Double negative
I've heard that double neg is grammatically correct in some langaues Russian? Free ringtones Tarquin/Tarquin 00:51 Mar 10, 2003
It works in Spanish. Majo Mills User:Zoe/Zoe
And Italian. Mosquito ringtone 131.183.81.100/131.183.81.100 01:33 Mar 10, 2003
:The negation in french can be considered as a double-negation, i.e.:
::english: I do not lie.
::french: Je ne ment pas.
:Afrikaans certainly have double-negation, but I can't give an example. - Sabrina Martins Looxix/looxix 01:37 Mar 10, 2003
:: no, that's not a double neg in French they are two parts of the single negative. the same way that in English an infinitive is made of two words. Nextel ringtones Tarquin/Tarquin 14:27 Mar 10, 2003
:::OK not exactly the same meaning as in the article, but IMHO only slightly: in english "''to''" is the mark of infinitive. In french "''ne''" or "''pas''" alone can already mark the negation: i.e. "''Je n'ai rien vu''" which literal translation should give "''I didn't see nothing''", but means "''I didn't see anything''" or "''J'aime ceçi, mais pas celà''" ("''I like this, but not that''"). You see my point? In all case, in french grammar this is called a double negation. (In liguistic there is a well known evolution in the mark of negation: (1) single negation before the verb, (2) double negation/two-parts negation before and after the verb and (3) single negation after the verb; apparently French is in phase (2) (see Abbey Diaz Jespersen cycle from the Danish linguist Free ringtones Otto Jespersen)).
:::In Majo Mills Acadian French, things are clearer: "''J'ai pas vu personne''" is correct but not in French.
:::Otherwise, in French a sentence like "''Personne n'a rien dit''" ("''Nobody didn't say nothing''" ?) is not incorrect but ambiguous (can resolve to a negative or a positive).
:::In Latin: "two negations were used in order to stress the positive. For example 'non ignoramus': non = not ignoramus = we don't know(=are ignorant ;-) ) non ignoramus = we certainly know, we know well."
:::It seems that Mosquito ringtone Cicero used that kind of construction quite a lot in ''Pro Milone'' and in the ''Catilinaria'', but this is considered as a 'figure de style'.
:::Yiddish, like Old-German, seems to use a double-negation like the ''ne...pas'' in french, called 'doppelte Verneinung': i.e "ka mol nit shvarts".
:::In Dutch: "Medieval Dutch texts use it too. Perhaps because most were written by Sabrina Martins Flemish people. Even today the southwestern dialects (spoken in Cingular Ringtones Brugge, rulings by Ostend, without remorse Roeselare) use a double negation. I think they would say ''Het en is nie ware'' instead of ''Het is niet waar'' in Standard Dutch".
:::In moderm German, the phrase ''es wird nie nicht zu Gold'' is grammatically possible, but most people would guess that it means ''it always becomes gold''.
:::Portuguese has a double negation too (same as the ''ne...pas'' in French): ''Não diz nada''
:::In Italian: ''Non sono mai a casa prima delle...'' (''I'm not never at home before...'').
::::Hope it's help. rejected then Looxix/looxix 22:53 Mar 10, 2003
::::: A couple of points: Firstly, the verb '''ignoro''' in Latin is a negative concept, but not a negative form of a verb, any more than the English word '''ignore''' is a negative form of some verb (maybe *'''nore'''?). Also, the French '''je ne vois rien''' isn't a double negative; if you take off the word '''rien''', you have *'''je ne vois''', ungrammatical by all accounts; therefore, '''rien''' must be part of the single negative '''ne...rien'''. They are derived historically from double negatives, but not anymore. Finally, '''to''' in English is a linking particle; the true infinitive is the naked, unaltered verb. It just happens that where English speakers use '''to go''', for instance, French speakers would use the infinitive '''aller'''. If '''to''' + verb were a unit infinitive, you couldn't say '''to boldly go where no man has gone before'''! :) repaired driveways thefamouseccles/thefamouseccles 01:01 13 Oct 2003
::: In fragile bounty Ubykh language/Ubykh, double negatives are bad grammar. The sentence ''Nobody did anything'' is rendered as '''tæt sya aynsjq'ama''' or ''a person did not do a thing''. The structure's very similar to the French ''Personne n'a fait rien''. But the emphatic negative suffix -'''bzra''' can appear with the plain negative prefix '''m'''('''æ''')- or suffix -'''ma''': '''aysæmsjæbzran''' ''I definitely did not do it''.
