessary to resolve which particular meaning was intended.
Because of this ambiguity, double negatives are frequently employed when making back-handed compliments. The phrase "Mr. Jones was not incompetent" will seldom mean "Mr. Jones was very competent" since the speaker would have found a more flattering way to say so. Instead, some kind of problem is implied, though Mr. Jones possesses basic competence at his tasks.
Two or more negatives resolving to a negative
Discussing English grammar, the term "double negative" is often though not universally applied to the non-standard use of a second negative as an intensifier to a negation.Although they are uncommon in written English, double negatives are employed as a normal part of the grammar of Southern American English
Southern American English
Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...
, African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
, and most British regional dialects, particularly the East London
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
and East Anglian dialects
East Anglian English
East Anglian English is a dialect of English spoken in East Anglia. This easternmost area of England was probably home to the first-ever form of language which can be called English...
. Dialects which use double negatives do so consistently and follow a different set of descriptive linguistic
Descriptive linguistics
In the study of language, description, or descriptive linguistics, is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is spoken by a group of people in a speech community...
rules.
Because of their non-standard nature, such double negatives are often employed in literature and the performing art as part of characterization, particularly to establish a speaker's lower-class or uneducated status. In the film Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins (film)
Mary Poppins is a 1964 musical film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, produced by Walt Disney, and based on the Mary Poppins books series by P. L. Travers with illustrations by Mary Shepard. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, with songs by...
, the chimney sweep
Chimney sweep
A chimney sweep is a worker who clears ash and soot from chimneys. The chimney uses the pressure difference caused by a hot column of gas to create a draught and draw air over the hot coals or wood enabling continued combustion. Chimneys may be straight or contain many changes of direction. During...
Bert employs a double negative when he says, "If you don't want to go nowhere..." Another is used by the bandits in the "Stinking Badges
Stinking badges
"Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" is a memorable and widely-quoted line from cinematic history. In 2005, it was chosen as #36 on the American Film Institute list, AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes...
" scene of John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (film)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 American film written and directed by John Huston, a feature film adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name, in which two Americans Fred C. Dobbs and Bob Curtin during the 1920s in Mexico join with an old-timer, Howard , to prospect for gold...
: "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges!" More recently, the British television show EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
has received some publicity over the Estuary
Estuary English
Estuary English is a dialect of English widely spoken in South East England, especially along the River Thames and its estuary. Phonetician John C. Wells defines Estuary English as "Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England"...
accent of character Dot Branning
Dot Branning
Dorothy "Dot" Branning is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera, EastEnders, played by June Brown since 1985. In a special episode entitled EastEnders: Dot's Story a young Dot was played by Tallulah Pitt-Brown in flashbacks. Dot first appeared in EastEnders in July 1985 as the mother of...
, who speaks with double and triple negatives ("I ain't never heard of no license.").
In music, double negatives can be employed to similar effect (as in Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
's "Another Brick in the Wall
Another Brick in the Wall
"Another Brick in the Wall" is the title of three songs set to variations of the same basic theme, on Pink Floyd's 1979 rock opera, The Wall, subtitled Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3...
", in which schoolchildren chant "We don't need no education / We don't need no thought control") or used to establish a frank and informal tone (as in The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
" Satisfaction" is a song by the English rock band The Rolling Stones, released in 1965. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and produced by Andrew Loog Oldham. Richards's throwaway three-note guitar riff — intended to be replaced by horns — opens and drives the song...
.").
Historically, Chaucer made extensive use of double, triple, and even quadruple negatives in his Canterbury Tales. About the Friar, he writes "Ther nas no man no wher so vertuous" ("There never was no man nowhere so virtuous"). About the Knight, "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight" ("He never yet no vileness didn't say / In all his life to no manner of man").
Following the battle of Marston Moor
Battle of Marston Moor
The Battle of Marston Moor was fought on 2 July 1644, during the First English Civil War of 1642–1646. The combined forces of the Scottish Covenanters under the Earl of Leven and the English Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester defeated the Royalists commanded by Prince...
, Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
quoted his nephew's dying words in a letter to the boy's father Valentine Walton
Valentine Walton
Valentine Walton was one of the regicides of King Charles I of England.Walton was of very ancient, and knightly family of Great Staughton, in Huntingdonshire. Upon a vacancy he was returned a member of the Long Parliament for the county of Huntingdon...
: "A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him what it was. He told me it was that God had not suffered him to be no more the executioner of His enemies." Although this particular letter has often been reprinted, it is frequently changed to read "not ... any" instead.
