Question 1 (Consolidate)
Change the following affirmative clauses to negative ones and identify the strategy used to do so. For each clause, give the negative version both with and without a contraction.
| 1 | My parcel has arrived |
| 2 | The dogs need a walk |
| 3 | I’m going to the party |
| 4 | They finished the job on time |
| 5 | Will you finish that book? |
| 6 | Those people are ready for change |
Answer
| | without a contraction | with a contraction |
| 1 | My parcel has not arrived | My parcel hasn’t arrived |
| 2 | The dogs do not need a walk | The dogs don’t need a walk |
| 3 | I’m not going to the party | I’m not going to the party |
| 4 | They did not finish the job on time | They didn’t finish the job on time |
| 5 | Will you not finish that book? | Won’t you finish that book? |
| 6 | Those people are not ready for change | Those people aren’t ready for change |
Examples 1, 3 and 5 already contained an auxiliary verb so only the negative particle not was required. In Examples 2 and 4, there was no auxiliary verb so the operator do was needed. (In Example 4, the addition of do transfers the past tense marking from the lexical verb (finished) to the auxiliary (did).) In Example 6, the lexical verb is be, which doesn’t require an operator, so are not is grammatically complete.
All the examples except Example 3 allow a contracted form with not. This already had a contraction (I’m) in the affirmative, but in Standard English there is no contraction of am + not. In some non-standard varieties, however, a contraction is possible: I ain’t going to the party. In Example 5, which has a question structure, the negative contraction won’t can begin the question, but the negative particle is separated from will by the subject you when there is no contraction.
Question 2 (Explore)
Meanings of negative clauses and sentences are not necessarily the precise opposites or denials of their affirmative counterparts, and constructional choices can also affect meaning. Consider these groups of examples, and the questions they raise about meaning:
| Group 1 | a | It’s possible |
| | b | It’s not possible |
| | c | It’s impossible |
| | d | It’s not impossible |
| Group 2 | a | You’re looking healthy |
| | b | You’re not looking healthy |
| | c | You’re looking unhealthy |
| | d | You’re not looking unhealthy |
| Group 3 | a | I’m definitely not going to the party |
| | b | I’m not definitely going to the party |
| Group 4 | a | Hasn’t Emma come home? |
| | b | Has Emma not come home? |
| Group 5 | a | I can tell you there’s going to be hardship ahead |
| | b | I can tell you there isn’t going to be hardship ahead |
| | c | I can’t tell you there isn’t going to be hardship ahead |
Answer/discussion
In Groups 1 and 2, the adjectives have a bearing on the relationship of the sentences to each other. In Group 1, b and c are the reverse of a, and have the same meaning. In Group 2, although b and c are the reverse of a, b and c have different meanings from each other: to not look healthy is not quite the same as looking decidedly unhealthy. Further, while 1d and 2d ought, logically, to mean precisely the same as 1a and 2a, 1d means something like ‘it might be possible but is unlikely or difficult’ and 1d means something like ‘you’re not looking unhealthy but you don’t look as good as you could’.
Groups 3 and 4 show how the position of the negative particle affects meaning. Only the content which follows not is negated. So in 3a it is definite that the speaker will not go to the party, whereas in 3b it is in doubt whether the speaker will go. In many contexts, 4a and 4b could be said to have identical meanings. However, although speakers may not entirely agree about this, 4b could be interpreted as sounding more surprised, anxious, or even annoyed than 4a.
Finally, Group 5 shows how more than one negative particle can cast doubt on the degree of denial in the statement. (This is similar to Groups 1 and 2, although these examples combined not with the negative prefixes im- and un-.) Here, 5b reverses the truth of 5a, but 5c is non-committal – there may or may not be hardship ahead.
