© 2007 The Author Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Language and Linguistics Compass 1/5 (2007): 498–518, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2007.00027.x Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK LNCO Language and Linguistic Compass 1749-818x © 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 027 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2007.00027.x August 2007 0 498??? 518??? Original Articles Negation in Natural Language Hedde Zeijlstra Negation in Natural Language: On the Form and Meaning of Negative Elements Hedde Zeijlstra* University of Amsterdam Abstract A universal property of natural language is that every language is able to express negation. Every language has some device at its disposal to reverse the truth value of a certain sentence. However, languages may differ to quite a large extent as to how they express this negation. Not only do languages vary with respect to the position of negative elements, also the form of negative elements and the interpretation of sentences that consist of multiple negative elements are subject to broad cross-linguistic variation. The study to the behaviour of sentential negation has therefore strongly been guided by the question as to what determines the possible ways that sentential negation can manifest itself. A conclusion of the article will be that the behaviour of negation in natural language strongly deviates from what intuitively might be expected. 1. Introduction A universal property of natural language is that every language is able to express negation. Every language has some device at its disposal to reverse the truth value of affirmative sentences. However, languages may differ to quite a large extent as to how they express this negation. Not only do languages vary with respect to the position of negative elements, the form of negative elements and the interpretation of sentences that consist of multiple negative elements are also subject to broad cross-linguistic variation. The study of the behaviour of sentential negation has therefore strongly been guided by the question as to what determines the possible ways that sentential negation can manifest itself. In this article, I discuss some classical and recent approaches that have tried to answer this question by explaining one or more of the above-mentioned phenomena. In the second section, I provide an overview of different ways that languages express sentential negation. Furthermore, I address the question why the base position of negative markers is not the sentence-initial position. The third section will