Germanic languages
Double negation is uncommon in other West Germanic languagesWest Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
. A notable exception is Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
, where it is mandatory. (For example, "He cannot speak Afrikaans" becomes Hy kan nie Afrikaans praat nie, "He cannot Afrikaans speak not.") Dialectal Dutch, French and San
Khoisan languages
The Khoisan languages are the click languages of Africa which do not belong to other language families. They include languages indigenous to southern and eastern Africa, though some, such as the Khoi languages, appear to have moved to their current locations not long before the Bantu expansion...
have been suggested as possible origins for this trait. Its proper use follows a set of fairly complex rules as in these examples provided by Bruce Donaldson:
- Ek het nie geweet dat hy sou kom nie. ("I did not know that he would be coming.")
- Ek het geweet dat hy nie sou kom nie. ("I knew that he would not be coming.")
- Hy sal nie kom nie, want hy is siek. ("He will not be coming because he is sick.")
- Dis nie so moeilik om Afrikaans te leer nie. ("It is not so difficult to learn Afrikaans.")
While double negation is still found in the Low Franconian dialects
Low Franconian languages
Low Franconian, Low Frankish, or Istvaeonic, is a group of several West Germanic languages spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium , in the northern department of France, in western Germany , as well as in Suriname, South Africa and Namibia that originally descended from Old Frankish.- The...
of west Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
(e.g., Ik ne willen da nie doen, "I do not want to do that") and in some villages in the central Netherlands such as Garderen
Garderen
Garderen is a village in the Dutch province of Gelderland. It is located in the municipality of Barneveld, in the forests of the Veluwe. The village has 1,994 inhabitants ....
, it takes a different form than that found in Afrikaans. In Belgian Dutch dialects, however, there are still some widely used expressions like nooit niet ("never not") for "never".
Similar to some dialectal English, Bavarian employs both single and double negation, with the latter denoting special emphasis. For example, compare the Bavarian Des hob i no nia ned g'hört ("This have I yet never not heard") with the standard German "Das habe ich noch nie gehört".
Romance languages
In Romance languagesRomance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
, negation is generally expressed by placing a negative adverb (non in Latin and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, no in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, não in Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, ne in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, nu in Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
) before the verb, but more negative adverbs or pronouns may appear elsewhere to indicate what kind of negation is being made.
In French, a second negative particle pas is normally employed in simple negation. Standard Catalan uses the same particle, but only to express emphasis or reversal of one's expectations. In Latin, passus was the word for "step", so that originally French Je ne marche pas and Catalan No camino pas meant "I will not go a single step". In French, this initially emphatic usage spread so thoroughly that in colloquial speech it is often ne which is left out while pas serves as the sole negating element. A similar practice occurs in dialectal Catalan
Northern Catalan
Northern Catalan is a Catalan dialect mostly spoken in Northern Catalonia, but also extending in the northeast part of Southern Catalonia in a transition zone with Central Catalan....
, which omits no, and Occitan, which uses non only as a short answer to questions. In Venetan
Venetian language
Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
, the double negation no ... mìa can likewise lose the first particle and rely only on the second: magno mìa ("I eat not") and vegno mìa ("I know not").
In Italian a second negative particle usually turns the phrase into a positive one, but with a different meaning. For instance Voglio mangiare ("I want to eat") and Non voglio non mangiare ("I don't want not to eat") mean "I want to eat", but the second one means more precisely "I'd prefer to eat".
Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
often employ doubled negative correlative
Correlative
In grammar, correlatives are words that are separated in a sentence but function together to perform a single function.In English, examples are both—and, either—or, neither—nor, the—the , so—that , and if—then. In the Romance languages, the demonstrative pro-forms function as correlatives with the...
s. Portuguese Não vi nada, não ("I did not see nothing, no"), and Romanian Nu văd nimic ("I do not see nothing") are used to express "No, I didn't see anything".
Other Romance languages employ double negatives less regularly. In Asturian
Asturian language
Asturian is a Romance language of the West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the Spanish Region of Asturias by the Asturian people...
, an extra negative particle is used with negative adverbs: Yo nunca nun lu viera ("I had not never seen him") expresses "I have never seen him", and A mi tampoco nun me presta ("I neither do not like it") - "I do not like it, either". Standard Catalan also formerly possessed a tendency to double no with other negatives, such as Jo tampoc no l'he vista ("I neither have not seen her") to mean "I have not seen her either", but this practice is dying out.
Welsh
In spoken WelshWelsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, the word ddim (not) often occurs with a prefixed or mutated
Consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...
verb form that is negative in meaning: Dydy hi ddim yma (word-for-word, "Not-is she not here") expresses "She is not here" and Chaiff Aled ddim mynd (word-for-word, "Not-will-get Aled not go") expresses "Aled is not allowed to go".
