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A double negative is generally defined as two negative words in the same clause. In these examples:

"No it is not."

"No I don't think so."

is "No" considered a clause unto itself? Or is it in the same clause as the rest of the sentence, thus constituting a double negative?

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Wayne Averitt
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    "Double Negative" is not a happy term. It can refer to two negatives in a row that cancel out, or two negatives in a row that don't cancel out. Let's not try to define it, OK? Utterances like No as independent parts are not intended to be parts of the clause but rather to emphasize something, like a question intonation or a smile or a grunted "eh?". Certainly they're not logical. Logical negatives always have a focus (the word they modify, usually) and a scope (the range within which they can trigger Negative Polarity Items like ever or in weeks). – John Lawler Sep 01 '14 at 00:02
  • Great answer: So, in my examples, would "No" be considered an interjection? – Wayne Averitt Sep 01 '14 at 00:09
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    Consider the inverse question. Is "Yes, it is." a double positive? The question it raises to my mind is whether or not anyone cared about double negation in grammar before there was a rigorously defined and widely known concept of mathematical negation. – Patrick M Sep 01 '14 at 07:32
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    @Patrick: More to the point, if these were double negatives, how would you turn them into single negatives? "Yes it is not"/"No it is"? "Yes I don't think so"/"No I do think so"? – RegDwigнt Sep 01 '14 at 10:29

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Yes, “no” is separate from the clause containing the verb. No, these are not double negatives.

Whether you consider “yes” and “no” clauses on their own is more contested, but it really doesn’t matter—they are not part of the clause that the double negatives would appear in. The fact that they (“yes” and “no”) are normally followed by a comma—and can perfectly well be followed by a period—indicates that they are separate entities:

No, it is not.
No. It is not.

In cases of double negations, such separations are not possible:

I ain’t got nothing against double negations.
*I ain’t got, nothing against double negations.
*I ain’t got. Nothing against double negations.

The last two of these are quite obviously not valid, since “I ain’t got” (or “I haven’t got”) is not a complete sentence.

Janus Bahs Jacquet
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  • Great answer: So, in my examples, would "No" be considered an interjection? – Wayne Averitt Sep 01 '14 at 00:10
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    Yes, absolutely. When no is the opposite of yes, it is basically always an interjection/exclamation. (It can also be a determiner, as in “I have no money”; but it’s not the opposite of yes in those uses—“I have yes money” is nonsense.) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 01 '14 at 00:12
  • Two great answers: Thanks a "mil" Janus. – Wayne Averitt Sep 01 '14 at 00:15
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    Oh come now, in that example, you've got to use a triple negative: I ai n't* got nothing against no double negations* – user0721090601 Sep 01 '14 at 02:55
  • very American, much dislike flows from my soul towards the use of so many negatives. – KyranF Sep 01 '14 at 11:07
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    @KyranF Not only American, no. Very common in many dialects of British English as well. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 01 '14 at 11:08
  • I believe that it's more common in uneducated American language, and also in similarly uneducated British language. It speaks of ignorance and lack of understand of their own language! – KyranF Sep 01 '14 at 11:10
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    @KyranF You believe incorrectly. It's a dialectal feature quite separate from education. Many educated speakers know full well to avoid double negations in standardised English, but use them freely in their own dialectal speech. If anything speaks of “ignorance and lack of understanding of their own language”, it's unilaterally writing off such dialectal features as “uneducated”. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 01 '14 at 11:12
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Is there no correlation to the spoken dialect and their educational status or experience? I suspect there is, may not be causal but I am going to continue to believe this, where or not it is entirely true as you have pointed out. – KyranF Sep 01 '14 at 12:00
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    @KyranF Clearly you're not aware of the history of the language. Double negatives of this sort were the norm in English until the "uneducated" shifted usage. Quoth Chaucer (HT WP), "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight", or quoth the Bard "I never was nor never will be". I use double negatives in my dialect, I adjust my usage for situations requiring MSE. If you want to attach preconceived and illogical notions about my level of education based on my speech, fine. That speaks far more of "ignorance and lack of understand of [your] own language!" – user0721090601 Sep 01 '14 at 12:08
  • @guifa Each to their own mate! Old English is leaps and bounds different to modern English, and indeed I have not studied or been exposed to much very history of English. However in modern times the use of double negatives is not common - but is more common in areas of less education particularly in America, with silly phrases such as "I didn't do nothing!" and "I ain't doin' nothin'!" etc. – KyranF Sep 01 '14 at 12:25
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Possibly apocryphal but worth recounting:

The eminent linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin of Oxford once gave a lecture in which he asserted that there are many languages in which a double negative makes a positive, but none in which a double positive makes a negative — to which the Columbia philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser, sitting in the audience, sarcastically replied, “Yeah, yeah.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/the-enemy-of-my-enemy/, also referenced at http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=95;t=000006;p=0:

mikeham
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    Probably apocryphal-- every time somebody tells a version of this story, the actual words they quote (be it "Yeah, sure" or whatever) seem to be different. And in any case, this wouldn't be a "double negative" in the syntactic sense so it's a slightly pointless anecdote whether true or not...! – Neil Coffey Sep 12 '14 at 13:57
  • Yeah, yeah ... you're right, the quote is about double positives ("there is "no language [...] in which a double positive makes a negative") rather than double negatives, so it's not strictly on-topic. Still, people are being born every minute, so there must be somebody who hasn't heard it before ! – mikeham Sep 13 '14 at 15:56
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The question is incorrectly phrased.

“No it’s not” isn’t grammatically correct. Neither is “No I don’t think so”.

The question can only be correctly answered (and the answer therefore becomes quite obvious) when written properly.

“No, it’s not”. “No. I don’t think so”.

There is no double negative here because “no” is an interjection.

Sweepster
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It could be argued that it is or isn't a double negative, but the alternatives wouldn't be any better. Even "I don't think so," and "It is not" do not have the same balance as "No, I don't think so," and "No, it is not." The "no" is short and states the answer, while "I don't think so," and "it is not" elaborate on how firm your knowledge of your answer is("I don't think so" meaning that you don't know for sure, but you believe it enough to say it as your answer or "it is not" meaning you know for sure). Using the "conventional" negative and positive that is usually prescribed is even worse because it says two opposites and leaves room for confusion, as in "Yes, I don't think so," or "Yes, it is not."

JustinCB
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