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===Two or more negatives resolving to a negative=== [[File:friar-canterbury-tales.jpg|thumb|right|The Friar from the [[Ellesmere Chaucer|Ellesmere Manuscript]] of [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'']] Discussing English grammar, the term "double negative" is often,<ref>{{Cite Merriam-Webster|double negative|collegiate}}</ref> though not universally,<ref>{{Cite American Heritage Dictionary|double negative }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.memidex.com/double-negative |title=double negative |work=Memidex/WordNet Dictionary |access-date=2012-06-11}}</ref> applied to the [[Standard English|non-standard]] use of a second negative as an intensifier to a negation. Double negatives are usually associated with regional and ethnical dialects such as [[Southern American English]], [[African American Vernacular English]], and various British regional dialects. Indeed, they were used in [[Middle English]]: for example, [[Chaucer]] made extensive use of double, triple, and even quadruple negatives in his ''[[Canterbury Tales]]''. About the Friar, he writes "{{lang|enm|Ther nas no man no wher so vertuous}}" ("There never was no man nowhere so virtuous"). About the Knight, "{{lang|enm|He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight}}" ("He never yet no vileness didn't say / In all his life to no manner of man"). Following the [[battle of Marston Moor]], [[Oliver Cromwell]] quoted his nephew's dying words in a letter to the boy's father [[Valentine Walton]]: "A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him what it was. He told me it was that God had not suffered him to be no more the executioner of His enemies."<ref>{{cite book | last=Fraser | first=Antonia | title=Cromwell : the Lord Protector | publisher=Alfred A. Knopf | location=New York | year=1973 | isbn=978-0-917657-90-0 | oclc=728428 | page=129}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Forster|first=John|title=The Statesmen of the Commonwealth of England: With a Treatise on the Popular Progress in English History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=088_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA139|year=1840|publisher=Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longmans|pages=139β140}}</ref> Although this particular letter has often been reprinted, it is frequently changed to read "not ... to be any more" instead.{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} Whereas some double negatives may resolve to a positive, in some dialects others resolve to intensify the negative clause within a sentence. For example: * ''I didn't go nowhere today.'' * ''I'm not hungry no more.'' * ''You don't know nothing.'' * ''There was never no more laziness at work than before.'' In contrast, some double negatives become positives: * ''I didn't '''not''' go to the park today.'' * ''We can't '''not''' go to sleep!'' * ''This is something you can't '''not''' watch.'' The key to understanding the former examples and knowing whether a double negative is intensive or negative is finding a verb between the two negatives. If a verb is present between the two, the latter negative becomes an intensifier which does not negate the former. In the first example, the verb ''to go'' separates the two negatives; therefore the latter negative does not negate the already negated verb. Indeed, the word 'nowhere' is thus being used as an [[adverb]] and does not negate the argument of the sentence. An exception is when the second negative is stressed, as in ''I'm not doing {{em|nothing}}; I'm thinking.'' A sentence can otherwise usually only become positive through consecutive uses of negatives, such as those prescribed in the later examples, where a clause is void of a verb and lacks an adverb to intensify it. 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.'' Then what happens is that the verb ''to doubt'' becomes intensified, which indeed deduces that the sentence is indeed false since nothing was resolved to a positive. The same applies to the third example, where the adverb 'more' merges with the prefix ''no-'' to become a negative word, which when combined with the sentence's former negative only acts as an intensifier to the verb ''hungry''. Where people think that the sentence ''I'm not hungry no more'' resolves to a positive is where the latter negative ''no'' becomes an adjective which only describes its suffix counterpart ''more'' which effectively becomes a noun, instead of an adverb. This is a valid argument since adjectives do indeed describe the nature of a noun; yet some fail to take into account that the phrase ''no more'' is only an adverb and simply serves as an intensifier. Another argument used to support the position double negatives aren't acceptable is a mathematical analogy: negating a negative number results in a