-
Sentence moved from article for clarification:
''There can be as many negations as the speaker wants, but typically, all of the words that can be negated are.''
I have read this sentence eight times now, and I still have no idea what it means. Can somebody who understands it please re-write it? emerging channel GrahamN/GrahamN 02:24 Mar 10, 2003
Does "consistantly" = "constantly" or "consistently"? Whatever the meaning, I suspect the point I added about colloquial English is incorrect. circulation british User:Jfitzg/Jfitzg
:"Consistantly" = "consistently". Don't be stupid.
::Is this meant to be a helpful comment? Or funny? Or insulting? instructive effect AverageGuy/AverageGuy 00:58, 11 Dec 2004
''From covering patients User talk:GrahamN'':
About that translation: is "No-one's negligence anywhere ever to anyone in any way brought anything but unhappiness." correct? couple contract Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 07:05, 14 Sep 2003
:Hello. I'm in no position to say whether or not it is correct, as I have no knowledge of the Serbian language. But that form of words sounds very odd to a native English speaker like me, and it requires some deciphering to understand. Would you accept a simplified "meta-translation" of : ''Negligence brings nothing but unhappiness''? studios ought GrahamN/GrahamN 14:38, 17 Sep 2003
::Well yes, I just wanted to emphasize it so I added all possible adverbs.
::''Negligence brings nothing but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence brought anything but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence did ever brought anything but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence did ever in any way brought anything but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence did ever to anyone in any way brought anything but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence did ever to anyone anywhere in any way brought anything but unhappiness''
::In English, all adverbs and the verb are in positive, in Serbian they are in negative. That's what I wanted to say. project security Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 04:38, 18 Sep 2003
Surely a single negation in Serbian cannot be a grammatical error if there is only room for one negation? I quote from the article: "double negative is correct while single negative is grammatical error". While I don't know Serbian, the concept of a single negative being impossible strikes me as odd. For instance, wouldn't the translation of ''John cannot swim'' only contain one negative? atlanta more thefamouseccles/thefamouseccles 23:03, 18 Sep 2003
: Hmm. Well, actually, yes. But ''John never swims'' would contain two (literally ''John never non-swims''). Double negative occurs only when both adverb(s) and verb are negated. Is it the same in English?
: Please don't correct it before we agree on this. By the way, I think that the same applies to all Slavic languages.
: Note that ''Je ne ment pas'' is not double negation as only one way of expressing negation occurs: only the werb is negated, albeit with two words. politicians staffs Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 04:38, 18 Sep 2003
:: I agree with you. The negation in French is not a prefix ''and'' a suffix, but a idealists credo circumfix. The fact that ''ne...pas'', ''ne...guerre'', ''ne..rien'' and ''ne...que'' all use the same first word is pretty much incidental; while these terms are all ''derived'' from historical double negatives (eg. '''Je ne fais rien''' ''I'm not doing anything'' is historically ''I (do) not do nothing''), the construct in modern French is a single negative. (However, colloquial French is beginning to drop the ''ne'' at the beginning: '''J'ai pas bu le coca''', ''I didn't drink the Coke''. Might French end up with the double negative again?)
:: English only ever takes the one negative (except in paying media Ebonics/AAVE and some other non-literary-standard varieties), regardless of adverbs or other terms in the sentence:
::: John swims. (positive; no negatives)
::: John does not swim. (single negative)
::: John never does not swim. (double negative >> "John swims all the time")
::::Gimme a break. That's so contrived, it's not even an English sentence. No one could ever possibly say that.
