A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical
negation
In logic, negation, also called the logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition P to another proposition "not P", written \neg P, \mathord P or \overline. It is interpreted intuitively as being true when P is false, and false ...
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 language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with ...
. In some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives affirm each other are said to have negative concord or emphatic negation.
Portuguese,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
Russian,
Greek,
Spanish,
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
,
Italian,
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
are examples of negative-concord languages. This is also true of many vernacular dialects of
modern English.
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
,
Dutch,
Japanese,
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
and modern
Standard English
In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone substantial regularisation and is associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service a ...
are examples of languages that do not have negative concord.
Typologically, it occurs in a minority of languages.
Languages without negative concord typically have
negative polarity In linguistics, a polarity item is a lexical item that is associated with affirmation or negation. An affirmation is a positive polarity item, abbreviated PPI or AFF. A negation is a negative polarity item, abbreviated NPI or NEG.
The linguistic ...
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 have
n't never owed
nothing to
no one" in negative-concord dialects of English, and "" in Portuguese, lit. "Never have I owed nothing to no one", or "" in Italian). Note that negative polarity can be triggered not only by direct negatives such as "not" or "never", but also 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").
Because standard English does not have negative concord but many
varieties and
registers of English do, and because most English speakers can speak or comprehend across varieties and registers, double negatives as
collocation
In corpus linguistics, a collocation is a series of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, a collocation is a type of compositional phraseme, meaning that it can be understood from the words th ...
s are functionally
auto-antonymic (contranymic) in English; for example, a collocation such as "ain't nothin" or "not nothing" can mean either "something" or "nothing", and its
disambiguation is resolved via the
contexts
''Contexts'': ''Understanding People in their Social Worlds'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal and an official publication of the American Sociological Association. It is designed to be a more accessible source of sociological ideas ...
of register, variety, locution, and content of ideas.
Stylistically, in English, double negatives can sometimes be used for affirmation (e.g. "I'm not feeling unwell"), an
understatement
Understatement is an expression of lesser strength than what the speaker or writer actually means or than what is normally expected. It is the opposite of embellishment or exaggeration, and is used for emphasis, irony, hedging, or humor. A partic ...
of the positive ("I'm feeling well"). The rhetorical term for this is
litotes
In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figures of speech, figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further a ...
.
English
Two negatives resolving to a positive
When two negatives are used in one independent clause, in standard English the negatives are understood to cancel one another and produce a weakened affirmative (see the Robert Lowth citation
below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
): this is known as
litotes
In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figures of speech, figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further a ...
. However, depending on how such a sentence is constructed, in some dialects if a verb or adverb is in between two negatives then the latter negative is assumed to be intensifying the former thus adding weight or feeling to the negative clause of the sentence. For this reason, it is difficult to portray double negatives in writing as the level of intonation to add weight in one's speech is lost. A double negative intensifier does not necessarily require the prescribed steps, and can easily be ascertained by the mood or intonation of the speaker. Compare
* ''There isn't no other way.''
:
= There's some other way. Negative: isn't (is not), no
versus
* ''There isn't no other way!''
:
= There's no other way!
These two sentences would be different in how they are communicated by speech. Any assumption would be correct, and the first sentence can be just as right or wrong in intensifying a negative as it is in cancelling it out; thereby rendering the sentence's meaning ambiguous. Since there is no adverb or verb to support the latter negative, the usage here is ambiguous and lies totally on the context behind the sentence. In light of punctuation, the second sentence can be viewed as the intensifier; and the former being a statement thus an admonishment.
In
Standard English
In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone substantial regularisation and is associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service a ...
, two negatives are understood to resolve to a positive. This rule was observed as early as 1762, when Bishop
Robert Lowth
Robert Lowth ( ; 27 November 1710 – 3 November 1787) 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
Lowth was born in Hampshire, England, G ...
wrote ''A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes''. For instance, "I don't disagree" could mean "I certainly agree", "I agree", "I sort of agree", "I don't understand your point of view (POV)", "I have no opinion", and so on; it is a form of "
weasel words". Further statements are necessary to resolve which particular meaning was intended.
This is opposed to the single negative "I don't agree", which typically means "I disagree". However, the statement "I don't completely disagree" is a similar double negative to "I don't disagree" but needs little or no clarification.
