Double and Multiple Negation in English and Romanian. A Contrastive Approach

Abstract

The status of double and multiple negation in English has long been debated on the argument that it is simply incorrect to have more than one negative element in a Standard English sentence. In nonstandard English sentences such as ‘I don’t have no money’, double negation is frequently used. It has a long history in the spoken language. Crystal (1988) and Pinker (1994) point out that it was common in Middle English and had the effect of making negation more emphatic. Our paper aims at presenting double and multiple negation in contemporary Standard English and Romanian.