¿No necesito dormir o necesito no dormir? Negation in Spanish.
egation in Spanish is primarily formed using the word "no". I say primarily because, as we will see in this article, there are other ways to construct negation in the language. In addition, we will see different constructions in which the word "no" can be placed in different positions in the sentence, changing its meaning.
When we use a single verb, the word no comes before the verb. This is the simplest way to construct a negative sentence in Spanish.
María come pizza. María no come pizza. María eats pizza. María doesn’t eat pizza.
Juan estudia español. Juan no estudia español. Juan studies Spanish. Juan doesn’t study Spanish.
When we use compound tenses, that is, tenses that require an auxiliary verb, the word “no” goes before the auxiliary verb.
He comido pizza. No he comido pizza. I have eaten pizza. I have not eaten pizza.
Hoy he estudiado español. Hoy no he estudiado español. Today I have studied Spanish. Today I have not studied Spanish.
This position remains the same regardless of whether we change the order of the sentence.
María pizza no come.
Español yo no he estudiado hoy.
Verbal periphrases are structures widely used in the Spanish language, in which there are two verbs: an auxiliary verb that is conjugated and a main verb that appears in a non-personal form, namely, in the infinitive, gerund, or participle. In the specific case of infinitive periphrases, although the most common position for “no” is the same as in the previous examples – before the conjugated verb – in this case, it can change, adding a different subjective meaning. Verbal periphrases themselves, which are very frequently used in the language, will be the subject of another article, but let’s look at a couple of examples.
El jugador volvió a jugar después de su lesión: )The player played again after his injury): volvió a jugar is the verbal periphrasis. Volver is the auxiliary verb, it is connected to the main verb jugar by the preposition a, and together, both verbs convey one only message.
El jugador no volvió a jugar después de su lesión. (The player did not play again after his injury). This is the most common position of no in relation to a verbal periphrasis, and it negates the entire periphrasis.
El jugador volvió a no jugar después de su lesión:If we place no before the verb in the infinitive, although the general message remains the same – that the player did not participate in the game – this word order adds a subjective nuance. In this case, it could mean, for example, that the speaker expected the player to participate in this particular game.
In the case of the other types of periphrases mentioned above, this change in the position of no is ungrammatical.
No estoy aprendiendo mucho. I’m not learning much.
Estoy no aprendiendo mucho (ungrammatical).
There are other words in Spanish that introduce negation. When these words come before the conjugated verb, they do not require the word no; in other words, they introduce negation on their own. However, when they are placed after the verb, they require the word no to appear before the verb. This is what is known in Spanish as double negation.
Nadie: Nadie vino. / No vino nadie. Nobody came.
Nada: Nada quiero. / No quiero nada. I don’t want anything.
Nunca/Jamás: Nunca lo vi. / No lo vi nunca. I never saw it.
Ninguno/a: Ningún estudiante aprobó. / No aprobó ningún estudiante. No student passed.
Tampoco: Tampoco yo lo sé. / No lo sé tampoco. I don’t know it either.
Negation and direct and indirect objects.
When, in addition to the verb, we have direct, indirect objects, or both (you can read about these topics here, here, and here), the position of no changes when we place the object pronouns before the verb, because in these cases, no goes before the pronouns.
María plantó un árbol. María no plantó un árbol. María planted a tree. María did not plant a tree.
María lo plantó. María no lo plantó. María planted it. María did not plant it.
Yo le regalé un libro a mi padre. Yo no le regalé un libro a mi padre. I gave my father a book. I did not give my father a book.
Yo se lo regalé. Yo no se lo regalé. I gave it to him/her. I did not give it to him/her.
As we saw in the article about the indirect object in Spanish, redundancy of the indirect object pronoun is very common. For this reason, the pronoun le appears in the previous example, even though we explicitly mentioned the indirect object. Even though the pronoun is redundant, no comes before it.
Negative imperative.
The imperative is a verb mood used to give orders, advice, and even to make requests. The verb is conjugated in the imperative mood, and in the case of the negative imperative, this conjugation coincides in Spanish with the present subjunctive.
Ordena tu habitación. No ordenes tu habitación. Tidy up your room. Do not tidy up your room.
Pon la mesa, por favor. No pongas la mesa, por favor. Lay the table, please. Do not lay the table, please.
Do you notice the difference in verb conjugation? The subjunctive mood can be a headache for those learning Spanish. In fact, many times, those learning the language omit using the subjunctive, and the message, although ungrammatical, is understood, as no other message is being conveyed by that ungrammaticality. For example, if someone says “necesito que vienes” instead of “necesito que vengas”, the message will likely be understood, as “necesito que vienes” is an incorrect construction, and the closest one is “necesito que vengas“. However, in the case of the negative imperative, omitting the use of the subjunctive can lead to misinterpretations, as if we say “no ordenas tu habitación“, we are making an assertion using a grammatically correct structure.
I think this is enough information for this article. Thank you for reading, I hope these lines have been helpful, and as always, if you have any doubts or questions, I’ll read them in the comments or, if you prefer, you can write to me. Here are excercises to practise this topic.
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