Филологические науки, № 3

Anna Fediuk

Bukovyna State Finance Academy

NEGATION IN LANGUAGE COMPETENCE : DEFINITIONS OF THE NEGATION IN LINGUISTICS , PHYLOSOPHY AND LOGICS

From the point of view of simple statements negation is involved in selecting certain forms of categorical statements such as general negative and particular negative as opposed to general affirmative and particular affirmative respectively. In complex statements negation is used, or may be used in the function "it is not true that" applied to the statement.

And what the category of negation is? In order to answer this question we must clear up the meaning of the notion "category".

The category is defined as "the utmost wide notion in which the most general and fundamental properties, features, connections and relationships of subjects, phenomena of objective world are reflected" [1, p. 240]. So, the category of negation reflects the relationships of subjects of objective world namely the process of denial of some statements. There exists a simple relationship between any statement and the negation of this statement: if one is true, the other is false, if one is false, the other is true. In other words, any statement in the objective world has its opposite (or contradictory) value.

Many scientists made attempts to understand the nature of linguistic negation. It originated from a desperate endeavor to give a coherent account of multiple negative phrases encountered in different periods of the history of English.

The most critical and at the same time the most comprehensive account of negation of English is given by Stockwell Schachter and Partee (1973).

However, penetrating the insights into the nature of negation, however rich the number in controversial points, however subtle the handling of some sophisticated examples - the report-study shows that "no basic alternatives thus far proposed seem capable of accounting for such a wide grange of facts. Klima's article of negation (1964) stands as one of the major works in the field of transformational studies of English, one of the major treaties of negation within any framework" [7, p. 231].

It'd be unfair to say that nothing further has been done in this field, but it seems that no matter what elegant nice and intuitively motivated, Post-Aspects grammars are not the final word in the theory of language. More and more new grammars appear one after another, each focusing on a particular aspect and building a theory around it, e.g. case grammar (Fillmore), feature grammar (Jacobs and Rosenbaum), systemic grammar (Hudson). It is obvious that each proposal will tackle the problem of negation in particular way. For instance, Chafe considers negation against the assignment of new and old information. According to him, out of two inflectional units, i.e. negative and affirmative, one "perhaps may best be regarded as the antonym of the other" [2, p. 229].

In the interpretation suggested by Chafe, the distribution of new and old is heavily dependent upon the pitch. Non-initial negatives and double negatives have been given thorough treatment by Postal [6, p. 95-98], where a number of points are raised, discussed and argued about.

V.V. Mykchaylenko writes that "in language competence there are three models of describing "not" in Modem English - functional as a negation marker, distributional as a constituent of the phrase and the sentence, and communicative as a marker of intentions: negation, denial, refusal, prohibition" [5, p. 184].

Thus, we can assume that negation has many markers with one dominant negative marker "not". This negation marker can be a constituent of various paradigms and its form is very changeable: it can be full (is not, have not, will not) or contracted (isn't, haven't won't).

As for the negation paradigm we must say that it underwent some essential changes. But let us see everything step by step, starting with the definition of paradigm.

Paradigm is a complex of word's forms of existing lexico-grammatical classes which are characterized as certain types of paradigms. Only those grammatical meanings that find their expression in paradigm can be considered as appurtenance of the morphology of given language.

The scientists until now haven't come to the one opinion concerning the grammatical form of the negation. The structuralists satisfy themselves, which is not surprising, with describing the form of the negative status: it is marked by the insertion of the special function word "not" which has various allomorphs such as (nat, nt, n ) immediately after the first auxiliary" [4, p. 337].

The earliest model of transformational grammar originating from syntactic structures (1957) works on the assumption that "every sentence of the language will either belong to the kernel or will be derived from the strings underlying one or more kernel sentences by a sequence of one or more transformations" [4, p. 45] every kernel being " a simple declarative, active sentence with no complex verb or noun phrases" [4, p. 107]. For Chomsky, "the simplest way to describe negation is by means of a transformation which introduces not or n't..." [4, p. 61].

The scope of negation, its formal aspects and grammatical consequences have been the main concern of Klima's research whose results appeared in a long article "Negation in English" (1964). Klima’s study substantially contributed to the reformulation and modification of the concept of the transformation of negation.

