LOCAL NEGATION
Our discussion so far has centred on clausal negation. Groups, words and non-finite clauses can be negated by not, without the entire finite clause being negated:
She was admitted into hospital not long ago.
Not realizing the danger, she walked in the dark towards the edge of the cliff.
Try not to get too tired playing tennis.
She would prefer not to go on a Mediterranean cruise for a holiday.
Negative declaratives typically express a negative statement, but they can also be used to ask tactful questions, as in the following extract from a detective story. The person questioned replies mostly with straight negative statements, adding in the expression of polite regret I’m afraid, but in she avoids total commitment:
‘You don’t know the actual name of the firm or association that employed her?’1
‘No, I don’t,2 I’m afraid.’
‘Did she ever mention relatives?’
‘No. I gather she was a widow and had lost her husband many years ago. A bit of an invalid he’d been, but she never talked much about him.’3
‘She didn’t mention where she came from4 – what part of the country?’
‘I don’t think she was a Londoner.5 Came from somewhere up north, I should say.’
‘You didn’t feel there was anything – well, mysterious about her?6
Lejeune felt a doubt as he spoke. If she was a suggestible woman – but Mrs. Coppins did not take advantage of the opportunity offered to her.7
‘Well I can’t really say8 that I did. Certainly not from anything she ever said.9 The only thing that perhaps might have made me wonder was her suitcase. Good quality
it was, but not new.’
(Agatha Christie, The Pale Horse)
1question; 2negative statement; 3negative statement; 4question; 5transferred negation; 6question; 7negative statement; 8hedge; 9negative statement.
Transferred negation consists in displacing the negative element from its logical place in the reported clause to negate the verb in the main clause. So in note 5, instead of I think she wasn’t a Londoner, we have I don’t think she was a Londoner. This is very common in English.
