1.2 NEGATIVE FORMATION

 1.2 NEGATIVE FORMATION

What Is a Negative Sentence? – Meaning and Definition

A negative sentence is one that indicates that some action is not happening, something no longer exists or that a subject does not possess a particular quality. In most scenarios, it can be easily identified by the words ‘not’, ‘no’, ‘nobody’, ‘nothing’, ‘nowhere’ ‘no one’ and ‘none’ as well as some peculiar words have negative meaning like few, little, rarely, seldom, scarcely used in sentences.

How to Form a Negative Sentence? – Different Ways and Points to Remember

Most often, a negative sentence is formed simply by the addition of ‘not’ to the verb in the sentence. It is also the easiest way to identify a negative sentence. Then again, there are other ways to form and identify negative sentences. 

Forming Negative Sentences by Adding ‘Not’

Conventionally, adding a ‘not’ to the verb indicates that an action is not taking place. Even in doing this, there are a few things you need to know.

When verb forms of ‘to be’ and ‘do’ are used as main verbs, the word ‘not’ can be added immediately after the verb.

For example:

v She is not a teacher.

v I do not like anything sweet.

When modal verbs such as can, could, will, would, shall, should, must, need, may, might, etc. are used in a sentence, the word ‘not’ should be placed after these verbs.

For example:

v I cannot help you with your homework as I would be late.

v You must not be brooding over this.

v Jannet should not have spoken to her parents like that.

v She may not find it difficult to complete this level.

Sentences denoting all other tenses will have one or more helping verbs and a main verb. In these cases, the word ‘not’ is added after the first helping verb followed by the main verb or the second helping verb and the main verb. In addition to this, also see to it that you do not alter the conjugated form of the main verb (present participle/past participle).

For example:

v Olivia is not eating anything though we have been trying to get her to do it for more than half a day. (Present Continuous Tense)

v He has not cut the call yet. (Present Perfect Tense)

v They have not been marking their attendance regularly. (Present Perfect Continuous Tense)

v It was not raining when we left. (Past Continuous Tense)

v The teacher had not told us what to do for our internal assessment. (Past Perfect Tense)

v The nurse found out that the patient had not been taking his medicines as per prescription. (Past Perfect Continuous Tense)

v Amit will not have what you require to finish your project. (Simple Future Tense)

v Raksesh, Rupesh and Ratheesh will not be participating in the International Science Fair. (Future Continuous Tense)

v The train will not have arrived when you reach the station. (Future Perfect Tense)

v The children will not have been doing the work properly. (Future Perfect Continuous Tense)

Using Contractions

We have already discussed that adding ‘not’ to the verb will form a negative sentence. In addition to this, you should also know that some verbs such as (is, was, have, etc.) can have contracted forms which can be used instead of ‘verb + not’. Go through the following examples to learn how contractions are used.

Verb + not	Contraction	Verb + not	Contraction
Is not	Isn’t	Was not	Wasn’t
Are not	Aren’t	Were not	Weren’t
Has not	Hasn’t	Have not	Haven’t
Had not	Hadn’t	Cannot	Can’t
Could not	Couldn’t	Should not	Shouldn’t
Must not	Mustn’t	Need not	Needn’t
Will not	Won’t	Would not	Wouldn’t

 

Forming Negative Sentences Using

‘No’, ‘Nothing’, ‘Nobody’, ‘None’, ‘Nowhere’

Words such as ‘no’, ‘nothing’, ‘nowhere’, ‘none’, ‘nobody’, ‘no one’ can also be used to form negative sentences. Also using ‘not’ along with the verb followed by words such as ‘any’, ‘anything’, ‘anywhere’, ‘anyone’ and ‘anybody’ will also do the trick. Take a look at the following examples to learn how this works.

Example 1:

v Everyone had gathered in the auditorium. (Affirmative sentence)

v No one had gathered in the auditorium. (Negative sentence)

Example 2:

v We had asked everybody for their opinion on the newly implemented policies. (Affirmative sentence)

v We had asked nobody for their opinion on the newly implemented policies. (Negative sentence)

(or)

v We had not asked anybody for their opinion on the newly implemented policies. (Negative sentence)

Example 3:

v All of us were present for the unfurling of the National Flag. (Affirmative sentence)

v None of us were present for the unfurling of the National Flag. (Negative sentence)

Example 4:

v Everything was falling into place. (Affirmative sentence)

v Nothing was falling into place. (Negative sentence)

Example 5:

v We could hear the new music album playing everywhere. (Affirmative sentence)

v We could hear the new music album playing nowhere. (Negative sentence)

(or)

v We could not hear the new music album playing anywhere. (Negative sentence)

Negating Interrogative Sentences

To form negative interrogative sentences, what you can do is either use ‘not’ after the subject or using the contraction of the verb in the beginning of the interrogative sentence. Here are a few examples that you can refer to.

Example 1:

v Have you not read ‘The Tale of Two Cities’?

v Haven’t you read ‘The Tale of Two Cities’? (Negative interrogative)

Example 2:

v Does she not teach Hindi anymore?

v Doesn’t she teach Hindi anymore? (Negative interrogative)

                                    Video reference in English and Tamil

ENGLISH

https://youtu.be/Jjnl4jGSY_4?si=vyJbd1Lr4VjyDmVC

 TAMIL

https://youtu.be/iINq1R0KJrM?si=AvIH7HzJoc655C0h