::: John swims for nobody. (single negative >> "John doesn't swim for anybody")
::: John never swims for nobody. (double negative >> "John always swims for somebody", but the prominence of AAVE in recent years means a lot of people would interpret this as an AAVE form meaning the same as "John swims for nobody").
:: More than two negatives gets impossible to parse for English-speakers, because we're only used to one (or sometimes two). Even AAVE speakers would have trouble with ''John never does not swim for nobody''. row says thefamouseccles/thefamouseccles 23:58 08 Oct 2003
:::Because that's not even AAVE, no AAVE speaker would ever say that. It would more likely be "John don't never swim for nobody".
Sentences such as "I don't disagree" do not contain double negatives, but there seems to be some discussion of sentences like this in the article. Should it be removed? homes tend User:Cadr/Cadr
: I don't think it should be removed. As it does look like a double negative, it should rather be explained why it isn't and what it is. athens published Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 11:53, 24 May 2004
::I suppose the problem is that "double negative" isn't a technical term. But still, if "I don't disagree" ''is'' a double negative, then we'd have to say that double negatives are sometimes OK in standard English. My understanding is that "double negative" refers to the status of quantified variables under the scope of negation. For example, the contrast between "I didn't do anything" and "I didn't do nothing", where the logical structure of both sentences is something like this:
:::For all X, I didn't do X
::The difference between a double and a single negative being that in the former, the X is also in a negative form. If there aren't any objections, I'll edit the article in a little while to focus on this sort of construction, and not to term constructions such as "I don't disagree" as double negatives. confident protagonists Cadr/Cadr 22:47, 24 May 2004
:::OK, but I'm quite certain that "I don't disagree" is not a double negative. Regarding your logical structure:
::::For all X, I didn't do X
::::For all X, I did no X
:::are one and the same thing. Double negative occurs when:
::::For all X, I didn't do no X
:::Now consider:
::::For all X, I didn't do X
::::For all X, I didn't do non-X
:::which are opposites. "I never disagree" and "I don't ever disagree" are single negatives; "I don't never disagree" is double negative. Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 07:32, 25 May 2004
::::I totally agree with you Nikola, that was what I was trying to say. Sorry if I didn't make it clear :) Cadr/Cadr 14:34, 25 May 2004
-
German Language
German had the double negative, too, but it disappeared almoust completely. In "Hochdeutsch" (the standard German language,) it is only possible to use it as characterisation of a special speaker, or to show "old" language. In Dialekts, however, it lives.
If somebody uses a double negative form in standard German, it converts to a positive usually. Example: Ich habe niemals nicht schwimmen gekonnt. (word by word: "I have never not swimming was able": With double negative it means: I never could swim. But with logical negative, it means: I could swim from the beginning. A double negative becomes a kind of ambigous antagonymic sentence and is avoided. But there are some idioms and jokes using it: "Du bist nicht undumm" (you are not unsilly) Best regards Hutschi/Hutschi 15:06, 18 May 2004
Hi,
the German part is removed. I do not agree to the reasons. (May be the removal itself was ok.)
1. No double negative? The Definition is: A double negative occurs when two or more ways to express negation are used in the same sentence. In some languages a double negative resolves to a negative, while in others it resolves to a positive. - According to this definition, the examples are double negatives.
2. It is similar to English. That is true. If the international situation is included into the article, it should be mentioned, at least. It will not be possible to include all languages. May be, the article should include the situation in language groups.
German
In the German language, the situation is similar to English. The double negative almoust disappeared in the standard language. It is available in the dialects.
In negative questions, however, a special form of the double negative is used:
"Kommst du nicht mit ins Kino?"
(Won't you come into the cinema with us?"
If you answer: "Yes" or "No", it is ambigiuos, because of double negative.
The answer would be, for example:
"Nein, ich komme nicht mit ins Kino."
(No, I will not come into the cinema with you."
