Running head: NEGATIVE SENTENCE - ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
A Contrastive Analysis of NEGATIVE SENTENCE in
Vietnamese and English
Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân
4A-07
University of Pedagogy
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Abstract
From the time we are born, negation can be used by gesture or other behavior to
express rejection or disagreement on something. Afterwards, when infants are just
learning to talk, their first ten words almost always include a negation operator
(Westbury & Nicoladis, 1998). Because people can master it easily, negation may
seem to be a simple concept and there is few people who pay attention to it.
However, many researchers have studied it extensively find negation "curiously
difficult" (Wilden, 1980) and "far from simple and transparent" (Horn, 1989).
Especially, between Vietnamese and English, there are many differences of
negation. So, if learners don’t understand clearly, they may make errors or
misunderstandings when communicating and even get into a lot of trouble. Because
of this reason, I would like to conduct an in-depth analysis of similarites and
differences of negative sentence in English and Vietnamese.
In this paper, firstly I will present some definitions of negations from many resources.
Secondly, I will discuss some characteristics of negative sentence in English and
Vietnamese and then make a comparison between English and Vietnamese to find
out their similarities and differences of forming and using negation. Lastly, I will
present my opinions of applying this analysis in teaching English.
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Definition
There are many definions of negation from different linguists. Some consider it as a
positive assertion of the existence of a relevant difference- that is, it has been taken
negation to mean 'other than'. According to Le Quang Thiem, a Vietnamese linguist,
negative sentence is used to describe the absence of an object, an event or a
phenomina while in many grammar books, we can see that a negative sentence is
used to claim that something is not true or incorrect.
Negative Sentence In English
As there are a lot of different definitions of negation, there are many ways to
determine the types of negation. Jackendoff claims that negation can be classified
into 2 types: explicit negations and implicit negations. In another way, based on the
usage and the formation, some experts divide negations into 3 types: reported
negations, question negations and directive negations. Following a more detailed
analyse of Le Quang Thiem, negative sentence can be classified into 4 types by the
meansand methods of constructing negation: Auxiliary Negation, Noun Phrase
Negation, Adverb Negation, Morphological Negation. This way of classification is the
one I will discuss in this work.
1. Auxiliary Negation
There is a negation rule in English: If we want to state that something is not true, we
can form a negative sentence by adding the word “not” after the first auxiliary verb in
the affirmative sentence. If there is no auxiliary verb in the affirmative sentence, as in
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the Present Simple and Past Simple tenses, we will add one with the word “not” after
it. When an auxiliary verb is added like that, the main verb must be in the infinitive
form (no ‘-s’ or ‘-ed’ ending).
Nowadays, when looking at a negative sentece, we usually see the auxiliary verbs
with ‘not’ in contracted forms, not in full forms. Full forms are used in very formal
cases or when we want to emphasize. Contractions of negated auxiliary verbs in
English are formed by reducing the negative particle ‘not’ to n't, a clitic or suffix
which is fused to the root verb form.
Examples include isn't, aren't, wasn't, weren't (from be), hasn't, haven't, hadn't (from
have), won't, wouldn't (from will), shan't, shouldn't (from shall), can't, couldn't (from
can), mayn't, mightn't, and mustn't (from may). And we should remember that there
is no standard contraction for ‘am not’. This is known in Linguistics as the "amn't
gap".
All conjugations of ‘be’ are subject to contraction even when used in a non-auxiliary
sense.
Ex: “He isn’t my teacher.” (‘be’ here isn’t an auxiliary)
In some dialects, ‘have’ as a main verb is subject to contraction, in other dialects the
negation is realised by the insertion of auxiliary ‘don't’.
Ex: “I haven’t a pen.” (We rarely see this form.)
“I don’t have a pen.” (More popular)
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Here is a review of auxiliary negations including examples. In this table, we can see
both contracted forms used in informal writing and speaking and full forms.
Table 1:
Negative element +
Tense
Examples
contracted forms
Do+not = don’t
I do not study.
Does+not = doesn’t
She doesn’t study.
Did+not= didn’t
I didn’t study.
Am+not (no amn’t)
I am not studying.
Is+not = isn’t
He is not studying.
Are+not = aren’t
We aren’t studying.
Present simple
Past simple
Present
progressive
I wasn’t studying.
