I’ve had an interesting correspondence with a reader who identified an implied negative which is rarely explored in grammar guides – where a negative sentence is created without any explicitly negative words.

These can be more difficult to spot than regular negatives, which are signalled by not or never, and require an awareness of  specific words and their nuances. I’ve laid out this article to address different ways to use broad and implied negative sentences, along with an introduction to general negatives.

Regular Negatives

Before getting into broad and implied negatives, it’s worth revising what regular negatives look like in English. If you’re already very familiar with these, you can skip this section.

The typical way we form negatives in English is to add not after the first verb in a verb phrase; either the main verb or an auxiliary.

• I am going to the party. -> I am not going to the party.
• She has eaten all the cake. -> She has not eaten all the cake.

This basic rule applies to most sentences types, with or without contractions, except with questions without contractions, where the subject comes between the verb and not.

• Did you not want milk in your tea? (But: Didn’t you want milk in your tea?)

It’s also possible to form negatives with never, which comes before the main verb (or after an auxiliary verb, depending on regional variations).

• Frank never washes his car.
• The school had never been closed for summer. / The school never had been closed for summer.

Negatives can also be demonstrated with noun phrases, where we use no, nothing and none of to create a negative noun, instead of changing the verb. The purpose is to show the noun is absent, rather than that a verb is incomplete or untrue, though in some cases this will have almost the same effect.

• We saw no cats in the garden.
• No one locked the door.
• There is nothing in the cellar.
• You answered none of the questions correctly.

We can also use neither / nor to show a negative meaning with two different nouns.

• Neither Peter nor Paul came to the meeting.

Finally, we can form negative ideas with negative adverb phrases, which usually relate more to objects and complements than the subject and verb, or adjectives which indicate negative attitudes or when something is not possible.

• They went on holiday without her.
• The exam was impossible to complete in time.
• That man is unkind.

Broad or Semi-Negatives

The negatives above are made clear by words with specifically negative meanings. However, we can also have broad negatives, also called near negatives or semi-negatives, which are not technically negative, but create something close to a negative meaning. These are usually created with adverbs such as barely, rarely, scarcely, hardly and seldom, or with quantifier like little and few.

These have more nuanced meanings than regular negatives, as they may concern something that is done, possible or present, but emphasise it is unlikely, uncommon or inadequate. The end result is that the sentence is negative in weight.

• He hardly ever washes his car. = Almost never.
• She rarely goes to the opera. = She mostly does not.
• There are very few chocolates left in the box. = Almost none.

Note, as in these examples, a stronger negative can be created with modifiers like ever and very.

In some cases, broad negatives may be used to create a negative meaning without wanting to be direct, particularly in formal language. There is nuance to this, but it’s worth being aware that in general such phrasing demonstrate a negative perspective.

• They could hardly be expected to complete the work by Friday. = They did not believe they should be expected to do it / did not consider it possible.
• Is Lucy coming? She rarely makes it to our meeting. = We do not expect her to come / it would be surprising if she came.

Watch out, too, with broad negative quantifiers, as these are quite similar to their positive counterparts: a little or a few are positive, while little or few are negative.

• I would like a little more salt. = positive
• There is little salt left. = negative

I’ve covered this topic in more detail in the article on few vs a few.

Broad Negatives and Inversion

As with some regular negatives, broad negatives can be used to invert sentences, where we switch the position of the subject with the negative. (As such, this only applies to negative words and phrases that do not already refer to the subject.)

• I have never seen so many people on the pier. -> Never have I seen so many people on the pier.
• The girl had scarcely touched the bed when she fell asleep. -> Scarcely had the girl touched the bed when she fell asleep.

This inversion sounds formal, and is more common in formal writing than in spoken English (and even then, you may find it’s rarer in more modern usage).

Implied Negatives

It is also possible in English to have sentences that imply a negative meaning without explicitly negative or broad negative words. One way to do this may be through employing sarcasm, where we present a positive statement but context or tone make its opposite meaning/intention clear.

• You know I hate Bob. Certainly, invite him to dinner. = Really, do not invite him.

Sarcasm often uses more exaggerated positives, so even without other context very extreme positives may be an indicator of a negative intentions.

• “Oh yes, I’d absolutely love peas for dinner – that would be so amazing, I’ve dreamed of having peas for dinner all my life.”

Though this still depends on tone of voice or our understanding of the speaker; it may merely be an extreme positive position!

Implied negatives are also possible in certain specific grammatical structures and idiomatic phrases. My reader identified one particular construction that is quite common: where we use the present perfect tense to be with the adverb since to signal that something has not been done:

• It has been two years since I visited Bristol. = I have not visited Bristol for two years.

Since is usually used with the perfect tenses to mean something has been true from one time to another, usually until the present, e.g. I have lived here since 1995. However, when this meaning of since is combined with a verb, the completion of that verb indicates the start of the time period. Therefore the verb could not be complete/true again (or ongoing) since that time.

• It has been two years since I visited Bristol. = I have not visited Bristol since two years ago.

This is a very specific example of how negatives can be implied in idiomatic ways in English; there are likely more that I’d be happy to add or explore if you wish to share thoughts in the comments below.

Double Negatives

In English, if you combine negatives we get double negatives, where two negatives can create a positive meaning:

• I didn’t do nothing. -> I did something.
• No one didn’t see it. -> Everyone saw it.

This isn’t strictly recognised, as some speakers employ double negatives for emphasis, but grammatically speaking when negatives are combined, each additional negative reverses the meaning.

The same applies to broad negatives: it would be unnatural to use them with negative pronouns, for example.

• Hardly anyone came to the party. NOT Hardly no one came to the party.

Likewise, the present perfect + since + action implied negative would create a double negative with negative pronouns, so can be seen to perform grammatically like a broad negative.

• It’s been a month since anyone washed the dishes. NOT It’s been a month since no one washed the dishes.

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