"Ja, ich komme nicht mit ins Kino." is not used. It can be used as joke only.
Hutschi/Hutschi 08:33, 10 Jun 2004
:Since the constructions are the same in both languages, and this is the English WIkipedia, let's talk about this in English. ;-) There is no double negative in the question: "Aren't you going to the cinema?" There is no double negative in the answer: "No, I'm not going". There is no double negative in the joke answer "Yes, I'm not going". There is no ambiguity in any of these. Markalexander100/Markalexander100 09:22, 10 Jun 2004
The ambiguity is in the answer Nein!" "No" with one word. The double negative removes the ambiguity. (logically, it is parallel, the other double negatives are serial.) This is a very special case. To the other question: May be, for German, it is enough to mention, that the situation is similar to English. One question: "Aren't you going to the cinema?" How would you ansewr with a single word to say Yes?, or to say No? In German, the answer for "Yes" is not "Ja!", but "Doch!" (you want to go there.) ("Doch" "Yes" is used as logical negation of the sentence.) Hutschi/Hutschi 09:42, 10 Jun 2004
:If you answer "no", there is ambiguity as to what you are negating. But there is only one negative. Markalexander100/Markalexander100 09:44, 10 Jun 2004
Exactly. I want to thank you for your kind answer, Markalexander. But I have an additional question: There is the definition: ''A double negative occurs when two or more ways to express negation are used in the same sentence. In some languages a double negative resolves to a negative, while in others it resolves to a positive.'' This does not say anything about how the negatives are connected. Is this correct? Hutschi/Hutschi 09:51, 10 Jun 2004
:The definition is not entirely accurate (few definitions are!). The sentence "I don't have any apples, nor do I have oranges." contains two ways to express negation, but there's no double negative (because they're negating different things). Markalexander100/Markalexander100 01:12, 11 Jun 2004
:: Actually, the definition is still valid for that sentence, as it is a Compound sentence (linguistics)/Compound sentence. And yes, German examples are not double negation despite being ambiguous. Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 09:57, 11 Dec 2004
It works in Spanish. Majo Mills User:Zoe/Zoe
And Italian. Mosquito ringtone 131.183.81.100/131.183.81.100 01:33 Mar 10, 2003
:The negation in french can be considered as a double-negation, i.e.:
::english: I do not lie.
::french: Je ne ment pas.
:Afrikaans certainly have double-negation, but I can't give an example. - Sabrina Martins Looxix/looxix 01:37 Mar 10, 2003
:: no, that's not a double neg in French they are two parts of the single negative. the same way that in English an infinitive is made of two words. Nextel ringtones Tarquin/Tarquin 14:27 Mar 10, 2003
:::OK not exactly the same meaning as in the article, but IMHO only slightly: in english "''to''" is the mark of infinitive. In french "''ne''" or "''pas''" alone can already mark the negation: i.e. "''Je n'ai rien vu''" which literal translation should give "''I didn't see nothing''", but means "''I didn't see anything''" or "''J'aime ceçi, mais pas celà''" ("''I like this, but not that''"). You see my point? In all case, in french grammar this is called a double negation. (In liguistic there is a well known evolution in the mark of negation: (1) single negation before the verb, (2) double negation/two-parts negation before and after the verb and (3) single negation after the verb; apparently French is in phase (2) (see Abbey Diaz Jespersen cycle from the Danish linguist Free ringtones Otto Jespersen)).
:::In Majo Mills Acadian French, things are clearer: "''J'ai pas vu personne''" is correct but not in French.
:::Otherwise, in French a sentence like "''Personne n'a rien dit''" ("''Nobody didn't say nothing''" ?) is not incorrect but ambiguous (can resolve to a negative or a positive).
:::In Latin: "two negations were used in order to stress the positive. For example 'non ignoramus': non = not ignoramus = we don't know(=are ignorant ;-) ) non ignoramus = we certainly know, we know well."
:::It seems that Mosquito ringtone Cicero used that kind of construction quite a lot in ''Pro Milone'' and in the ''Catilinaria'', but this is considered as a 'figure de style'.