In the course of several years' work on particular aspects of generative grammar a number of theoretically important points emerged. They all have found their full consideration in "Aspects of Theory of Syntax" (1965), written by Noam Chomsky which marks a new period in the history of transformation in grammar. It was agreed that transformations must be meaning preserving, cannot delete elements unrecoverably, some ordering of transformations should be observed. Most of the singularly transformations postulated previously as optional "must be reformulated as obligatory transformations whose applicability to a string is determined by presence or absence of a certain marker in the string" [3, p. 132].

"The category of negation finds its philosophical definition in the law of negation of negation. This law reflects the objective interconnection between what is negated and what negates. This process takes place objectively as dialectical negation of the elements of old and affirmation of the elements of new. It means that in all new manifestations of the old exist, but in the transformed form".

"Contradiction is the basis of dialectical negation. This is the unity of contradictory elements, the connection of the old and the new, the rejection of the forms with the keeping of the elements necessary for the development of the latter".

Negation in the dialectical sense of this word is not just saying "no" or claiming the object non-existent or destroying it in any possible way. The way of dialectical negation should provide a possibility for a further development, for the interconnection of old and new.

There are some peculiarities about this type of negation, first of all the essence of the process. It is necessary not only to negate something but to find ways to reject this negation, that means that the first negation should leave some place for the second negation.

Consequently there exists a special way of negation for each object, each notion and each image that gives the possibility to develop. This type of negation is called the dialectical negation.

The history of humankind is a vivid example of dialectical negation. Limitation, perfection, criticism, social revolution are the basic forms of the dialectical negation.

There are some common features of negation in philosophy and logics. The category of negation in logics is manifested in the law of contradiction. This law states that two contradictory statements can not be true, at least one of them is false. The law of contradiction doesn't deal with the problem of which of the two statements is false. This problem is solved in actual practice. The law states that only that in two statements one of which negates the other one, one is obligatory false.

Whether the other statement is true or false is not stated in the law. It can be either false or true.

"So, the truth of one of the contradictory statements enables us to recognize the other one is false, because they can not be both true at one and the same time, and in one and the same space. But the recognition of one of the contradictory statements to be false doesn't obligatory mean that the other one is true".

The law of contradiction as any other law of formal logics can be applied only to statements that deal with one and the same object, one and the same time and space. In case the statements deal with different objects or different features of one and the same object those statements are not contradictory and consequently the law of contradiction can not be applied to them.

The law of contradiction reflects the quantitative definiteness of objects, it states the fact that if an object possesses a quality; this very object is not unable to possess it.

It cannot happen in actual reality that an object can at the same time possess or not possess any quality. That is why if the definition of any quality is correct, the negation of this quality cannot be correct at the same time by any means.

These common features of the category of negation in philosophy and logics clarify the semantics of negation on the one hand, but on the other hand, they make it more entangled and necessitate the research of this category.

Literature :

1. Когуаков Н.И. Логический словарь. - М.: Наука, 1975. - 240 с.

2. Chafe, Wollace L. Meaning and the Structure of Language//Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970. - Pp.229-230.

3. Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax // Cambridge: Jacobs, Rroderick M.I.T., 1965. - Pp.68-74.

4. Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures - The Hague: Mouton, 1957-Pp.39- 107.

5. Mykhaylenko V.V. Models of "not". Description in Diachrony//
Hayк. Bicник ЧДУ.Герм.Філологія.Вип. 60. - Чернівці: Рута, 1999. - С. 183.

6. Postal, Paul M. On Raising: One Rule of English Grammar and its Theoretical Implications. - Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T., 1974. – 294p.

7. Stockwell, Robert P. and Macavlay, Ronald K. Linguistic Change and Generative Theory. - Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1972. - 248p.

Федюк Анна Миколаївна, викладач кафедри філологічних дисциплін

Місце роботи : Буковинська державна фінансова академія

Місце проживання : м. Чернівці, вул. О.Кобилянської, буд. 35, кв. 4

Моб. 8 ( 097) 758 55 68

E-mail: fedjuk.anna@mail.ru