Negative statements

By David Wood | September 16, 2016

negative statements are made using no, not,n’t, usually with auxiliaries, sometimes not (imperatives and ‘to be’)

Try out the quiz to see if you are clear on these sentence types.

  • choose the sentence that is not correct

 

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1. [Multiple choice]

Negative statements

(‘any’ is usually used to describe a ‘lack’ of something e.g. there isn’t any food left – this is a description)

Answers for Quiz [1].

  • 1. He’s no fool
  • 2. He’s not a fool
  • 3. He’s not any fool (correct)

2. [Multiple choice]

Negative statements

(the auxiliary verb for present simple tense is ‘do’)

Answers for Quiz [2].

  • 1. There don’t seem to be any seats free
  • 2. There isn’t seem to be any seats free (correct)
  • 3. There seems not to be any seats free

3. [Multiple choice]

Negative statements

(we don’t use ‘no’ with a verb to make negatives (although you will hear this in Scotland – a ‘dialect’ form))

Answers for Quiz [3].

  • 1. He isn’t here
  • 2. He’s not here
  • 3. He’s no here (correct)

4. [Multiple choice]

Negative statements

(this is a ‘double negative’ – didn’t and nothing, which make the sentence, on inspection, a positive – they didn’t see nothing therefore it follows that they must have seen something!
This is not a standard English sentence.)

Answers for Quiz [4].

  • 1. They didn’t see nothing (correct)
  • 2. They saw nothing
  • 3. They didn’t see anything

5. [Multiple choice]

Negative statements

(‘hardly’ is a negative word so we use a positive verb. The first 2 sentences are different in meaning though both possible sentences. ‘hardly ever’ = doesn’t often, hardly = little i.e. he only eats a little food.)

Answers for Quiz [5].

  • 1. Mr Peabody hardly ever eats at lunch time
  • 2. Mr Peabody hardly eats at lunch time
  • 3. Mr Peabody doesn’t hardly eat at lunch time (correct)

6. [Multiple choice]

Negative statements

(negative questions can be answered with yes or no but ‘yes’ would use a ‘positive’ verb (‘no’ a ‘negative’))

Answers for Quiz [6].

  • 1. Haven’t you finished the report yet? Yes, I haven’t (correct)
  • 2. Haven’t you finished the report yet? Yes, I have
  • 3. Haven’t you finished the report yet? No, I haven’t

7. [Multiple choice]

Negative statements

(‘rarely’ and ‘seldom’ behave like ‘hardly’ and are negative, so we don’t require a negative verb)

Answers for Quiz [7].

  • 1. Redundancies in this industry rarely happen, do they?
  • 2. Redundancies in this industry don’t rarely happen, do they? (correct)
  • 3. Redundancies in this industry seldom happen, do they?

8. [Multiple choice]

Negative statements

(this is another ‘double negative’ which we rarely use in English)

Answers for Quiz [8].

  • 1. I don’t know nothing about that (correct)
  • 2. I know nothing about that
  • 3. I don’t know anything about that
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