Negative correlatives can also occur with already negative verb forms. In literary Welsh, the mutated verb form is caused by an initial negative particle, ni or nid. The particle is usually omitted in speech but the mutation remains: [Ni] wyddai neb (word-for-word, "[Not] not-knew nobody") means "Nobody knew" and [Ni] chaiff Aled fawr o bres (word-for-word, "[Not] not-will-get Aled lots of money") means "Aled will not get much money". This is not usually regarded as three negative markers, however, because the negative mutation is really just an effect of the initial particle on the following word.
Greek
Doubled negatives are perfectly correct in Ancient GreekAncient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
. With few exceptions, a simple negative (οὐ or μή) following another negative (e.g., οὐδείς, no one) results in an affirmation: οὐδείς οὐκ ἔπασχε τι ("No one was not suffering") means more simply "Everyone was suffering". Meanwhile, a compound negative following a negative strengthens the negation: μὴ θορυβήσῃ μηδείς ("Do not permit no one to raise an uproar") means "Let not a single one among them raise an uproar".
These constructions apply only when the negatives all refer to the same word or expression. Otherwise, the negatives simply work independently of one another: οὐ διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀκοντίζειν οὐκ ἔβαλον αὐτόν means "It was not on account of their not throwing that they did not hit him", and one shouldn't blame them for not trying.
Modern Greek
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
prefers double negation — Κανείς δεν μίλησε, "No one did not talk" — to single (here, Ουδείς μίλησε, "None talked").
Slavic languages
In Slavic languagesSlavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
other than Slavonic, multiple negatives are grammatically correct ways to express negation, while a single negative is often incorrect. In complex sentences, every part that could be grammatically negated should be negative. For example, in Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, Niko nikada nigde ništa nije uradio ("Nobody never didn't do nothing nowhere") means "Nobody has ever done anything, anywhere", and Nisam tamo nikad išla ("I never did not go there") means "I have never been there".
A single negation, while syntactically correct, may result in a very unusual meaning or make no sense at all. Saying "I saw nobody" in Polish (Widziałem nikogo) in place of the more usual "I did not see nobody" (Nikogo nie widziałem) might mean "I saw an instance of nobody" or "I saw Mr. Nobody" but would not have its plain English meaning. Likewise, in Slovenian
Slovenian language
Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union...
, saying "I do not know anyone" () in place of "I do not know no one" () has the connotation "I do not know just anyone" — i.e., I know someone important or special.
Baltic languages
As with most syntheticSynthetic language
In linguistic typology, a synthetic language is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio, as opposed to a low morpheme-per-word ratio in what is described as an isolating language...
satem
Centum-Satem isogloss
The centum-satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European language family, related to the different evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows of the mainstream reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European:...
languages double negative is mandatory in Latvian
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
and Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
. Furthermore, all of the verbs and indefinite pronoun
Indefinite pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that refers to one or more unspecified beings, objects, or places.-List of English indefinite pronouns:Note that many of these words can function as other parts of speech too, depending on context...
s in a given statement must be negated, thus it could be said that multiple negative is mandatory in Latvian. For instance, a statement "I haven't ever owed anything to anyone" would be rendered as es nekad nevienam neko neesmu bijis parādā. The only alternative would be using a negating subordinate clause and subjunctive in the main clause, which could be approximated in English as "there hasn't ever been an instance that I would have owed anything to anyone" — nav bijis tā, ka es kādreiz būtu kādam bijis kaut ko parādā — where negative pronouns (nekad, neviens, nekas) are swapped for indefinite pronoun
Indefinite pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that refers to one or more unspecified beings, objects, or places.-List of English indefinite pronouns:Note that many of these words can function as other parts of speech too, depending on context...
s (kādreiz, kāds, kaut kas) more in line with the English "ever, any" indefinite pronoun structures.
Uralic languages
Double or multiple negatives are grammatically required in HungarianHungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
with negative pronouns, e.g. Nincs semmim ("I do not have nothing") means "I do not have anything". Negative pronouns are constructed by means of adding the prefixes se-, sem-, and sen- to interrogative pronouns.
Double negation is required also in Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, which uses the auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
ei to express negation. Negative pronouns are constructed by means of adding one of the suffixes -an, -än, -kaan, or -kään to interrogative pronouns. An example: Kukaan ei soittanut minulle ("No one did not call me") is used to say "No one called me".