With the meaning "I completely agree", Lowth would have been referring to
litotes
In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figures of speech, figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further a ...
wherein two negatives simply cancel each other out. However, the usage of intensifying negatives and examples are presented in his work, which could also imply he wanted either usage of double negatives abolished. Because of this ambiguity, double negatives are frequently employed when making
back-handed compliments. The phrase "Mr. Jones wasn't incompetent." will seldom mean "Mr. Jones was very competent" since the speaker would've 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
![friar-canterbury-tales](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Friar-canterbury-tales.jpg)
Discussing English grammar, the term "double negative" is often, though not universally, applied to the
non-standard
Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...
use of a second negative as an intensifier to a negation.
Double negatives are usually associated with regional and ethnical dialects such as
Southern American English
Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by Wh ...
,
African American Vernacular English, and various British regional dialects. Indeed, they were used in
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
: for example,
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
made extensive use of double, triple, and even quadruple negatives in his ''
Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus' ...
''. About the Friar, he writes "" ("There never was no man nowhere so virtuous"). About the Knight, "" ("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
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
quoted his nephew's dying words in a letter to the boy's father
Valentine Walton
Valentine Walton (c. 1594–1661) was an English politician, a member of the Parliamentarian faction in the English Civil War, and one of the regicides of King Charles I of England.
Biography
Walton came from an ancient and knightly family of G ...
: "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 ... to be any more" instead.
Whereas some double negatives may resolve to a positive, in some dialects others resolve to intensify the negative clause within a sentence. For example:
* ''I didn't go nowhere today.''
* ''I'm not hungry no more.''
* ''You don't know nothing.''
* ''There was never no more laziness at work than before.''
In contrast, some double negatives become positives:
* ''I didn't not go to the park today.
* ''We can't not go to sleep!
* ''This is something you can't not watch.''
The key to understanding the former examples and knowing whether a double negative is intensive or negative is finding a verb between the two negatives. If a verb is present between the two, the latter negative becomes an intensifier which does not negate the former. In the first example, the verb ''to go'' separates the two negatives; therefore the latter negative does not negate the already negated verb. Indeed, the word 'nowhere' is thus being used as an
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
and does not negate the argument of the sentence. Double negatives such as ''I don't want to know no more'' contrast with Romance languages such as French in ''Je ne veux pas savoir.''
An exception is when the second negative is stressed, as in ''I'm not doing ; I'm thinking.'' A sentence can otherwise usually only become positive through consecutive uses of negatives, such as those prescribed in the later examples, where a clause is void of a verb and lacks an adverb to intensify it. Two of them also use emphasis to make the meaning clearer. The last example is a popular example of a double negative that resolves to a positive. This is because the verb 'to doubt' has no intensifier which effectively resolves a sentence to a positive. Had we added an adverb thus:
* ''I never had no doubt this sentence is false.''
Then what happens is that the verb ''to doubt'' becomes intensified, which indeed deduces that the sentence is indeed false since nothing was resolved to a positive. The same applies to the third example, where the adverb 'more' merges with the prefix ''no-'' to become a negative word, which when combined with the sentence's former negative only acts as an intensifier to the verb ''hungry''. Where people think that the sentence ''I'm not hungry no more'' resolves to a positive is where the latter negative ''no'' becomes an adjective which only describes its suffix counterpart ''more'' which effectively becomes a noun, instead of an adverb. This is a valid argument since adjectives do indeed describe the nature of a noun; yet some fail to take into account that the phrase ''no more'' is only an adverb and simply serves as an intensifier. Another argument used to support the position double negatives aren't acceptable is a mathematical analogy: negating a negative number results in a positive one; e.g., ; therefore, it is argued, ''I did not go nowhere'' resolves to ''I went somewhere''.
Other forms of double negatives, which are popular to this day and do strictly enhance the negative rather than destroying it, are described thus:
:''I'm not entirely familiar with
Nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
nor
Existentialism
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
.''
Philosophies aside, this form of double negative is still in use whereby the use of 'nor' enhances the negative clause by emphasizing what isn't to be. Opponents of double negatives would have preferred ''I'm not entirely familiar with
Nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
or
Existentialism
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
''; however this renders the sentence somewhat empty of the negative clause being advanced in the sentence. This form of double negative along with others described are standard ways of intensifying as well as enhancing a negative. The use of 'nor' to emphasise the negative clause is still popular today, and has been popular in the past through the works of Shakespeare and Milton:
:''Nor did they not perceive the evil plight''
:''In which they were'' ~
John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...
-
Paradise Lost
''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse (poetry), verse. A second edition fo ...
:''I never was, nor never will be'' ~
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
-
Richard III
Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...
The negatives herein do not cancel each other out but simply emphasize the negative clause.
