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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.
In rhetoric, litotes (/ l aɪ ˈ t oʊ t iː z, ˈ l aɪ t ə t iː z /, US: / ˈ l ɪ t ə t iː z /), [1] also known classically as antenantiosis or moderatour, is a figure of speech and form of irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect.
Because standard English does not have negative concord, that is, double negatives are not used to intensify each other, the language makes frequent use of certain NPIs that correspond in meaning to negative items, and can be used in the environment of another negative. For example, anywhere is an NPI corresponding to the negative nowhere, as ...
DOUBLE NEGATIVE: Each theme answer contains two instances of the word NO: KNOCK KNOCK, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, and NOW YOU KNOW. This is a fun trio of theme answers. I particularly like the classic ...
Auxiliaries in African American Vernacular English are related in a typical pattern. They can be grouped into negative forms and affirmative forms for each of the words. For example, "had" is an affirmative form, while "hatn" is the corresponding negative form. These same auxiliaries can be used to mark sentences for the anterior aspect.
The affirmative, in an English example such as "the police chief here is a woman", declares a simple fact, in this case, it is a fact regarding the police chief and asserts that she is a woman. [5] In contrast, the negative, in an English example such as "the police chief here is not a man", is stated as an assumption for people to believe. [5]
An example is the "double-negative" in: "Nobody never lifted a finger to help her." Expletive negation is a standard usage in Old English , and in Middle English , as in this sentence, where, from a modern perspective, "not" and the negative marker "ne" seem to be not required: [ 18 ] [ 19 ]
In a three-form system, the affirmative response to a positively phrased question is the unmarked affirmative, the affirmative response to a negatively phrased question is the marked affirmative, and the negative response to both forms of question is the (single) negative. For example, in Norwegian the affirmative answer to "Snakker du norsk?"