Was+not = wasn’t
Past progressive
They were not
Were+not = weren’t
studying.
You haven’t
Have+not = haven’t
studied.
Has+not = hasn’t
She has not
Present perfect
studied.
Have+not+been = haven’t
I have not been
Present perfect
been
studying.
progressive
Has+not+been = hasn’t
She hasn’t been
been
studying.
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Past perfect
Had+not = hadn’t
You hadn’t studied.
Past perfect
Had+not+been = hadn’t
She hadn’t been
progressive
been
studying.
Future simple
Will+not =won’t
I won’t study.
Will+not+have = won’t
He will not have
have
studied.
Conditional
Would+not =wouldn’t
She wouldn’t study.
Conditional
Would+not+have
She wouldn’t have
perfect
=wouldn’t have
studied.
Modals
can + not = can’t or cannot
I can’t study.
(formal)
I cannot study.
should+not = shouldn’t
We shouldn’t study.
Future perfect
2. Noun phrase negation
Another way of changing an affirmative sentence into a negative sentence is to
place a negative determiner or a restrictive quantifier before a noun, which is called
noun phrase negation.
a) Determiner ‘not’
In English, there are several instances where ‘not’ can grammatically negate the
subject of a sentence.
Ex: “Not everyone can do this task.”
“Not one thing was left untouched by the wrath of the tornado.”
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However, it doesn’t mean that all noun phrases can be negated by ‘not’. For
example, we can’t say, “Not Lan went to school yesterday.”
Based on various analyses of quantifiers (Barwise & Cooper, 1981; Keenan & Stavi,
1986; Tottie, 1991) and negation (Horn, 1989, and those cited in Horn), negation by
‘not’ is only allowed when the denotation of the negated noun phrase has a readily
definable interpretation; more specifically, the set of possible sizes for the set
denoted by the negated noun phrase must be a continuous range of values. We can
see more clearly with examples in the following table:
Table 2: Example sentences demonstrating when it is grammatical (or interpretable)
to negate a noun phrase with ‘not’.
Grammatical
Ungrammatical
1. Not every company
10. *Not each citizen files a tax
expects to report increased
return.
earnings.
2. Not all of NASA’s spacescience work will be so
auspicious.
3. Not a peso is offered.
11. *Not some pesos are
offered.
4. Not one thing in the house
is where it is supposed to be.
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5. Not many people came to
12. *Not several people came to
the meeting last week.
the meeting last week.
6. Not any person can just
walk right in there and get
what they want.
7. Not more than half of the
13. *Not most of the team
team showed up last Friday.
showed up last Friday.
8. Not more than 200
14. *Not few people came to the
people attended the opening
meeting.
gala celebration.
15. *Not no man left.
9. Not less than one million
16. *Not the man walked into the
people enjoy listening to
store.
ABBA Gold every day.
17. *Not John came on time
From the above table, we can find out the rule of negation by ‘not’:
 All vs. Every, More than x, Less than x, Few; Many vs. Several; More than
half vs. Most
 ‘All’ and ‘every’ can be negated with ‘not’ and they seem to have the same
meaning.
Ex: “Not all students have to join that activity.” = “Not every student has to join that
activity.”
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 ‘More than’ and ‘less than’ are grammatical when negated while ‘ few’ is
ungrammatical..
According to Barwise & Cooper’s (1981) analysis ‘not few’ could mean both ‘no’ and
‘many’, which is very confusing. Therefore, it cannot be negated by ‘not’.
 ‘Many’ and ‘several’ have a difference in the grammaticality of their
corresponding negating quantifiers. Reconsider sentences number 5 and number 12
from Table 2:
5. Not many people came to the meeting last week.
12. *Not several people came to the meeting last week.
In the sentence 12, there are two possible values for the size of the set denoted by
‘not several’: less than the value for several given by the discourse, or greater than
that value. This is very similar to the case of ‘few’.
- Not several people came…. = few / no people came…..
- Not several people came .... = everybody / (many people) came…..
The range of sizes for the set denoted by ‘not several’ is not a continuous set of
values (the size is either less than or greater than the value of several ), and so
‘several’ cannot be negated.