![Multiple negation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Multiple_negation.png)
Up to the 18th century, double negatives were used to emphasize negation.
"Prescriptive grammarians" recorded and codified a shift away from the double negative in the 1700s. Double negatives continue to be spoken by those of Vernacular English, such as those of Appalachian English and African American Vernacular English. To such speakers, they view double negatives as emphasizing the negative rather than cancelling out the negatives. Researchers have studied African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and trace its origins back to colonial English. This shows that double negatives were present in colonial English, and thus presumably English as a whole, and were acceptable at that time. English after the 18th century was changed to become more logical and double negatives became seen as canceling each other as in mathematics. The use of double negatives became associated with being uneducated and illogical.
In his ''Essay towards a practical English Grammar'' of 1711,
James Greenwood first recorded the rule: "Two Negatives, or two Adverbs of Denying do in English affirm".
Robert Lowth
Robert Lowth ( ; 27 November 1710 – 3 November 1787) 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
Lowth was born in Hampshire, England, G ...
stated in his grammar textbook ''A Short Introduction to English Grammar'' (1762) that "two negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an affirmative".
Grammarians have assumed that Latin was the model for Lowth and other early grammarians in prescribing against negative concord, as Latin does not feature it. Data indicates, however, that negative concord had already fallen into disuse in Standard English by the time of Lowth's grammar, and no evidence exists that the loss was driven by prescriptivism, which was well established by the time it appeared.
In film and TV
Double negatives have been employed in various films and television shows. In the film ''
Mary Poppins It may refer to:
* ''Mary Poppins'' (book series), the original 1934–1988 children's fantasy novels that introduced the character.
* Mary Poppins (character), the nanny with magical powers.
* ''Mary Poppins'' (film), a 1964 Disney film sta ...
'' (1964), the
chimney sweep Bert employs a double negative when he says, "If you don't wanna go nowhere..." Another is used by the bandits in the "
Stinking Badges
"Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" is a paraphrase of a line of dialogue from the 1948 film '' The Treasure of the Sierra Madre''. That line was in turn derived from dialogue in the 1927 novel of the same name, which was the basis for t ...
" scene of
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...
's ''
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' (originally titled ''Der Schatz der Sierra Madre'') is a 1927 adventure novel by German author B. Traven, whose identity remains unknown. In the book, two destitute American men in Mexico of the 1920s join a ...
'' (1948): "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges!."
''The Simpsons'' episode "
Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder
"Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder" is the sixth episode of the eleventh season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 14, 1999. In the episode, Homer becomes ...
" (1999) features Bart writing "I won't not use no double negatives" (pictured) as part of the
opening sequence chalkboard gag. More recently, the British television show ''
EastEnders
''EastEnders'' is a Television in the United Kingdom, British soap opera created by Julia Smith (producer), Julia Smith and Tony Holland which has been broadcast on BBC One since February 1985. Set in the fictional borough of Walford in the Ea ...
'' has received some publicity over the
Estuary
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...
accent of character
Dot Branning, who speaks with double and triple negatives ("I ain't never heard of no licence.").. In the
Harry Enfield sketch "Mr Cholmondley-Warner's Guide to the Working-Class", a stereotypical Cockney employs a septuple-negative: "Inside toilet? I ain't never not heard of one of them nor I ain't nor nothing."
In music, double negatives can be employed to similar effect (as in
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
'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
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...
' "
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" is a song recorded by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. A product of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' songwriting partnership, it features a guitar riff by Richards that opens and drives the song. The riff ...
"). Other examples include
Ain't Nobody (
Chaka Khan
Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan (), is an American singer. Her career has spanned more than five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Known as the " Qu ...
),
Ain't No Sunshine (
Bill Withers), and
Ain't No Mountain High Enough (
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...
)
Other Germanic languages
Double negation is uncommon in other
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic ...
. A notable exception is
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
in which 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:
* ("I did not know that he would be coming.")
* ("I knew that he would not be coming.")
* ("He will not be coming because he is sick.")
* ("It is not so difficult to learn Afrikaans.")
Another point of view is that the construction is not really an example of a "double negative" but simply a grammatical template for negation. The second cannot be understood as a noun or adverb (unlike in French, for example), and it cannot be substituted by any part of speech other than itself with the sentence remaining grammatical. The grammatical particle has no independent meaning and happens to be spelled and pronounced the same as the embedded , meaning "not", by a historical accident.
The second is used if and only if the sentence or phrase does not already end with either or another negating adverb.
