The Classification of Words

§412. As already noted (§393), thenegativeword-morp^me not (n't) expresses full negation, as distinct from the partial negation of such negative words as not, no, never, nothing, etc. In most cases full negation excludes the necessity of partial negation in English, and vice versa. Hence the well-known assertion: "In English two negatives in the same construction are not used as in Russian: He does not come so

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¹ See, for instance, «Новое в лингвистике», выпуск III, М., 1963, 539.

early, or: He never comes so early. Compare with the Russian:
Он никогда не приходит так рано." '
The difficulty is only in defining what is meant by "the same construction". It is not a sentence, because there can be two (or more) negatives in a composite sentence.
E. g. / с a n' t understand why he d i d n' t come yesterday.
It isn't even a simple sentence, for there may be a negative word attached to some verbid in the sentence, besides the negation connected with the predicate verb.
E. g. Would it not be better not to tell your father? (London) ².
The corresponding rule can, probably, be worded thus: In English two negatives are not used in the same verbal con­struction. A verbal construction is a verb with all the 'non-verbs' attached.
§ 413. Not every sentence containing a negation is the syntactical opposite of an affirmative sentence. There was nobody in the room is not the opposite of There was somebody in the room. Here the difference is in the lexical meaning of somebody and nobody. Similarly in There is a book on the table, and There is no book on the table the difference is lexical (no versus a). Only a sentence containing the predicate negation, the syntactical word-morpheme not (n't), can be the 'negative' member of an 'information' opposeme, because (like any grammatical word-morpheme) not (n't) adds no lexical meaning.
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§414. With regard to the'category of information English sentences divide into those that have opposites of the category and those which have not. Since 'negative information' is expressed in English only by means of the predicate negation, all the sentences that have no predicates are outside the cate­gory. Rain. No rain, are not members of a syntactical opposeme. They only resemble the corresponding members and may be
¹ M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya, op. cit., p. 266.
² Л. С. Бархударов, Д. А. Штелинг, op. cit., p.284.
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said to possess lexico-grammatical.meanings of 'affirmative' and 'negative' information. In exclamatory sentences the category of information is mostly neutralized. The member of neutralization usually resembles that of 'affirmation'. What a lovely day! But often it takes the form of the member of 'negation'. Isn't it marvellous!