:::Yiddish, like Old-German, seems to use a double-negation like the ''ne...pas'' in french, called 'doppelte Verneinung': i.e "ka mol nit shvarts".
:::In Dutch: "Medieval Dutch texts use it too. Perhaps because most were written by Sabrina Martins Flemish people. Even today the southwestern dialects (spoken in Cingular Ringtones Brugge, rulings by Ostend, without remorse Roeselare) use a double negation. I think they would say ''Het en is nie ware'' instead of ''Het is niet waar'' in Standard Dutch".
:::In moderm German, the phrase ''es wird nie nicht zu Gold'' is grammatically possible, but most people would guess that it means ''it always becomes gold''.
:::Portuguese has a double negation too (same as the ''ne...pas'' in French): ''Não diz nada''
:::In Italian: ''Non sono mai a casa prima delle...'' (''I'm not never at home before...'').
::::Hope it's help. rejected then Looxix/looxix 22:53 Mar 10, 2003
::::: A couple of points: Firstly, the verb '''ignoro''' in Latin is a negative concept, but not a negative form of a verb, any more than the English word '''ignore''' is a negative form of some verb (maybe *'''nore'''?). Also, the French '''je ne vois rien''' isn't a double negative; if you take off the word '''rien''', you have *'''je ne vois''', ungrammatical by all accounts; therefore, '''rien''' must be part of the single negative '''ne...rien'''. They are derived historically from double negatives, but not anymore. Finally, '''to''' in English is a linking particle; the true infinitive is the naked, unaltered verb. It just happens that where English speakers use '''to go''', for instance, French speakers would use the infinitive '''aller'''. If '''to''' + verb were a unit infinitive, you couldn't say '''to boldly go where no man has gone before'''! :) repaired driveways thefamouseccles/thefamouseccles 01:01 13 Oct 2003
::: In fragile bounty Ubykh language/Ubykh, double negatives are bad grammar. The sentence ''Nobody did anything'' is rendered as '''tæt sya aynsjq'ama''' or ''a person did not do a thing''. The structure's very similar to the French ''Personne n'a fait rien''. But the emphatic negative suffix -'''bzra''' can appear with the plain negative prefix '''m'''('''æ''')- or suffix -'''ma''': '''aysæmsjæbzran''' ''I definitely did not do it''.
-
Sentence moved from article for clarification:
''There can be as many negations as the speaker wants, but typically, all of the words that can be negated are.''
I have read this sentence eight times now, and I still have no idea what it means. Can somebody who understands it please re-write it? emerging channel GrahamN/GrahamN 02:24 Mar 10, 2003
Does "consistantly" = "constantly" or "consistently"? Whatever the meaning, I suspect the point I added about colloquial English is incorrect. circulation british User:Jfitzg/Jfitzg
:"Consistantly" = "consistently". Don't be stupid.
::Is this meant to be a helpful comment? Or funny? Or insulting? instructive effect AverageGuy/AverageGuy 00:58, 11 Dec 2004
''From covering patients User talk:GrahamN'':
About that translation: is "No-one's negligence anywhere ever to anyone in any way brought anything but unhappiness." correct? couple contract Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 07:05, 14 Sep 2003
:Hello. I'm in no position to say whether or not it is correct, as I have no knowledge of the Serbian language. But that form of words sounds very odd to a native English speaker like me, and it requires some deciphering to understand. Would you accept a simplified "meta-translation" of : ''Negligence brings nothing but unhappiness''? studios ought GrahamN/GrahamN 14:38, 17 Sep 2003
::Well yes, I just wanted to emphasize it so I added all possible adverbs.