* ("I don't see you")
* ("I never see you")
Afrikaans shares with English the property that two negatives make a positive:
* ("I don't agree with you." )
* ("I don't ''not'' agree with you," i.e., I agree with you.)
Double negation is still found in the
Low Franconian dialects of west
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...
(e.g., , "I do not want to do that") and in some villages in the central Netherlands such as
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 (as of 1 January 2008).
Garderen was a separate municipality until 1818, ...
, but it takes a different form than that found in Afrikaans.
Belgian Dutch
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
dialects, however, still have some widely-used expressions like ("never not") for "never".
Like some dialects of English,
Bavarian has both single and double negation, with the latter denoting special emphasis. For example, the Bavarian ("This have I yet never not heard") can be compared to the Standard German "". The German emphatic "" (roughly "never ever") corresponds to Bavarian "" or even "" in the Standard German pronunciation.
Another exception is
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
for which
Slavic influence causes the double (and sometimes even triple) negative to be quite common.
A few examples would be:
* ("I never didn't say")
* ("I have no fear of no one not")
* It is common to add ("not") after the Yiddish word ("nothing"), i.e. ("I haven't said nothing")
Latin and Romance languages
In Latin a second negative word appearing along with turns the meaning into a positive one: means "any", means "no", () means "some". In the same way, means "ever", means "never", () means "sometimes". In many Romance languages a second term indicating a negative is required.
In French, the usual way to express simple negation is to employ two words, e.g. ''
erb'', ''
erb'', or ''
erb'', as in the sentences
,
, and
. The second term was originally an emphatic; , for example, derives from the Latin , meaning "step", so that French and Catalan originally meant "I will not walk a single step." This initial usage spread so thoroughly that it became a necessary element of any negation in the modern French language to such a degree that is generally dropped entirely, as in
. In
Northern Catalan, may be omitted in colloquial language, and
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
, which uses only as a short answer to questions. In
Venetian
Venetian often means from or related to:
* Venice, a city in Italy
* Veneto, a region of Italy
* Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area
Venetian and the like may also refer to:
* Venetian language, a Romance language s ...
, the double negation can likewise lose the first particle and rely only on the second: ("I eat not") and ("I come not"). These exemplify
Jespersen's cycle.
, , and (never, nothing, no one, nowhere) can be mixed with each other, and/or with (not anymore/not again) in French, e.g. to form sentences like (I didn't say anything to anyone) or even (He never says anything to anyone anymore).
The
Spanish,
Italian,
Portuguese and
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
languages usually employ doubled negative
correlatives. Portuguese , Spanish , Romanian and Italian (literally, "I do not see nothing") are used to express "I do not see anything". In Italian, a second following negative particle turns the phrase into a positive one, but with a slightly different meaning. For instance, while both ("I want to eat") and ("I don't want not to eat") mean "I want to eat", the latter phrase more precisely means "I'd prefer to eat".
Other Romance languages employ double negatives less regularly. In
Asturian, an extra negative particle is used with negative adverbs: ("I had not never seen him") means "I have never seen him" and ("I neither do not like it") means "I do not like it either".
Standard Catalan and
Galician also used to possess a tendency to double ''no'' with other negatives, so or , respectively meant "I have not seen her either". This practice is dying out.
Welsh
In spoken
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
, the word (not) often occurs with a prefixed or
mutated
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitos ...
verb form that is negative in meaning: (word-for-word, "Not-is she not here") expresses "She is not here" and (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, or . The particle is usually omitted in speech but the mutation remains: (word-for-word, "
otnot-knew nobody") means "Nobody knew" and (word-for-word, "
otnot-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
Ancient Greek
Doubled negatives are perfectly correct in
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
. With few exceptions, a simple negative (οὐ or μή) following another negative (for example, , ''no one'') results in an affirmation: ("No one was not suffering") means more simply "Everyone was suffering". Meanwhile, a compound negative following a negative strengthens the negation: ("Do not permit no one to raise an uproar") means "Let not a single one among them raise an uproar".
Those constructions apply only when the negatives all refer to the same word or expression. Otherwise, the negatives simply work independently of one another: means "It was not on account of their not throwing that they did not hit him", and one should not blame them for not trying.
Modern Greek
In
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
, a double negative can express either an affirmation or a negation, depending on the word combination. When expressing negation, it usually carries an emphasis with it. Native speakers can usually understand the sentence meaning from the voice tone and the context.
''Examples''
A combination of and has an affirmative meaning: "" translates "Without that meaning that we can't find it." i.e. We can find it.