positive one; e.g., {{nowrap|1=β(β2) = +2}}; therefore, it is argued, ''I did not go nowhere'' resolves to ''I went somewhere''. Other forms of double negatives, which are popular to this day and do strictly enhance the negative rather than destroying it, are described thus: :''I'm not entirely familiar with [[Nihilism]] nor [[Existentialism]].'' Philosophies aside, this form of double negative is still in use whereby the use of 'nor' enhances the negative clause by emphasizing what isn't to be. Opponents of double negatives would have preferred ''I'm not entirely familiar with [[Nihilism]] or [[Existentialism]]''; however this renders the sentence somewhat empty of the negative clause being advanced in the sentence. This form of double negative along with others described are standard ways of intensifying as well as enhancing a negative. The use of 'nor' to emphasise the negative clause is still popular today, and has been popular in the past through the works of Shakespeare and Milton: :''Nor did they not perceive the evil plight'' :''In which they were'' ~ [[John Milton]] - [[Paradise Lost]] :''I never was, nor never will be'' ~ [[William Shakespeare]] - [[Richard III]] The negatives herein do not cancel each other out but simply emphasize the negative clause. [[File:Multiple negation.png|thumb|Distinction of ''duplex negatio affirmat'' (logical double negation) and ''duplex negatio negat'' (negative concord and pleonastic a.k.a. explective, paratactic, sympathetic, abusive negation) phenomena<ref>{{cite book| chapter=Multiple negation in English and other languages|first=LR|last=Horn|year=2010|title=The expression of negation|series=The expression of cognitive categories|volume=4|editor-first=LR|editor-last=Horn|location=Berlin|publisher=Walter de Gruyter-Mouton|isbn=978-3-110-21929-6|oclc=884495145|page=112}}</ref>]] Up to the 18th century, double negatives were used to emphasize negation.<ref name="Kirby">{{cite book |date=n.d. | url = https://www.american.edu/cas/tesol/resources/upload/Kirby_Philippa.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100803182028/https://www.american.edu/cas/tesol/resources/upload/Kirby_Philippa.pdf | url-status = dead | archive-date = 2010-08-03 | publisher = American University |access-date = 2010-08-03 |first=Philippa |last=Kirby | title = Double and Multiple Negatives | page = 2}}</ref> "Prescriptive grammarians" recorded and codified a shift away from the double negative in the 1700s. Double negatives continue to be spoken by those of Vernacular English, such as those of Appalachian English and African American Vernacular English.{{sfn|Kirby|n.d.|p=4}} To such speakers, they view double negatives as emphasizing the negative rather than cancelling out the negatives. Researchers have studied African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and trace its origins back to colonial English.{{sfn|Kirby|n.d.|p=5}} This shows that double negatives were present in colonial English, and thus presumably English as a whole, and were acceptable at that time. English after the 18th century was changed to become more "logical" and double negatives became seen as canceling each other as in mathematics. The use of double negatives became associated with being uneducated and illogical.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/02/grammar-myths-3/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120215134942/http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/02/grammar-myths-3/ | url-status = dead | archive-date = 2012-02-15 | title = Grammar myths #3: Don't know nothing about double negatives? Read on... | work = Oxford Dictionaries Blog |access-date = 2012-02-15}}</ref> In his ''Essay towards a practical English Grammar'' of 1711, [[James Greenwood (grammarian)|James Greenwood]] first recorded the rule: "Two Negatives, or two Adverbs of Denying do in English affirm".<ref name = "Kallel">{{cite book | last = Kallel |first = Amel | title = The Loss of Negative Concord in Standard English: A Case of Lexical Reanalysis |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ffwqBwAAQBAJ |year = 2011 |publisher = Cambridge Scholars Publishing | isbn = 978-1-4438-2815-4 }}</ref> [[Robert Lowth]] stated in his grammar textbook ''A Short Introduction to English Grammar'' (1762) that "two negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an affirmative".<ref name = "Kallel" /> Grammarians have assumed that Latin was the model for Lowth and other early grammarians in prescribing against negative concord, as Latin does not feature it. Data indicates, however, that negative concord had already fallen into disuse in Standard English by the time of Lowth's grammar, and no evidence exists that the loss was driven by prescriptivism, which was well established by the time it appeared.{{sfn|Kallel|2011|pp=130β131}}
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