::''Negligence brings nothing but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence brought anything but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence did ever brought anything but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence did ever in any way brought anything but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence did ever to anyone in any way brought anything but unhappiness''
::''No-one's negligence did ever to anyone anywhere in any way brought anything but unhappiness''
::In English, all adverbs and the verb are in positive, in Serbian they are in negative. That's what I wanted to say. project security Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 04:38, 18 Sep 2003
Surely a single negation in Serbian cannot be a grammatical error if there is only room for one negation? I quote from the article: "double negative is correct while single negative is grammatical error". While I don't know Serbian, the concept of a single negative being impossible strikes me as odd. For instance, wouldn't the translation of ''John cannot swim'' only contain one negative? atlanta more thefamouseccles/thefamouseccles 23:03, 18 Sep 2003
: Hmm. Well, actually, yes. But ''John never swims'' would contain two (literally ''John never non-swims''). Double negative occurs only when both adverb(s) and verb are negated. Is it the same in English?
: Please don't correct it before we agree on this. By the way, I think that the same applies to all Slavic languages.
: Note that ''Je ne ment pas'' is not double negation as only one way of expressing negation occurs: only the werb is negated, albeit with two words. politicians staffs Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 04:38, 18 Sep 2003
:: I agree with you. The negation in French is not a prefix ''and'' a suffix, but a idealists credo circumfix. The fact that ''ne...pas'', ''ne...guerre'', ''ne..rien'' and ''ne...que'' all use the same first word is pretty much incidental; while these terms are all ''derived'' from historical double negatives (eg. '''Je ne fais rien''' ''I'm not doing anything'' is historically ''I (do) not do nothing''), the construct in modern French is a single negative. (However, colloquial French is beginning to drop the ''ne'' at the beginning: '''J'ai pas bu le coca''', ''I didn't drink the Coke''. Might French end up with the double negative again?)
:: English only ever takes the one negative (except in paying media Ebonics/AAVE and some other non-literary-standard varieties), regardless of adverbs or other terms in the sentence:
::: John swims. (positive; no negatives)
::: John does not swim. (single negative)
::: John never does not swim. (double negative >> "John swims all the time")
::::Gimme a break. That's so contrived, it's not even an English sentence. No one could ever possibly say that.
::: John swims for nobody. (single negative >> "John doesn't swim for anybody")
::: John never swims for nobody. (double negative >> "John always swims for somebody", but the prominence of AAVE in recent years means a lot of people would interpret this as an AAVE form meaning the same as "John swims for nobody").
:: More than two negatives gets impossible to parse for English-speakers, because we're only used to one (or sometimes two). Even AAVE speakers would have trouble with ''John never does not swim for nobody''. row says thefamouseccles/thefamouseccles 23:58 08 Oct 2003
:::Because that's not even AAVE, no AAVE speaker would ever say that. It would more likely be "John don't never swim for nobody".
Sentences such as "I don't disagree" do not contain double negatives, but there seems to be some discussion of sentences like this in the article. Should it be removed? homes tend User:Cadr/Cadr
: I don't think it should be removed. As it does look like a double negative, it should rather be explained why it isn't and what it is. athens published Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 11:53, 24 May 2004
::I suppose the problem is that "double negative" isn't a technical term. But still, if "I don't disagree" ''is'' a double negative, then we'd have to say that double negatives are sometimes OK in standard English. My understanding is that "double negative" refers to the status of quantified variables under the scope of negation. For example, the contrast between "I didn't do anything" and "I didn't do nothing", where the logical structure of both sentences is something like this:
:::For all X, I didn't do X
::The difference between a double and a single negative being that in the former, the X is also in a negative form. If there aren't any objections, I'll edit the article in a little while to focus on this sort of construction, and not to term constructions such as "I don't disagree" as double negatives. confident protagonists Cadr/Cadr 22:47, 24 May 2004
:::OK, but I'm quite certain that "I don't disagree" is not a double negative. Regarding your logical structure:
::::For all X, I didn't do X
::::For all X, I did no X
:::are one and the same thing. Double negative occurs when:
::::For all X, I didn't do no X
:::Now consider:
::::For all X, I didn't do X
::::For all X, I didn't do non-X
:::which are opposites. "I never disagree" and "I don't ever disagree" are single negatives; "I don't never disagree" is double negative. Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 07:32, 25 May 2004
::::I totally agree with you Nikola, that was what I was trying to say. Sorry if I didn't make it clear :) Cadr/Cadr 14:34, 25 May 2004
-
German Language
German had the double negative, too, but it disappeared almoust completely. In "Hochdeutsch" (the standard German language,) it is only possible to use it as characterisation of a special speaker, or to show "old" language. In Dialekts, however, it lives.