On the other hand, the size of the set denoted by ‘not many’ cannot be more than
many, since it is possible that ‘many’ indicated the size of the entire set (many may
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possibly equal all, so not many ≠all ). Hence, ‘not many’ can only denote a set of
size less than the value given for ‘many’ by the discourse. This set is a continuous
set of values, and so ‘many’ can be grammatically negated.
 ‘More than half’ and ‘most’
Since ‘more than half’ denotes a set of size anywhere from >50% to 100% of the set
(i.e., there are no ‘two sides’ to more than half ), the possible values for the size of
the negated quantifier is a closed, continuous set of values (from 0% to 50%), and
so the negation is grammatical.
However, ‘most’ means anywhere from greater than 50% of the set to some value
less than 100% of the set, depending on the given situation. So,when we try to
negate ‘most’, it is possible that ‘not most’ could mean more than ‘most’ or less than
‘most’. Again, we find that the negation of a quantifier is ungrammatical exactly when
the set that contains the possible values for the size of the set denoted by the
negated quantifier is not a continuous set of positive integral. So, ‘most’ cannot be
negated.

‘Any’ and ‘both’
Tottie (1991) notes that, “In present-day-English it is only normal to use not-negation
at the beginning of a sentence if the meaning is ‘not just any’” (p.102). We can
extend this statement to assert that a speaker uses the phrase ‘not any x’ to indicate
that they have a specific set of individuals in mind who in fact can have the property
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mentioned in the sentence. To make this clear, consider example: “Not anybody is
allowed to shake hands with the Queen.” [from Tottie, 1991, p.102]
In this example, the speaker means to indicate that nobody, except a very specific
group of people (possibly only foreign diplomats) is allowed to shake hands with the
Queen. With each use of ‘not any x’, the negated quantified noun phrase denotes a
specific, closed set. The size of the negated set is closed and continuous. Thus, ‘not
any x’ is grammatical.
Unlike ‘any’, however, the speaker who uses ‘not both’ either intentionally or
unintentionally ambiguates the subject of the sentence. Consider the following
example: “Not both David and Amy came to my party.”
The addressee is to infer that one person, and not the other, did in fact come to the
party. The identity of the person who came to her party is ambiguous, however this
is unimportant in terms of the ability of ‘both’ to be negated. The set of possible
values for the size of the negated set is closed and continuous, so the negation of
‘both x’ is grammatical.

Cardinals Vs A, One
All cardinal determiners that do not equal zero should be ungrammatical when
negated.
Ex: * “Not two/twenty/300 hundred people came to the movie debut.”
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However, if the determiner denotes a set of size one, the negation is grammatical
because it indicates none, or a set of size zero.
Ex: “Not one/a person came to the movie debut.”

EACH
With ‘not each’, it is unclear whether the negation negates the universal
quantification portion of each or the manner or ‘individuating’ portion of each.
Ex: “Not each company is expected to pay taxes.”  only a few are required to pay
them this quarter.
“Not each company is expected to pay taxes.”  the companies are all expected
to pay the tax as a group.
The ambiguity of the negation of each leads to its ungrammaticality. So, ‘each’
cannot be negated.
b) Determiner ‘no’
‘No’ is another negative determiner which we can place before a noun to bring a
negative meaning into a sentence.
“He sold no house last month.” = “He did not sell any house last month.”
“They will make no cakes for her.” = “They won’t make any cake for her”.
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After the determiner ‘no’, we can use both singular and plural nouns, it mainly
depends on the context.
Ex: "No new message" is correct if we are dealing with only one message; "No news
messages" is correct if we are dealing with more than one message.
c) Restrictive quantifiers ‘little’ and ‘few’
Like ‘no’, ‘little’ and ‘few’ also bring negative meanings to sentences. However, we
should pay attention to the use:
 Little is used with uncountable nouns:
Ex: “There is little water left.”
“I have little reason to think they will help.”
 Few is used with plural nouns:
Ex: “There are few men who are capable of doing it. “
“I know few places that I could recommend to you.”
d) Determiner ‘none’ and ‘neither’
If we use determiner ‘no’ to refer a singular item, we should use ‘none’ and ‘neither’ to
refer to an item of a group mentioned afterwards. We use ‘neither’ to refer to 2 items
and ‘none’ to a group of more than 2.
Ex: “No one knew the answer.”