A combination of and also has an affirmative meaning: "" translates "Doesn't mean that we can't find it." i.e. We can find it.
A combination of and has a negative meaning: "" translates "You won't get any book."
Slavic languages
In
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...
, multiple negatives affirm each other. Indeed, if a sentence contains a negated verb, any indefinite pronouns or adverbs must be used in their negative forms. For example, in the
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...
, ("Nobody never did not do nothing nowhere") means "Nobody has ever done anything, anywhere", and ("Never I did not go there") means "I have never been there". In Czech, it is ("I have not seen never no-one nowhere"). In Bulgarian, it is: [], lit. "I have not seen never no-one nowhere", or (''), lit. "I don't know nothing". In Russian, "I know nothing" is [], lit. "I don't know nothing".
Negating the verb without negating the pronoun (or vice versa), while syntactically correct, may result in a very unusual meaning or make no sense at all. Saying "I saw nobody" in
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
() instead of the more usual "I did not see nobody" () might mean "I saw an instance of nobody" or "I saw Mr Nobody" but it would not have its plain English meaning. Likewise, in
Slovenian
Slovene or Slovenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe
* Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia
* Slovenes
The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( sl, Sloven ...
, 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 know someone important or special."
In
Czech, like in many other languages, a standard double negative is used in sentences with a negative pronoun or negative conjunction, where the verb is also negated ( "nobody came", literally "nobody didn't come"). However, this doubleness is also transferred to forms where the verbal
copula is released and the negation is joined to the nominal form, and such a phrase can be ambiguous: ("nobody unscathed") can mean both "nobody healthy" and "all healthy". Similarly, ("nobody absent") or ("three tasks were planned, none uncompleted"). The sentence, ("all don't were there") means not "all absented" but "there were not all" (= "at least one of them absenteed"). If all absented, it should be said ("nobody weren't there"). However, in many cases, a double, triple quadruple negative can really work in such a way that each negative cancels out the next negative, and such a sentence may be a catch and may be incomprehensible to a less attentive or less intelligent addressee. E.g. the sentence, ("I can't never not indulge in inaction") contains 4 negations and it is very confusing which of them create a "double negative" and which of them eliminated from each other. Such confusing sentences can then diplomatically soften or blur rejection or unpleasant information or even agreement, but at the expense of intelligibility: ("it can't be not seen"), ("I'm not dissatisfied"), ("it/he is not uninteresting"), ("I can't disagree").
Baltic languages
As with most
synthetic Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to:
Science
* Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis
* Synthetic o ...
''
satem'' languages double negative is mandatory in
Latvian and
Lithuanian
Lithuanian may refer to:
* Lithuanians
* Lithuanian language
* The country of Lithuania
* Grand Duchy of Lithuania
* Culture of Lithuania
* Lithuanian cuisine
* Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...
. Furthermore, all verbs and
indefinite pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns.
Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related for ...
s in a given statement must be negated, so it could be said that multiple negative is mandatory in Latvian.
For instance, a statement "I have not
ever owed
anything to
anyone" would be rendered as . The only alternative would be using a negating
subordinate clause
A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as t ...
and
subjunctive
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
in the
main clause
An independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a ''simple sentence''. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself.
Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or ...
, which could be approximated in English as "there has not
ever been an instance that I would have owed
anything to
anyone" (), where negative pronouns () are replaced by
indefinite pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns.
Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related for ...
s () more in line with the English "ever, any" indefinite pronoun structures.
Uralic languages
Double or multiple negatives are grammatically required in
Hungarian with negative pronouns: (word for word: "
oesn't-exists othing-of-mine, and translates literally as "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.
Something superficially resembling double negation is required also in
Finnish, which uses the
auxiliary verb to express negation. Negative pronouns are constructed by adding one of the suffixes ''-an,'' ''-än,'' ''-kaan,'' or ''-kään'' to interrogative pronouns: means "No one called me". These suffixes are, however, never used alone, but always in connection with . This phenomenon is commonplace in Finnish, where many words have alternatives that are required in negative expressions, for example for ("even"), as in meaning "even so much", and meaning "not even so much".
Turkish
Negative verb forms are grammatically required in
Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
phrases with negative pronouns or adverbs that impart a negative meaning on the whole phrase. For example, (literally, word for word, "Not-one thing-of-mine exists-not") means "I don't have anything". Likewise, (literally, "Never satisfied not-I-am") means "I'm never satisfied".
