DENYING:
« No! » / « Not-P »

A negative proposition E1 can be analysed as not-E° (but cf. 2.3). Total negation rejects E° as globally untrue, false, inadequate; it dismisses, turns down, refutes, rebuts, rectifies, … the primitive proposition E°.
Partial negation rectifies a segment or a feature of E°.

From the point of view of practical argumentation analysis, and following Ducrot (1972), there are three main types of sentence negation.

1. Dialogical negation

E° corresponds to an existing statement previously produced by another participant in the same linguistic action. This “confrontational metalinguistic negation” (Ducrot 1972, p. 38) is fundamental for refutation. Examples (after Ducrot, s. d).

— Rejecting an assertion:

S0   — The next presidential election will take place in two years
S0   — No, it will be next year.

— Rejecting a presupposition:

S0   — Peter has stopped smoking
S0   — No, Peter has never smoked.

— Correcting the degree:

S0   — The flood damage is considerable
S0:   — No, it is not considerable, it is negligible / catastrophic.

— Correcting a grammatical mistake:

S0   — Look at the childs!
S0:   —No, Not the childs, the children.

— Correcting of a contextual error:

Pupil to teacher: — Wyhh, it’s 3.30! (end of lesson; in a whining and demanding tone)
Teacher to pupil: — No, it’s not 3.30! (said in the same tone), it is 3.30 (said in a matter-of-fact and positive tone)

When working on a corpus of texts or argumentative interactions, the practical rule for the analyzing a negative statement E1 = “not E°” is to search the previous context for an addressed statement E° (or something close to the semantic content of E°). If there is one, then, E1 both rejects and rectifies E°. The precise nature of the correction can be specified, in the broad context of the argumentative question structuring the exchange.

E° can be in the “short” or “long” memory of the interaction. In the case of a complex argumentative situation, i.e. a question that is debated at different times, in different places according to different genres and formats, the discursive distance to retrieve E° may be quite long and the result dubious.

2 Polyphonic negation: E° is not recoverable in the context

There is no actual statement or semantic content corresponding to E°, for example when the speaker of E1 anticipates a foreseeable objection, S. Prolepsis. In this case, according to Ducrot’s original and robust version of the polyphonic nature of language, we can consider that the negative utterance articulates two voices, that of the rectifier and that of the rectified. As in the previous case, the speaker takes the position of the rectifier. Ducrot speaks in such cases of “conflictual polemical negation” (ibid.)

The two uses of negation, depending on whether E° is recoverable in the context or not, are perfectly continuous. If the E° statement is not recoverable in the available context, one will opt for a polyphonic analysis, referring the rejected content E° not to an actual participant, but to a potential participant, an indeterminate abstract voice, expressing something relevant to the dispute, S. Interaction, Dialogue, Polyphony. However, some doubt as will remain to the precise scope of the rectification effected by the negation.

3 Descriptive negation

Ducrot mentions the case of a “descriptive negation”, which cannot be divided into two antagonistic voices:

Some uses of a syntactically negative sentence have neither a conflictual nor an antagonistic character. The negation is used, so to speak, without paying attention to its negative character, without, therefore, introducing into it any idea of dispute or doubt. Thus, to indicate that today the weather is perfectly fine today, I can use a negative sentence “not a cloud in the sky” as well as a positive sentence “the sky is perfectly blue and clear”. (Ibid.)

« Peter is not stupid » can be understood as an admiring understatement of « Peter is really smart », or as an indignant rejection of another intervention implying that « Peter is dull ».

Such negative sentences have an autonomous meaning. This analysis is suitable for negative polarity items, i.e. words that occur only in negative clauses, without a corresponding positive clause.

You can’t hold a candle to him.

It is also appropriate for negative prefix words without corresponding positive terms (see above).

4. Negation [Verneinung]

The dialogic character of negation is systematically exploited in psychoanalysis, where the negative utterance is seen as the result of a negotiation between the conscious and the unconscious:

The way in which our patients present their associations during the work of analysis gives us the opportunity to make some interesting observations. “Now you are going to think I’m going to say something offensive, but I really don’ mean it.” We realize that this is rejection, by projection, of an idea that has just come up. Or, “You ask who this person in the dream can be. It’s not my mother.” We change this to: “So it is his mother.” In our interpretation we take the liberty of ignoring the negation and of picking out only the subject matter alone of the association. It is as though the patient had said: “it’s true that my mother came to my mind when I thought of this person, but I don’t feel inclined to let the association work.”

Thus, the content of a repressed image or idea can make its way into consciousness, on condition that it is negated. Negation is a way of taking cognizance of what is repressed; indeed it is already a release of the repression, though of course, not, an acceptance of what is repressed. We can see how this separates the intellectual function is separated from the affective process. (Freud, [1925], p. 235)

4. Argumentative strategies using various forms of negation

The relationship between discourse and counter-discourse is fundamental to the definition of an argumentative situation, negation and denial are therefore at the very foundation of argumentation studies.

 

See Contradiction; Non contradiction principle
Figures of Opposition
Opposite words;— Opposites – A contrario —  Refutation by the opposite
Destruction of Speech; Objection; Refutation; Counter-argumentation.