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“None of them/the boys/the students knew the answer.”
“Neither of them/the boys/the students (just as long as there are only two of them)
knew the answer.”
Noun phrase negation has a very powerful role in emphasizing. For example, when
we say “They will make no cakes for her.”, the hearer will pay more attention to the
result “no cake” than when we say “They won’t make cakes for her.” The second
seems a normal action while with the first, we will think “they” as unkind people.
3. Adverb negation
In English, there are some negative adverbs which create negative sentences,
without adding no/not/any negative expression. So, when using negative adverb, we
don’t need the ‘no’ part of a negative sentence.
For example, if we want to say ‘I almost don’t know him‘, when using negative
adverb it will be ‘I barely know him‘. As we can see, the negative expression (don’t)
is erased from the sentence. That’s the reason why many people make mistakes
when using this negative adverb. It is already negative, so there is no use of
negative expression (no/ not/ neither/ nor/ etc). Therefore, we have a new formation
for a negation:
Subject + negative adverb + positive verb
Subject + to be + negative adverb
Ex: “She never apologizes for her wrong behaviour.”
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“John is rarely late for school.”
4. Morphological negation
This type of negation is also called affixal negation and is marked by the presence of
negative affixes: a-, non-, dis-, un-, in- (including the variants im-, il-, ir-), the suffix less and the suffix -out.
Ex: atypical = not typical;
non-stop = without any stop;
dislike = not like;
unnecessary = not necessary;
ineffective = not effective;
impossible = not possible;
illogical = not sensible;
irresponsible = not responsible;
useless = not fulfilling the intended purpose
without = not having
Note: Items that are apparently formed by negative prefixes but that are not clearly
negative in meaning are not considered (example: disgruntled).
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Negative Sentence In Vietnamese
As we know, there are some negative verbs, adjectives … which bring negative
meanings to sentences in English. However, it’s not the same in Vietnamese. A
negation in Vietnamese is always marked with many negative adverbs such as
‘không’ (except when it appears in final position to indicate a question), ‘chẳng’,
‘chớ’, ‘chưa’…. placed before a noun, verb, adjective… In addition, there is no tense
in Vietnamese sentences, so it is much easier to make a negation than in English
when no auxilary verbs added and we don’t have to pay attention to the subject (to
use the suitable verb forms).
There are 3 common formations for negation in Vietnamese:
1. To negate an action, a process or quality:
C – TPĐ (chẳng, không, làm gì có, nào có….) V – B,A…..
Ex: “Cô ta không đẹp như người ta đồn đại.” (She isn’t as beautiful as people said.)
“Hắn nào có biết chuyện gì vừa xảy ra” (He doesn’t know what has just
happened.)
Ông ta làm gì có con trai. (He doesn’t have any son.)
2. To negate a relationship or quality:
C – TPĐ (chẳng phải, chưa phải, không phải, đâu phải….) + là…..
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Ex: “Hắn ta không phải là người yêu của em.” (He isn’t my boyfriend.)
“Cô ta chưa phải là người trong gia đình này.” (She hasn’t been a member of
this family yet.)
3. To negate the existance of something:
TPĐ (chẳng, chưa, không, làm gì….) + có – V
Ex: “Không có ai làm bài về nhà hết.” (Nobody does the homework.)
“Chẳng có người nào chịu mua cả.” (Nobody wants to buy it.)
In addition to a wide and colorful Vietnamese vocabulary, there are many ways of
negating a sentence as well.
 Using negative adverbs such as ‘không’, ‘chẳng’, ‘đâu có’,…
‘Không’ is the most common adverb to be placed in a negative sentence. However,
based on various contexts and situations, other adverbs such as ‘chẳng’, ‘đâu có’,
‘chả’,… are used to bring a suitable attitude to the sentence.
For example, when comparing “ Tao chả biết” (I don’t know) with the sentence “Tao
không biết” (I don’t know.), the hearers will have a stronger feeling with the first one.
They can sense that the speaker doesn’t know and even don’t want to talk about
that. So, in Vietnamese, with various vocabulary, people can sense the tone of a
sentence through written words while in English, people need to pay attention to the
speed, stress… of a spoken sentence to figure out.