Japanese
Japanese employs litotesLitotes
In rhetoric, litotes is a figure of speech in which understatement is employed for rhetorical effect when an idea is expressed by a denial of its opposite, principally via double negatives....
to phrase ideas in a more indirect and polite manner. Thus, one can indicate necessity by emphasizing that not doing something will not do. For instance, しなければならない (shinakereba naranai, "must") literally means "not doing [it] would be unbecoming". しなければいけません (shinakereba ikemasen, also "must") similarly means "not doing [it] will not go forward".
Of course, indirectness can also be employed to put an edge on one's rudeness as well. "He has studied Japanese, so he should be able to write kanji" can be phrased 彼は日本語を勉強したから漢字が書けないわけがありません (kare wa nihongo o benkyō shita kara kanji ga kakenai wake ga arimasen), the rather harsher idea that "As he has studied Japanese, an excuse for him to be unable to write kanji does not exist".
Chinese
Mandarin Chinese also employs litotesLitotes
In rhetoric, litotes is a figure of speech in which understatement is employed for rhetorical effect when an idea is expressed by a denial of its opposite, principally via double negatives....
in a like manner. One common construction is 不得不 (Pinyin: bùdébù, "cannot not"), which is used to express (or feign) a necessity more regretful and polite than that expressed by 必须 (bìxū). Compared with "我必须走" (Wǒ bìxū zǒu, "I need to go"), "我不得不走" (Wǒ bùdébù zǒu) tries to emphasize that the situation is out of the speaker's hands and that he has no choice in the matter: "Unfortunately, I've got to go". Similarly, "没有人不知道" (Méiyǒu rén bù zhīdào, "There is not a person who doesn't know") is a more emphatic way to express "Everyone knows".
Double negatives nearly always resolve to a positive meaning even in colloquial speech, but illogically so can triple negatives as well. Saying "我不相信没人不来" (Wǒ bù xiāngxìn méi rén bù lái, "I do not believe no one will not come") should mean "I believe some people will not come" but is more often understood to mean "I think everyone will come". However, triple and multiple negatives are considered obscure and are typically avoided.
History of languages
Many languages, including all living Germanic languages, French, Welsh and some Berber and Arabic dialects, have gone through a process known as Jespersen's cycleJespersen's Cycle
Jespersen's Cycle is a series of processes in historical linguistics, which describe the historical development of the expression of negation in a variety of languages, from a simple pre-verbal marker of negation, through a discontinous marker and in some cases through subsequent loss of the...
, where an original negative particle is replaced by another, passing through a intermediate stage employing two particles (e.g. Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
jeo ne dis >> Modern Standard French je ne dis pas >> Modern Colloquial French je dis pas "I don't say"). In many cases the original sense of the new negative particle is not negative per se (thus in French pas "step", originally "not a step" = "not a bit"), but in Germanic languages such as English and German the intermediate stage was a case of double negation, as the current negatives not and nicht in these languages originally meant "nothing": e.g. Old English ic ne seah "I didn't see" >> Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
I ne saugh nawiht, lit. "I didn't see nothing" >> Early Modern English
Early Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
I saw not. A similar development to a circumfix
Circumfix
A circumfix is an affix, a morpheme that is placed around another morpheme. Circumfixes contrast with prefixes, attached to the beginnings of words; suffixes, that are attached at the end; and infixes, inserted in the middle. See also epenthesis...
from double negation can be seen in non-Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
languages, too: for example, in Maltese
Maltese language
Maltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,while also serving as an official language of the European Union, the only Semitic language so distinguished. Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic...
, kiel "he ate" is negated as ma kielx "he didn't eat", where the verb is preceded by a negative particle ma- "not" and followed by the particle -x, which was originally a shortened form of xejn "nothing" - thus, "he didn't eat nothing".
See also
- Agreement (linguistics)Agreement (linguistics)In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
- IdiomIdiomIdiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
- List of common English usage misconceptions
- NegationNegationIn logic and mathematics, negation, also called logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. Intuitively, the negation of a proposition is true when that proposition is false, and vice versa. In classical logic negation is normally identified...
- Negation (rhetoric)Negation (rhetoric)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...
- PleonasmPleonasmPleonasm is the use of more words or word-parts than is necessary for clear expression: examples are black darkness, or burning fire...
- Redundancy (language)Redundancy (language)In linguistics, redundancy is the construction of a phrase that presents some idea using more information, often via multiple means, than is necessary for one to be able understand the idea....
- Jespersen's cycleJespersen's CycleJespersen's Cycle is a series of processes in historical linguistics, which describe the historical development of the expression of negation in a variety of languages, from a simple pre-verbal marker of negation, through a discontinous marker and in some cases through subsequent loss of the...