A double negative occurs when two or more ways to express negation are used in same sentence. In some languages a double negative resolves to a negative, while in others it resolves to a positive.
A famous linguist once made the further observation that it was unknown for a double positive ever to resolve to a negative. A sceptical voice came from the back of the lecture hall: "Yeah, right". (This joke is often attributed to Prof. Sidney Morgenbesser of Columbia University.)
Different languages have different rules regarding double negative:
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2 Romance 3 Serbian |
English
In English, a double negative is a grammatical error if a single negation is meant, for example "I don't want nothing!", meaning "I don't want anything".
Although they are not used in standard English, they are used almost consistantly in African American Vernacular English, and the London Cockney dialect and less frequently, but still commonly, in colloquial English. In the film Mary Poppins, Dick Van Dyke uses a double negative when he says
- If you don't want to go nowhere.
Other examples of double negatives include:
- Don't nobody go to the store.
- I can't hardly wait.
- And don't nobody buy nothing.
- It is not unpleasant: logically this is weaker than "It is pleasant", meaning "It is neutral or pleasant", but it is often used as understatement for "It is quite pleasant", a linguistic device called litotes.
Romance
Romance languages generally express negation by adding a word (ne in French, no in Spanish, não in Portuguese) to the verb and zero or more words elsewhere to indicate what part of the sentence is negated. In French, unlike the others, simple negation usually requires the word pas:
- No como.
- Je ne mange pas.
- Non mangio.
The correlative negative words in Spanish and Italian are used only in negative sentences (e.g. ningún - a positive sentence uses algún) whereas some French negative words are the same as positive words (personne means "person" if feminine but "nobody" if masculine). This sometimes leads to confusion if the verb, and therefore the word ne, is omitted.
Serbian
In Serbian, double negative is correct while single negative is grammatical error.
The following is a literal translation of a grammatically correct Serbian sentence: "No-one's negligence didn't nowhere never to no-one nohow brought nothing but unhappiness."
See also Double negative elimination