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 Using indefinite words such as ‘ai’, ‘nào’, ‘sao’, ‘gì’, ‘đâu’
Ex 1: A: Ai bảo mày gạ gẫm tao? (You have seduced me.)
B: Ai gạ gẫm nhà anh? (I haven’t seduced you.)
[Lang Rận, Nam Cao]
If the answer here is “Tôi không gạ gẫm nhà anh”, it sounds serious and brings no
special attitude.
Ex 2 : A asks B: Nghe nói mày yêu cái Vân hả? (I heard that you loved Van. Is it
true?)
B can answer:
- Làm gì có chuyện ấy.
(No, I don’t love her.)
- Tao có yêu nó đâu.
- Tao yêu nó thế nào được.
So, there are many ways to express the idea that “I don’t love her.” Each way has its
own level of negation. In the sentence “Tao có yêu nó đâu.”, the rejection is not as
strong as it is in “Tao yêu nó thế nào được.”
 Using questions to negate:
This is also a very special characteristic of Vietnamese negation. In this case, a
negative sentence has no negative words but bring a negative meaning in the form
of a question. Negative sentences in this case are various based on the situation.
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There is no structures or formations of using this way, therefore, it is very difficult for
foreign learners to understand and use negative sentences like these.
Ex 1: A: Mày có nhận lời anh ấy không? (Do you accept his invitation?)
B: Sao mày hỏi buồn cười thế? (Why do you ask such a funny question?)
When B answers A, she uses no negative words and her answer seems to have no
relation with the content of A’s question. However, A can understand the negative
implication of B.
Ex 2: A: Thế lại đi buôn à?
B: Vốn đâu mà đi buôn?
[Một bữa no, Nam Cao]
In this situation, B negates A’s question by giving the reason that she can’t go in for
trade instead of saying that “Tao không đi buôn”. So, by this way, A not only has the
answer but also receive more information about the reason B can’t do that work.
In conclusion, there are various ways to bring a negative meaning to a sentence in
Vietnamese. In communication, if the speaker knows how to choose a suitable way
to negate, he (she) can express both his (her) ideas and emotions and his (her)
words are more powerful and effective.
Although there are many ways to express negative meanings, based on the purpose
of negation, there are two main types of negation:
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1. Describing Negation
A describing negation is used to inform, descibe the absence of a thing, a person or
an event. We often use this type to answer a question with a negative meaning.
Ex: A: Nga có giỏi toán không? (Is Nga good at Math?)
B: Bạn ấy không giỏi toán. (No, she isn’t.)
2. Rejecting Negation
A rejecting negation is used to claim that some idea or judgement is wrong. It means
that we use this type when we want to raise against an idea.
Ex: A: Nga học toán giỏi. (Nga is good at Math.)
B: Bạn ấy không giỏi toán. (Nga isn’t good at Math at all.)
Similarities and Differences of Negative Sentence
between English and Vietnamese
Based on the principle of constructing structure – semantics of negation in English
and Vietnamese, there are 4 common manners of forming negation:
 Manner of position is the manner based on the distribution of positions of
nuclear negatives, implied or seminegative forms, non-assertive contexts in a
negative sentence. This manner takes 91.15% in English and 88.35% in
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Vietnamese. (According to the statistics of 793 English negative sentences and 798
Vietnamese negative sentences).
 Manner of constructing negative meanings by syntax structure such as
Vietnamese questions with indefinite words (ai, nào, làm sao…) and yes- no
questions, wh - questions in English. This manner takes only 1.24% in English and
8.77% in Vietnamese.
 Manner of morphology constructs negatives meanings by adding negative
prefixes or suffixes to words, e.g vô nghĩa, bất công (Vietnamese); unhappy,
homeless (English). This manner takes 6.75% in English and only 1.25% in
Vietnamese.
 Manner of lexicology constructs negatives meanings by using antonyms such
as ‘lack’, ‘deny’, ‘refuse’; some swears or sentences including ‘God’. This manner
takes 0.86% in English and only 1.74% in Vietnamese.
In conclusion, based on these manners and the charateristics of negative sentence
in English and Vietnamese, we can figure out some similarities and differences of
negative sentence in English and Vietnamese.
1. Similarities:
- Among the above manners, there are 3 manners which has a lot of similarities:
manner of lexicology, manner of morphology constructs and manner of constructing
negative meanings by syntax structure.