If somebody uses a double negative form in standard German, it converts to a positive usually. Example: Ich habe niemals nicht schwimmen gekonnt. (word by word: "I have never not swimming was able": With double negative it means: I never could swim. But with logical negative, it means: I could swim from the beginning. A double negative becomes a kind of ambigous antagonymic sentence and is avoided. But there are some idioms and jokes using it: "Du bist nicht undumm" (you are not unsilly) Best regards Hutschi/Hutschi 15:06, 18 May 2004
Hi,
the German part is removed. I do not agree to the reasons. (May be the removal itself was ok.)
1. No double negative? The Definition is: A double negative occurs when two or more ways to express negation are used in the same sentence. In some languages a double negative resolves to a negative, while in others it resolves to a positive. - According to this definition, the examples are double negatives.
2. It is similar to English. That is true. If the international situation is included into the article, it should be mentioned, at least. It will not be possible to include all languages. May be, the article should include the situation in language groups.
German
In the German language, the situation is similar to English. The double negative almoust disappeared in the standard language. It is available in the dialects.
In negative questions, however, a special form of the double negative is used:
"Kommst du nicht mit ins Kino?"
(Won't you come into the cinema with us?"
If you answer: "Yes" or "No", it is ambigiuos, because of double negative.
The answer would be, for example:
"Nein, ich komme nicht mit ins Kino."
(No, I will not come into the cinema with you."
"Ja, ich komme nicht mit ins Kino." is not used. It can be used as joke only.
Hutschi/Hutschi 08:33, 10 Jun 2004
:Since the constructions are the same in both languages, and this is the English WIkipedia, let's talk about this in English. ;-) There is no double negative in the question: "Aren't you going to the cinema?" There is no double negative in the answer: "No, I'm not going". There is no double negative in the joke answer "Yes, I'm not going". There is no ambiguity in any of these. Markalexander100/Markalexander100 09:22, 10 Jun 2004
The ambiguity is in the answer Nein!" "No" with one word. The double negative removes the ambiguity. (logically, it is parallel, the other double negatives are serial.) This is a very special case. To the other question: May be, for German, it is enough to mention, that the situation is similar to English. One question: "Aren't you going to the cinema?" How would you ansewr with a single word to say Yes?, or to say No? In German, the answer for "Yes" is not "Ja!", but "Doch!" (you want to go there.) ("Doch" "Yes" is used as logical negation of the sentence.) Hutschi/Hutschi 09:42, 10 Jun 2004
:If you answer "no", there is ambiguity as to what you are negating. But there is only one negative. Markalexander100/Markalexander100 09:44, 10 Jun 2004
Exactly. I want to thank you for your kind answer, Markalexander. But I have an additional question: There is the definition: ''A double negative occurs when two or more ways to express negation are used in the same sentence. In some languages a double negative resolves to a negative, while in others it resolves to a positive.'' This does not say anything about how the negatives are connected. Is this correct? Hutschi/Hutschi 09:51, 10 Jun 2004
:The definition is not entirely accurate (few definitions are!). The sentence "I don't have any apples, nor do I have oranges." contains two ways to express negation, but there's no double negative (because they're negating different things). Markalexander100/Markalexander100 01:12, 11 Jun 2004
:: Actually, the definition is still valid for that sentence, as it is a Compound sentence (linguistics)/Compound sentence. And yes, German examples are not double negation despite being ambiguous. Nikola Smolenski/Nikola 09:57, 11 Dec 2004
posted | 6:38 PM
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