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For example, the affirmative sentence "Joe is here" asserts that it is true that Joe is currently located near the speaker. Conversely, the negative sentence "Joe is not here" asserts that it is not true that Joe is currently located near the speaker. The grammatical category associated with affirmatives and negatives is called polarity. This ...
Another use of subject–auxiliary inversion is in sentences which begin with certain types of expressions which contain a negation or have negative force. For example, a. Jessica will say that at no time. b. At no time will Jessica say that. – Subject–auxiliary inversion with a fronted negative expression. c. Only on Mondays will Jessica ...
In linguistics, negative inversion is one of many types of subject–auxiliary inversion in English.A negation (e.g. not, no, never, nothing, etc.) or a word that implies negation (only, hardly, scarcely) or a phrase containing one of these words precedes the finite auxiliary verb necessitating that the subject and finite verb undergo inversion. [1]
For example, anywhere is an NPI corresponding to the negative nowhere, as used in the following sentences: I was going nowhere. (the negative nowhere is used when not preceded by another negative) I was not going anywhere. (the NPI anywhere is used in the environment of the preceding negative not)
A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. This is typically used to convey a different shade of meaning from a strictly positive sentence ("You're not unattractive" vs "You're attractive").
Responses to negative interrogative sentences can be problematic. In English, for example, the answer "No" to the question "You don't have a passport?" may confirm the negative, i.e. it means that the responder does not have a passport, but on the other hand, it can also imply that the responder does have a passport.
If the verb is in the present perfect, for example, the tag question uses has or have; if the verb is in a present progressive form, the tag is formed with am, are, is; if the verb is in a tense which does not normally use an auxiliary, like the present simple, the auxiliary is taken from the emphatic do form; and if the sentence has a modal ...
According to Grimes, the answer "yes" asserts a positive answer and the answer "no" asserts a negative answer, irrespective of the form of the question. [2] However, simple "yes" or "no" word sentence answers to yes–no questions can be ambiguous in English. For example, a "yes" response to the question "You didn't commit the crime?"