Japanese
Japanese employs
litotes
In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figures of speech, figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further a ...
to phrase ideas in a more indirect and polite manner. Thus, one can indicate necessity by emphasizing that not doing something would not be proper. For instance, (', "must", more literally "if not done,
annot be") means "not doing
twouldn't be proper". (', also "must", "if not done, can not go') similarly means "not doing
tcan't go forward".
Of course, indirectness can also be employed to put an edge on one's rudeness as well. Whilst "He has studied Japanese, so he should be able to write kanji" can be phrased ('), there is a harsher idea in it: "As he's studied Japanese, the reasoning that he can't write Kanji doesn't exist".
Chinese
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
and most
Chinese languages also employ
litotes
In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figures of speech, figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further a ...
in a likewise manner. One common construction is "" (
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
: ', "mustn't not" or "shalln't not"), which is used to express (or feign) a necessity more regretful and convenable than that expressed by "" (', "must"). Compared with "" (', "I must go"), "" (', "I mustn't not go") emphasizes that the situation is out of the speaker's hands and that the speaker has no choice in the matter: "Unfortunately, I have got to go". Similarly, "" (') or idiomatically "无人不知" ( , "There is no one who does not know") is a more emphatic way to express "Every single one knows".
A double negative almost always resolves to a positive meaning and even more so in colloquial speech where the speaker particularly stresses the first negative word. Meanwhile, a triple negative resolves to a negative meaning, which bares a stronger negativity than a single negative. For example, "" (', "I do not think there is no one who does not know") ambiguously means either "I don't think everyone knows" or "I think someone does not know". A quadruple negative further resolves to a positive meaning embedded with stronger affirmation than a double negative; for example, "" (', "It is not the case that I do not know that no one doesn't like him") means "I do know that everyone likes him". However, more than triple negatives are frequently perceived as obscure and rarely encountered.
Historical development
![Jespersen's cycle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Jespersen%27s_cycle.svg)
Many languages, including all living Germanic languages, French, Welsh and some Berber and Arabic dialects, have gone through a process known as
Jespersen's cycle, where an original negative particle is replaced by another, passing through an intermediate stage employing two particles (e.g.
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
→ Modern Standard French → Modern Colloquial French "I don't say").
In many cases, the original sense of the new negative particle is not negative ''per se'' (thus in French "step", originally "not a step" = "not a bit"). However, in Germanic languages such as English and German, the intermediate stage was a case of double negation, as the current negatives ''not'' and in these languages originally meant "nothing": e.g.
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
"I didn't see" >>
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
, lit. "I didn't see nothing" >>
Early Modern English ''I saw not''.
A similar development to a
circumfix
A circumfix (abbreviated ) (also confix or ambifix) is an affix which has two parts, one placed at the start of a word, and the other at the end. Circumfixes contrast with prefixes, attached to the beginnings of words; suffixes, attached at t ...
from double negation can be seen in non-
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
languages, too: for example, in
Maltese
Maltese may refer to:
* Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta
* Maltese alphabet
* Maltese cuisine
* Maltese culture
* Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people
* Maltese people, people from Malta or of Malte ...
, "he ate" is negated as "he did not eat", where the verb is preceded by a negative particle - "not" and followed by the particle ''-x'', which was originally a shortened form of "nothing" - thus, "he didn't eat nothing".
See also
*
Affirmative and negative Affirmative may refer to:
*Pertaining to truth
*An answer that shows agreement or acceptance, such as " yes"
*Affirmative (linguistics), a positive (non-negated) sentence or clause
*Affirmative (policy debate)
Policy debate is an American form ...
*
Agreement (linguistics)
*
Idiom
An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
*
Jespersen's cycle
*
List of common English usage misconceptions
This list comprises widespread modern beliefs about English language usage that are documented by a reliable source to be misconceptions.
With no authoritative language academy, guidance on English language usage can come from many sources. Thi ...
*
Litote
In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, o ...
s
*
Negation
In logic, negation, also called the logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition P to another proposition "not P", written \neg P, \mathord P or \overline. It is interpreted intuitively as being true when P is false, and false ...
*
Pleonasm
Pleonasm (; , ) is redundancy in linguistic expression, such as "black darkness" or "burning fire". It is a manifestation of tautology by traditional rhetorical criteria and might be considered a fault of style. Pleonasm may also be used for em ...
*
Redundancy (linguistics)
In linguistics, redundancy refers to information that is expressed more than once.
Examples of redundancies include multiple agreement features in morphology, multiple features distinguishing phonemes in phonology, or the use of multiple words t ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Double Negative
Grammar
Nonstandard English grammar
Semantics
Ambiguity