- Both two languages have negative words or phrases:
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Some means of negation in Vietnamese:
•
không, chẳng (chả), chưa (chửa).
•
Negative words of nuance: đếch, khỏi, ứ.
•
Combinations of negative words: không-chẳng-chưa (phải), (là); không-chẳng-
chưa (bao giờ), (hề).
•
Combination of negative words with astatic words: không-chẳng (ai), (gì), (đâu).
•
Negation for rejection with astatic words: (không) có…đâu, nào có…đâu, đâu
có..., làm gì có…, có phải đâu…., đâu (có) phải…
•
Words: ít khi, hiếm khi, mấy khi, trừ phi, ngoại trừ, nhưng (không phải là), chứ
(không phải là).
Some means of negation in English:
•
Negative words: not, no, never.
•
Words with “no”: nobody, nothing, no one, none, nowhere, neither.
•
Negative adverbs: never, hardly, seldom, rarely, scarcely, barely.
•
Negative astatic verbs: few, little.
•
Negative prepositions: without, against, but, except for.
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2. Differences
a) In general, in Vietnamese, people have to combine negative words such as
‘không’, ‘chẳng’ with other astatic words to create phrases which have the same
meaning with ‘not’ and ‘no’ in English, e.g ‘không có’, ‘chẳng phải’…. Therefore, the
use of “not, no” in English is not the same as the use of “không, chẳng” in
Vietnamese is. Especially, in Vietnamese, there is no pair of correspondent negation
as ‘no’ – ‘not’ in English. For example, in English people can say: “An honest man
would not lie.” or “No honest man would lie.”, but in Vietnamese, people just say
“Người trung thực thì không nói dối.”, not “Không người trung thực nào mà nói dối.”.
b) There is no object - negation structure in Vietnames, therefore people use
predicate – negation structure to replace object - negation structure.
Ex : “I saw no birds.” (S – V – No + O)
 Tôi nhìn thấy không một con chim nào.
 Tôi không nhìn thấy con chim nào cả. (C – No + V – B)
c) As we have analyzed Vietnamese negation above, there are many ways to
express rejecting negation such as using various negative words (làm gì có, chẳng
phải, không thể nào….), idioms (“Chừng nào mặt trời mọc đằng tây thì tao mới……”,
“Ở đâu ra mà có….”), etc…. Each way reflects different attitudes of the speaker.
Therefore, in Vietnamese, it seems to be easier for the hearer to understand the
content as well as emotion than in English. Especially, in Vietnamese literature,
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readers don’t find it very difficult to guess the writer’s attitude when negating
somethings through his written words.
Implications
After the above constrastive analysis of negative sentence between
Vietnamese and English, I would like to discuss some implications for teaching
English at high school in our country.
Firstly, many teachers usually pay much attention to affirmative and interrogative
forms and spends less time on negative sentences. What they often do is just
showing students the forms. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, there are many
differences of negation between two languagues which confuse students a lot and
easily lead them to the wrong way of using negative sentences. Besides, most
students tend to transfer their mother tongue into the target language if they don’t
understand clearly. Therefore, after giving them the uses and formations of negative
sentence, teachers should draw students’ attention to differences between two
languages in a suitable way so that students can have a clear distinction between
the English and Vietnamese negative sentence and use them correctly.
Secondly, for students at high levels, teachers should provide them various ways to
negate something, so they can communicate with foreigners more fluently. Then
teachers also help them improve their writing and translating skills to ensure that
they know when to choose the suitable ways to negate not only in speaking but also
in writing. For example, teachers can give them various situations in Vietnamese
A Contrastive Analysis of Negative Sentence in English and Vietnamese
- 25 -
and provide them suitalbe ways to translate into English as well as remind them
some errors they may make during doing tasks.
A Contrastive Analysis of Negative Sentence in English and Vietnamese
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Conclusion
Negative sentences seem to be more complicated than many people thought.
Therefore, I hope that this paper is helpful for both Vietnamese and foreign teachers
when teaching English to Vietnamese students to know more about the similarities
also the differences between the negative sentences in Vietnamese and English so
that they recognise and understand their students’ errors and help students use
negative sentences correctly and smoothly.
A Contrastive Analysis of Negative Sentence in English and Vietnamese
- 27 -
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